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COMMENTARY
ON THE
HOLY SCRIPTURES:
CRITICAL DOCTRINAL AND HOMILETICAL,
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MINISTERS AND STUDENTS.
BY
JOHN PETER LANGE, D.D.,
IN CONNECTION' WITH A NUMBER OP EMINENT EUROPEAN DIVINES.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, AND EDITED, WITH ADDITIONS.
ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
BY
PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D.,
IN CONNECTION WITH AMERICAN SCHOLARS OP VARIOUS EVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS.
VOL. VII. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT:
CONTAINING CHEONICLES, EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
743-745 BEOADWAT.
or
THE BOOKS
OF THE
CHRONICLES.
THEOLOGICALLY AND HOMILETICALLY EXPOUNDED
DR. OTTO ZOCKLER, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GREIFSWALD, PRUSSIA.
TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED
BY
JAMES G. MURPHY, LL.D.,
PROFESSOR IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY'S AND THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE AT BELFAST.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SGEIBNEE'S SONS,
743-745 BROADWAY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
SCKIBNEE, AEMSTEONG & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
PREFACE TO VOL. VII. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
This volume completes the Commentary on the Historical Books of the Old Testament,
written during the period of the reconstruction of the theocracy after the return from ex-
ile. It contains:
1. The First and Second Book of Chronicles, by Dr. Otto Zockler, Professor in
the Prussian University of Greifswald (1874), translated and edited by Professor James G.
Murphy, LL.D., of Belfast, who is already well known to the American public by his Com-
mentaries on Genesis, Exodus, and the Psalms. Professor Murphy has departed from the
method of the other volumes by giving a literal translation of the text instead of the autho-
rized version with emendations in brackets.
2. Ezra, by Dr. Fr. U. Schttltz, Professor in the University of Breslau (1876), trans-
lated and edited by Dr. Charles A. Briggs, Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Lan-
guages in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, who prepared in part the Commentary
on the Psalms for this work.
3. Nehemiah, by Dr. Howard Crosby, Chancellor of the University of New York.
Dr. Crosby had finished his work in manuscript before the German Commentary of Dr. Schultz
appeared (1876), but he has added a translation of the Homiletical sections from Schultz.
4. Esther, by Dr. Schultz, translated and edited by Dr. James Strong, Professor of
Exegetical Theology in Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. Dr. Strong has
translated the frequent Latin citations, added the Textual and Grammatical notes, enlarged
the list of exegetical helps, and furnished an excursus on the Apocryphal additions to Es-
ther, and another on the liturgical use of the book among the Jews.
The remaining three of the twenty-four volumes of this Commentary are in the hands
of the printer, and will be published at short intervals.
PHILIP SCHAFF.
Braii! Hocse, Niw York, December, 1876.
PREFACE.
The matter and the whole form of the books of Chronicles afford a sufficient warrant for
allowing the homiletio and even the theological part of the exposition to fall more into tlu
background here than elsewhere in this Bible-work. In the following work also, on account
of the numerous parallels with the books of Samuel and Kings, an almost exclusive pre-
dominance of the historical element might easily be permitted. For with regard to theological
and homiletic comment, the corresponding portions of these books have already received a
fruitful and valuable treatment in the able works of Biihr and Erdmann, so that reference to
them might in every instance have been sufficient. And where anything peculiar to Chronicles
was to be explained, it almost always referred to portions like the genealogical lists in 1 Chron.
ii.-ix., the various supplements to the history of war, and the highly characteristic episodes on
the history of worship, which belonged rather to the outer surface, the rind and shell of the
theocratic and evangelical system, than to its spiritual ground and essence, and therefore
needed rather to be explained historically, than to be considered or applied dogmatically or
practically. The homiletic remarks might, therefore, in this volume be omitted as a distinct
section, and a group of sections might be thrown together as a basis for the development of
theological or evangelical and ethical principles. But besides, it appeared necessary in
Chronicles to dwell more frequently on difficulties of a chronological kind, and on apologetic
problems connected therewith, on account of which it was requisite, besides and along with
those evangelical reflections, to introduce several excursus, some of considerable length, aa
that on Ophir after 2 Chron. viii., and that on the chronology of the kings during the time of
the separate kingdom after 2 Chron. xxxii.
Of recent literary helps, some that appeared in the course of printing could not be fully
employed ; for example, the second edition of the commentary of Thenius on the books of
Kings (in the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches HandhucJi zum Alien Testament, Leipzig, S. Hirzel),
and the treatise of H. Brande, Die Konigsreihen von Juda und Israel nach den biblischen Berichten
und den Keilinschriften (Leipzig, Al. Edelmann), — a praiseworthy attempt to remove the chrono-
logical differences between the statements of the books of Kings and Chronicles on the one
hand, and those of the Assyrian monuments on the other, in which some at least of the dis-
crepancies between the biblical and Assyro-Babylonian computation of time brought forward
by Assyriologists, especially by Schrader, have met with an interesting, if not quite satisfactory
explanation. And of the simultaneously -appearing third revised edition of C. F. Keil's
Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die kanonischen Schriften des Alien Testaments,
(Frankfurt a. M., Heyder und Zimmer) obviously no use could be made.
With regard to the question, How the very numerous proper names, especially of persons,
in the text of Chronicles were to be treated in their transference into German, the author was
presented with a problem not quite easy to solve. Perfect consistency could only be attained
either by a close adherence to the text of Luther, or by the thorough restoration of a spelling
adapted as strictly as possible to the Hebrew sound ; in which latter case, however, names
such as Jehova, and the household words Noah, Isaak, Israel, Saul, Salomo, Hiskia. etc., must
A
PREFACE.
have given way to the more correct forms Jahve, Noach, Jitschak, Jisrael, Schaul, Schelomo,
Jechizkijahu. As this would not have corresponded with the rule elsewhere adopted in our
Bible-work, we have taken a middle course. All the well-known current forms of the
Lutheran Bible that have been as it were canonized by a usage of several centuries in the
tradition of evangelical Germany, especially the divine name Jehova and all names of pro-
minent men of God (patriarchs, prophets, kings, etc.), and of important holy places, we have
left wholly unaltered, only with the addition, "nee for all, of the more exact orthography ia
parentheses (usually on the first occurrence of the name in question). All less current names,
because they belong to less important persons and places, and especially if they occur only
once, are immediately and directly expressed in the way more agreeable to the Hebrew sounds ;
and only when there is a very great deviation from the received orthography in the Lutheran
text is this difference noted by the insertion of a parenthesis. For this intermediate course
between the customary and the modern mode of writing, we are glad to be able to refer among
others to the late Oehler as warrant, who, in p. 146 of the lately published first part of his
posthumous Theologie des Alten Testaments (Tubingen, Heckenhauer), expresses his agreement
in principle with the rule here laid down, when he declares that such forms as Jehova,
Jordan, etc., are less correct than "Jahve, Jarden,'' etc., yet not to be supplanted by these
more correct forms, and proceeds accordingly throughout the text of his work.
DR. 0. ZOCKLER.
GBEirsWALD, October 1873.
^Translating into English, we shall use the English mode of spelling the ordinary names.
J. G. M.]
THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. ON THE IMPORT OF CHRONICLES AS A HISTORICAL WORK, AND ON ITS RELATION TO THE
BOOKS OF SAMUEL AND KINGS.
The last book of the Old Testament canon forms a comprehensive history, which recapitulates
the progress of the people of God from Paradise to the close of the Babylonish captivity in
a peculiar point of view, partly extracting, partly repeating, and partly supplementing the
contents of the earlier canonical books of history, with the exception of the books of Ezra
Nehemiah, and Esther, which are later in point of contents than our book.
1. The first or genealogical portion of the work especially extracts or summarily recapitulates
the earlier historical books. It embraces the first nine chapters, according to the present
division, and contains the genealogies of the patriarchs, the twelve tribes, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, till the beginning of the kingdom (occasionally even beyond it), in order to
exhibit the genealogical connection of David, as well as the Levites and priests of his time,
with the antediluvian patriarchs of the human race. Only here and there, particularly with
respect to the statements concerning the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Levi, this form is
changed into that of a completion or enlargement of the former record by peculiar genealogical
or historical additions. As a mere repetition of the statements contained in the earlier books,
appear several genealogical notices of the first chapter ; for example, those relating to the
races of the table of nations and the princes of Edom (Gen. x. 36).
2. The second or strictly historical portion of the work partly repeats and partly completes,
sometimes with a great fulness of details, the historical books after Moses and Joshua, espe-
cially the books of Samuel and Kings. It extends from 1 Chron. x. to the end of 2 Chron., and
mainly presents a history of the kings of Judah from David to Zedekiah, or rather to the edict
of Cyrus at the close of the Babylonish captivity. A process of abbreviating, of only sum-
marily recapitulating, and even of wholly passing over a great deJ of historical material, now
takes place, inasmuch as the writer ignores the facts relating to the private, life of David and
Solomon, especially when they are unfavourable to their moral character, and in the time
after Solomon intentionally turns away his eye from the fortunes of the northern kingdom,
and confines himself almost exclusively to the Jewish history of this period. Yet for the
whole time from David to the exile he appears more as a supplementer than as a concise
repeater of the authors of the books of Samuel and Kings, inasmuch as the intrinsic importance
of the addition made by him almost always exceeds that of the passages omitted, and both
the omission and the addition appear to have in view certain fixed tendencies, especially the
endeavour to glorify the theocratic order of the priests and Levites. If we take into account
this particular tendency, as well as the altered circumstances in which he wrote, we arrive at
the following points as characteristic of his work, compared with his older predecessors,
especially the authors of the books of Samuel and Kings.
a. The books of Samuel and Kings having originated (been reduced to their present form)
during the Babylonish exile, are a proper Israelitish national work, treating the history of both
kingdoms, Israel and Judah, with equal attention. On the contrary, the Chronist appears as
a specially Jewish (Judaising) writer, who belonged to the time after the exile, possibly even
of the post-Persian dominion (Hellenic), and from his late age lay too remote from the events
of the once existing kingdom of Israel ; and, moreover, from his rigid theocratic position, took
THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
bo little interest in the fortunes of the northern kingdom, that he excluded them altogether
from his regard, and produced merely a Jewish chronicle.
b. The standpoint of those older Israelitish national historians is that of the prophet, while
the younger Jewish Chronist occupies that of the priest and the Levite. Whereas the former,
in accordance with the total depression, the apparently almost hopeless destruction, of the
Mosaic temple worship in the exile, take a predominantly spiritual direction, averse to the
external side of the theocratic worship, the latter, writing after the exile, at the time of
the restored national sanctuary, exhibits a more lively interest in the external institutions and
modes of worship, as well as in the order of priests and Levites appointed to take charge of it.
Fron. this sacerdotal ecclesiastical direction there follows a third important point of difference.
c. The moral causes of the national misfortune that broke in upon the people, especially
their constantly-repeated lapse into idolatry, with which those older historians were most
anxiously engaged, are cast into the shade, and often studiously ignored, by the Chronist, so
that in the picture presented by him there appears a much smaller number of the gloomy
shadows and dark spots of religious apostasy, and consequent national humiliation by heavy
divine judgments. While the former obviously follow the tendency "to hold up to them
a warning picture, in the tragic history of the Hebrew nation, of the danger of the relapse of
a not yet elevate 1 people among heathen nations, and in the narrative of the successive sins
of their fathers to give a theodicy to the race already bewildered with respect to the promises
and the faithfulness of Jehovah, and show them that their national misfortunes are to be
ascribed to their own guilt; on the other hand, for the author of Chronicles, who lived after
the exile, from which time the people, purified by affliction, adhered with stern obstinacy to
their national God, aud who no longer distinguishes accurately between the different kinds of
ancient superstition (appears indeed to identify the impure Jehovah-worship of the northern
kingdom with complete idolatry), accounts of the earlier superstition must have been of less
consequence, because they presented to him less didactic matter and historical interest than to
the authors of the older historical work " (Movers).
d. With this is connected the tone of panegyric usual with our author, frequently deviating
from the unvarnished manner of the older historians, his apologetic endeavour to make the
heroes of the foretime and their deeds to stand forth in the most glorious light, by giving pro-
minence to the more externally than internally significant and ethically important moments,
and especially by statistical data concerning the greatness of the temporal and spiritual state
of the kings, the magnitude of the festivals celebrated by them, etc.
e. Finally, with regard to the outward form of representation, the younger work contrasts
very strongly with the older. As well by its less pure Hebrew style, presenting so many
traces of a late age, as by its often striking monotony, want of independence and poverty of
ideas, its dry annalistic method of statement continued through long sections, and its inclination
to direct copying and mere transcribing of the old books of Kings, it falls very far behind the
classical originality, the fresh and genial historiographic skill of the other.
To bring these differences between the literary peculiarity of the two parallel elaborations
of the history of the people of God till the exile under a single formula, we may with Keil
distinguish the older books of Kings as the fruit of the prophetic form of history, and Chronicles
as the product of the hagiographic mode. Our work, indeed, belongs more closely to that
special development of hagiographic historiography, which, in contrast with the popular
method of the books of Ruth and Esther (and with the prophetic mode of the historic sections
of Daniel), may be termed the sacerdoto-Levitical, and in which the preference for annalistic
statement (appearmg also in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the continuations of Chronicles)
must be accounted eminently characteristic. Keil1 justly denies that any one of these special
moments, whether popularity, the sacerdoto-Levitical, or the annalistic character, should be
applied to the collective historical works of the hagiographic part of the canon. " Common to
the collective hagiographic books of history, and characteristic of them, is simply the retreat
or the absence of the prophetic view of the course of history according to the divine plan of
salvation unfolding itself in the events, instead of which appear individual points of view that
show themselves m the prosecution of parenetic, didactic ends, and have a definite influence
on the selection and treatment of the facts."
1 Bibl. Comment, on Chron., Etr,, Nah., and Esth., Introd. p. viii
INTRODUCTION.
§ 2. NAME OF CHRONICLES. RELATION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
Of the two most widely accepted designations of our historical work, the one pointing to
its annalistic character, the other to the relation of supplement or completion which it bears
to the older books of Kings, the former rests on the Hebrew phrase D'D'H '•"Dl. This phrase,
before which, according to 1 Kings xiv. 19, 29, xv. 7, 23, .the word isd (or, according to Esth.
vi. 1, nijhs? IDd) is to be supplied, means " events of the day, course of events'' (res gestse
dierum), and thus presents our work as a " Book of current events," as a " Chronicle :" which
name, not as a literal, but a correct rendering of D(Dsn "Hal, has been made current by Jerome
for the Latin, and by Luther for the German Church.1 So far as this denomination in the
quoted passages of the Old Testament refers to divers other historical works, in particular to
those old Israelitish royal annals often quoted by our Chronist, the " books of the Chronicles
of the Kings of Israel and Judah" (as in Esth. ii. 23, vi. 1, x. 2, the Medo-Persian royal annals,
the "book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia"), it appears to be a rather
indefinite designation, by which our work should be distinguished quite generally as belonging
to the class of annalistic works covering a long space of time. Whether this name proceeds
from the author himself, or owes its origin to a later (certainly very old, and at all events
pre-Masoretic) tradition, at any rate, the denomination brought into currency by the Sept.
HxpxTienroftsi/x (liber Paralipomenon) is more significant for the characteristic position and
import of the work as a historical book, especially for its relation to the earlier historical
books of the canon. For this name, which is to be explained, not with Movers, by supple-
menta, relics from other historical works, but, in accordance with the patristic tradition in
Pseudo-Athanasius (Synopsis Scr. S., in Athanasii Opp. ii. p. 83 : ■xapu'htiCpQivTct. ■xo'h'hx h rxi;
fixtrihitxic •jrspi£%tTxi ta rovroii), in Jerome (Ep. ad Paulin: . . . " prsetermissse in Begum
libris historias"2) and Isidore of Seville (Origen, lib. vi. c. 1, p. 45: "Paralipomenon
grsece dicitur, quod prsetermissorum vel reliquorum nos dicere possumus," etc.), by " omitted,
overlooked in the other historical works," sets forth in a striking manner the position taken
by our author as the supplementer of the prophetical historians, and has therefore the advantage
over the Hebrew denomination of greater definiteness, although it appears neither quite free
from misapprehension nor adapted to the collective characteristics of our history.
Our work, moreover, forms, according to its original plan, as well as the oldest tradition,
only one "book of annals" or supplemeuts, for not only the old numeration of the books of
the Old Testament in Josephus (c. Ap. i. 8), Origen (in Euseb. H. Eccl. vi. 25), and Jerome
(Prolog, galeat.), according to which the canon consists of twenty-two books, but also the
later computation made by Jerome and in the Talmud (Baba bathra, fol. 14), extending to
twenty-four books, recognises only one book of Chronicles ; and that the Masora regarded it
as a single work is evident from the remark at the close of its text, that 1 Chron. xxvii. 25
forms the middle of the whole. The present general division (even in the recent Hebrew
editions) into two books, springs from the Alexandrine translators and Jerome their follower,
and may have been occasioned on their part by the existence of some great section or interval
at the point of division, 1 Chron. xxix. 29 f., in the majority of older Hebrew MSS. This
bipartition of the work (which even Melito of Sardis knew, Euseb. H. Eccl. iv. 26, as his list
of the holy scriptures includes TixpxX^iwofiiiiav Zvo) cannot be regarded as unsuitable, since,
apart from the almost equal length of the two parts, the end of the reign of David, on which
the writer dwells with greater fulness than on that of any other king, presented a most fitting
point of pause and division.
The identity of the close jf the second book, ch. xxxvi. 22 f., with the beginning of the
book of Ezra, especially as the passage presents no truly satisfactory close for our work, raises
the expectation that some connection exists between it and the latter book. In favour of this
is farther the close affinity of the style of each, the mode of quoting the law common to both,
1 Jerome's Prolog, galeat. : Dibre hajamim, i. e. verba dierum, quod significantius chronicon totiua
divinse historic possumus appellare, qui liber apud nos Paralipomenon primus et secundus inscribitur.
s The whole passage (Opp. ed. Vallars. t. i. p. 279) runs thus: Paralipomenon liter, i.e. instrument*
vtteris epitome, tantus et talis est, ut absque illo, si quis scientiam scripturarum sibi voluerit arrogare, tt
ipsmn, irrideat ; per. singula quippe nomina juncturasque verborum et praitermissm in Begum libris tan-
guntur historic et innumerabiles explicantur evangelii epwsstiones.
THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
■B well as the decided preference of both for genealogical registers, statistical lists, and minute
descriptions of acts of religion, in which also the same formulae are not seldom used (see
Remark). As no small part of these idioms belong also to the book of Nehemiah, the hypothesis
is natural, that the three books, even if proceeding from different authors, have been subjected
to a common revision by a later writer. This hypothesis is more probable than both the
other attempts to solve the problem, namely, that either Chronicles and Ezra (Movers), or
Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah (Zunz, Ew., Berth., Dillm., Davidson, etc.), originally formed
a single work proceeding from one author. For in such unity of origin of the three works,
their separation before the close of the canon into three or (in case of Ezra and Nehemiah having
originally formed one work) into two books remains purely inexplicable. The author of such
separation would have bad no rational ground for retaining 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23 at the same
time as the close of the first and the opening of the second part. The double place of these
verses leads much rather to a common redactor of the two writings than to an identity of
author. The majority also of the already-mentioned common idioms, and other qualities, are
sufficiently explaiued by the hypothesis, that the present very homogeneous form of the two,
or at most three pieces, arises partly from having proceeded from the same circle of sacerdotal
and Levitical views, endeavours, and learned researches, and partly from having gone through
the hands of the same redactor. And even if one author of the two or three works must be
affirmed, there can be as little doubt of the fact, that he conceived Chronicles as an indepen-
dent and separate work, as of the independence and original distinctness of the books of Ezra
and Nehemiah, which are clearly separated from one another in the Hebrew text by the new
superscription, Neh. i. 1. Comp. § 3. [There seems to be no reason why one author may not
continue the work of another on the same plan and in a similar style. — J. G. M.]
Remark. — On the numerous verbal points of contact noticed by Pareau, Institutio interpr.
V. T. p. 419, ' between Chronicles and Ezra, applying also in great part to the book of
Nehemiah, see Movers, Krit. Untersuchungen, p. 17 f . ; Havernick, Einl. ii. 1, 269 ff., and
especially Bertheau, Kurzgef. exeg. Handb., Einleit. p. xix. f. The latter recounts : a. a
number of like grammatical inflections and constructions, namely, 1. The short way of sub-
ordinating relative clauses by placing them after a construct state (1 Chron. xxix. 3 ; 2 Chron.
xxxi. 19 ; Ezra i. 5 ; Neh. viii. 10) ; 2. The use of the infinitive with *? to express must or
shall (1 Chron. v. 1, ix. 25, xiii. 4, xv. 2, etc. ; 2 Chron. ii. 8, viii. 13, xi. 22, etc. ; Ezra iv. 3,
x. 12 ; Neh. viii. 13) ; 3. The extremely frequent use of the prep. f>, partly before the object
as nota accusativi, partly after an accus. in continuation (1 Chron. xxviii. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 14
xxviii. 15, xxxiii. 8 ; Neh. ix. 32), especially before fvj, to include all in enumerations (1 Chron.
xiii. 1; 2 Chron. v. 12; Ezra i. 5, vii. 28; Neh. xi. 2), after the prep. *iy, where in former
usage the word subordinate to this followed immediately (1 Chron. xxviii. 7, 20 ; 2 Chron.
xiv. 12, xvi. 12, 14, xvii. 12, etc.; Ezra iii. 13, ix. 4, 6, x. 14) before the adverbial infin..
n3"in (2 Chron. xi. 12, xvi. 8 ; Neh. v. 18) ; 4. The abundant use of prepositions in general,"
for example, in such phrases as 1JJ ly, Neh. iii. 26 ; DNnS3, 2 Chron. xxix. 36 ; DDV3, Neh.
ix. 19 ; 5. The placing of the article before a verb for' the pron. relat. (1 Chron/ xxvi. 28
xxix. 8, 17 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 36, xxxiv. 32 ; Ezra viii. 25, x. 14, 17 ; Neh. ix. 33). Moreover'
Bertheau himself is obliged to acknowledge with regard to these constructions, that " they
occur occasionally also in other books of the Old Testament, especially the later."' That they
may be laid to the account of the idiom of one single author of the books compared will be
the less evident, because some of these constructions, as the quoted passages show occur not
more than once in any one of these writings, and therefore by no means belong to the pro-
minent characteristics of their style. '
b. On the contrary, single phrases quoted by him, or standing constructions of certain
words, point somewhat more definitely to identity of authorship. Thus the construction
nftntW W, 2 Chron. xiii. 9; Ezra iii. 3, ix. 1, 2, 11; Neh. ix. 30, x. 29 (comp. also
"i™? '3s*?. Ezraix. 7; '^n ^\ 2 Chron. xv. 5 ; 'nNn *fe, 2 Chron. xxxii. 13, 17, etc.)
$ r?!> 1 Chron- ™- 185 2 Chr°n- *H- 14, six. 3, xx. 33, xxx. 19; Ezra vii. 10; pan in
■ Quod peculiare est in dictione utriusque libri Chronicorum, id etiam in dictione libri, qui Ezrm
tnbmtur aucton ejwque nomenprw sefert, anirmdvm-titur, quatenus lingua Hebraica conscriptuTest
INTRODUCTION.
several other constructions; 3*pnn, "to offer freely at the temple," 1 Chron. xxix. 5, 6, 9,
14, 17 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 16 ; Ezra i. 6, ii. 68, iii. 5 ff. ; Neh. xi. 2 ; n*3, 2 Chron. xiv. 13, xxviii. 14 ;
Ezra ix. 7 ; Neh. iii. 36 ; ^ap, 1 Chron. xii. 18, xxi. 11 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 16 ; Ezra viii. 30 ;
nirp ITS rot6p (or D^S '3 'D), l Chron. xxiii. 4, xxvi. 30 ; Ezra iii. 6, vi. 22 ; Neh.
x. 34, xi. 22, etc. Yet all these phrases occur not exclusively in our books, but occasionally
elsewhere (a'-unn, for example, in Judg. v. 2, 9 ; niSIXil in several constructions also, 2 Kings
xviii. 35, and often in Ezek. ; nia also in Esther and Daniel ; {>3p there also, and in Prov.
and Job, etc.). Actual idioms of the books of Chron., Ezra, and Neh., from which their
derivation from one author may seem to follow, are properly only such phrases as DHDV 7Vi
2 Chron. xxx. 16, xxxv. 10; Neh. viii. 7, ix. 3, xiii. 11 ; nnn, 1 Chron. xvi. 27 ; Neh. viii. 10;
Ezra vi. 16; "lias, '"basin," 1 Chron. xxviii. 17; Ezra i. 10, viii. 27; pimc6 "IV, 2 Chron.
xxvi. 15 ; Ezra iii. 13 (comp. the other constructions with p 1J? in 2 Chron. xvi. 14, xxvi. 8,
xxxvi. 16, etc.) ; D^IJTO in the plur., 2 Chron. xxx. 22 ; Neh. ix. 3 ; comp. Ezra x. 1 ; na^S,
of divisions of the Levites, 2 Chron. xxxv. 5 ; Ezra vi. 18. To this may be added such phrases
and formulae resting on the priestly and legal ideas and facts of these books, as DE3BTS3,
1 Chron. xxiii. 31; 2 Chron. xxxv. 13, xxx. 16; Ezra iii. 4; Neh. viii. 18 (this phrase is
peculiar to our books, while the synonymous miFI3 aiDSS occurs often in the older writings) ;
niiTP vpni }-|in, 1 Chron. xvi. 4, xxiii. 30, xxv. 3, etc. ; Ezra iii. 11 ; likewise the liturgical
form P^nSl nilinp, and " for He is good, for His grace endureth for ever," 1 Chron. xvi. 34, 41 ;
2 Chron. v. 13; Ezra iii. 11 ; not less the standing phrases in describing festivals, nriDB>3
(1 Chron. xii. 40, xxix. 9, 17 ; 2 Chron. xv. 15, xx. 27, xxix. 30, 36, xxxi. 23, 26 ; Ezra iii. 12)
and -iifl ,T~^J/ (1 Chron. xxv. 2, 6 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 18, xxix. 27 ; Ezra iii. 10) ; lastly, the
official names of certain temple ministers and sacred musicians found only in our books,
especially D'JTIJ, D'HlitJ'tDn and DwSD. If we add to these common properties, extending
even to literal agreement in expression, the preference in these three writings for genealogies
and lists of officers and the like (comp. 1 Chron. i.-ix. ; Ezra iii., vii. 1-5, viii., x. 20 ff. ; Neh.
vii. 6 ff., x. 1 ff., xi., xii.), as well as the great prominence of the temple musicians and porters
as an institution mentioned with peculiar interest (1 Chron. vi. 16 ff., ix. 14 ff., xv. 16 ff.,
xvi. 4 ff., xxiii. 5, xxv. 1 ff., xxvi. 12 ff. ; 2 Chron. v. 12 ff., viii. 14 ff., xxiii. 13 ff., xxxi. 11 ff.,
xxxiv. 12 f., xxxv. 15 ; Ezra ii. 42, 70, iii. 10 f., vii. 7, x. 24 ; Neh. vii. 1, 45, x. 29, xi. 17 ff.,
xii. 24 ff., xiii. 5), there grows up a certain probability for the presumption of one author for
the three writings in question. But this presumption cannot be regarded as " altogether
established " and " fully demonstrated " (Bertheau, p. xx.). The great majority of the
coincidences adduced are sufficiently explained by supposing a plurality of authors, nearly of
the same date, inspired by a like Levitico-sacerdotal interest and impulse, drawing from the
like sources, of whom the last, in order to produce a uniform edition of these similar historical
works, submitted his two predecessors to a common revision. Comp. on the other hand, Keil
(Comment, p. 15 ff.), who, however, certainly derives at least two of the works in question,
Chronicles and Ezra, from one author ; and, on the other hand, Bleek, Einleit. ins A. T.
(2d edit. § 171, p. 404), who, coming nearer the truth, claims distinct authors for the three
books, but regards the author of Chronicles as the last writer and the redactor of the books of
Ezra and Nehemiah. The questiou not immediately affecting our problem, whether the books
of Ezra and Nehemiah are to be regarded as forming originally one work, or as independent
productions of different authors, will have to be incidentally treated in the following investiga-
tion concerning the author of our book and the time of its composition.
[The arguments from the above phenomena for a redaction of these books are not con-
vincing. An author writing in the language of the people, especially in the East, will use
and repeat the current phrases of his day. The rise of new habits, objects, and acts will
demand new words and constructions for their expression. These two circumstances are
nearly sufficient to account for all the diversities and identities that have been noted, without
having recourse to the hypothesis of one author or one redactor. A familiarity with the pre-
vious authors of the Old Testament will probably balance the account.— J. G. M.]
THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
§ 3. AUTHOR, AND TIME OF COMPOSITION.
As Chronicles at its close mentions the edict of Cyrus permitting the return of ' th* * Jews
from the Babylonish exile (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22 f.), and in 1 Chron m. 19-24 it traces the
descendants of Zerubbabel through six generations (see the exposition of the passage and
Remark at the end of the section), it cannot have been composed, or at least put in its present
form, before the time of Zerubbabel, or for a considerable time after Ezra. With an average
of thirty years for each of the generations after Zerubbabel, the last, consisting of the seven
sons of Elioenai, must be supposed to flourish after the year 350 B.C. The last decade of the
Persian monarchy, if not the beginning of the Grecian period, is, moreover, indicated by several
other circumstances, among which are the following: —
a. The computation employed in 1 Chron. xxix. 7 (in the history of David) by Dariks,
tfjjjTIX, a Persian gold coin, occurring also in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah,— that, whether
first stamped under Darius Hystaspis or not, refers the time of the composition of the work to
the Persian sway over the Jews, or even some time after it; J
b. The name rrPa, castle, likewise indicating the Persian period, designates the temple as
a magnificent build'ing (1 Chron. xxix. 1, 19),— a term only occurring elsewhere in the books
of Esther and Nehemiah, which there designates either the palace of the Persian monarch
(Esth. i. 2, 5, ii. 3, 8; Neh. i. 1), or the castle near the temple of Jerusalem, the later Bxpi;
(Neh. ii. 8, vii. 2);
c. The orthography and Chaldaizing style betraying a pretty late age (comp. Remark on
§2);
d. The position of the work in the canon as the last of the Hagiographa, and thus after the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah, to which it would scarcely have been subjoined by the collectors,
if any certain knowledge of its composition before or even contemporary with them had
existed in Jewish tradition ;
e. The circumstance that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, for which, on account of the
already adduced verbal and other coincidences with our books, an almost identical date of
composition must be asserted, must have been already written a considerable time after their
heroes and traditional authors, as the proper memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah were used as
sources in them, — the age of these men (Neh. xii. 26, 47) is represented as already in the
distant past; and, moreover, lists of the chiefs of the Levites (Neh. xii. 23) and of the high
priests (Neh. xii. 10 ff.) are given therein, that extend down to Jaddua, the holder of the
high priest's office in the time of Alexander the Great. That this Jaddua, according to
Josephus (Antiq. xi. 8), high priest during the last years of the Persian Empire, as well as
under Alexander, was a contemporary of the author of the book of Nehemiah, appears in fact
very probable, according to the twelfth chapter of the book. Yet Ewald and Bertheau have
gone too far, when they infer, from the manner in which both in Ezra and Nehemiah Cyrus
and his successors are constantly mentioned as Persian kings (Ezra i. 1, iv. 5 ; comp. iv. 7,
vi. 1, etc.), that the Grecian monarchy had already commenced. The author might consider
it suitable to give prominence to the Persian nationality of these kings, in contrast with the
former kings of Judah. And all else that, after Spinoza, has been urged by de Wette.
Berthold, Gramberg, and others (recently again by Nbldecke, Die alttestamentl. Literat., 1868,
p. 63 f.), for the origin of the book under the Macedonic or the Seleucidic government, amounts
only to hypercritical conjectures (comp. Keil, Apolog. Versuch, p. 17 ff. ; Havernick, Einl. ii.
274 ff.).
If our book appears from the above considerations, especially those adduced under c-e, to
belong to a time falling after Ezra and Nehemiah, it is impossible for Ezra himself to be the
author. The Talmud, indeed, regarded him as the common originator of the book called after
him and of Chronicles (Baba bathr. fol. 15, 1 : Esra scripsit librum suum et genealogiam in libro
Chrcmicorum usque ad se), in which it was followed by most Rabbins, some Fathers, as Theo-
1 That the composition must have taken place during the Persian rule, and before Alexander the
Great, can scarcely be inferred from the mention of this coin (against Movers). For as Bleek justly
remarks, p. 398 : "It may well be imagined, and is in itself quite natural, that a silver or gold coin,
once introduced into the country and extensively circulated, will continue in currency long after the
dynasty that coined it has ceased to rule."
INTRODUCTION.
doret, and later theologians, as Carpzov, Heidegger, Pareau, Starke, Lange, Eichhorn (Einl
iii. 597 ff.), Havernick, Welte, Keil (Apolog. Versuch, p. 144 ff., Einl. p. 497; comp. Comment.
p. 14), and Jul. Fiirst (Gesch. der bibl. Lit. ii. 210, 537 ff.), and others. But he can no more
have written the book of Chronicles than the hook of Ezra itself. Both belong notoriously
to a later age ; and in view of their manifold internal and external connection, the hypothesis
of Movers, that a writer living some centuries after Ezra wrote both works as a continaous
whole, though afterwards separated (Mov. Krit. Unters. p. 14 ff.), would commend itself, were
it not necessary to take into account the relation of the book of Nehemiah to both, and to
admit some sort of connection among the three books. To show that this consists in being
derived from the same author has been attempted by Zunz (Gottesdienstl. Vortrar/e der Juden,
Berlin 1832, p. 18 ff.), Ewald (Gesch. des v. Isr. i. p. 264, 2d edit.), Bertheau (Kurzgef. exeg.
Handb., Einl. p. 15), Graf (Die geschichtl. Backer des A. T. p. 114 ff.), Dillmann (in Herzog's
Real-Encycl., Art. " Chronik "), Davidson (Introd. to the Old Test. ii. p. 115 sq.). They
have regarded the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah as three constituent parts of a
single historical work, composed iu the end of the Persian or the opening of the Grecian
period. But against this are the following considerations : —
1. The identity of Ezra i. 1-3 with 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22 f., which is more easily understood
if we regard it as the work of a redactor who wished to show the second of the two originally
separate works to be a kind of continuation of the first, than if we suppose that the narrative
originally proceeded from 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23 to Ezra i. 4, and then, after rending the two
books asunder, the opening words of the second concerning the edict of Cyrus were repeated
at the close of the first. Comp. Keil, Comm. p. 14 f. : "For such a separation with an addi-
tion there seems to be no ground, especially as the edict of Cyrus must be repeated. The
introduction of this edict with the words, ' And in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that
the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, etc.,' is so closely connected
with the close of the description of the destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying away of
Judah to Babylon, ' and they were servants to him (King Nebuchadnezzar) and his sons until
the reign of the Persians, to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah ... to
fulfil seventy years,' ver. 20 f., that the edict of Cyrus cannot be separated from the fore-
going ; much rather must the same author, who wrote vers. 20, 21, and represented the
seventy years of exile as the fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy, have also mentioned the edict
of Cyrus, and connected it with this prophecy. This connection of the edict with that prophecy
furnishes an incontrovertible proof that the verses containing the edict form an integral part
of Chronicles." On the whole, the supposition of a supplementary separation of a history
originally forming one whole is attended with serious difficulties ; and neither the apparently
somewhat abrupt close of Chronicles, as it now stands (with ?jj'i, " And let him go up "), nor
the circumstance that the opening words of Ezra, though verbally coinciding in general with
the closing words of Chronicles, yet differ from them in some particulars (namely, for >Q2 of
°>. Chron. xxxvi. 22, isp, and for iisj; VItSk frirp of 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, 'j? 'bit TV)> can *»e
satisfactorily reconciled with the hypothesis of separation, both phenomena agreeing better
with the supposition, that the conforming hand of a later redactor had established a coincidence
in the main between two passages that were originally somewhat different.
2. The plan, also, of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, clearly aiming at the presentation of
contemporary or very recent history, speaks against the hypothesis of their original immediate
connection with the book of Chronicles. Whatever there is in the plan of this work, or in
the position of the writer, with respect to the sources used by him resembling the historio-
graphic method of the other two books, is easily explained by supposing the authors to be
guided in general by the same views, and to write in the same, or nearly the same times.
3. And as neither these merely subordinate resemblances of plan and form, nor the already
mentioned verbal and orthographical coincidences, suffice to disprove the independent charac-
ter of the three works, neither can the circumstance, that the author of the apocryphal third
book of Ezra, from the way in which he strings together 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21 and Ezra i. 1,
seems not to have been acquainted with the separation of Chronicles from Ezra, nor the
phenomenon parallel to this circumstance, that the Talmud, the Masora, and the ancient
Christian Church count the books of Ezra and Nehemiah generally as one book. At the
ground of this latter phenomenon obviously lies the Jewish endeavour not to let the number
10 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
of the books of the Old Testament exceed that of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew
alphabet (Origen in Euseb. H. Eccl. vi. 25; Jerome, Prol. gal.; Talmud, Baba bathr., in
Buxtorf, Tiberias, c. xi. p. 108 sqq.),— an endeavour from which the oldest Church Fathers,
in their lists of the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, were not free, and of which the
circumstance that two of the oldest mss. of the Septuagint, the cod. Alexandrinus and tie
Friderico-Augustanus, separate the book of Nehemiah by no interval from that of Ezra (eomp.
Tischendorf's Vetus Testamentum juxta LXX. Interpretes, edit. iv. 1869, T. I. p. 611), must be
regarded as a later effect.
If, according to all this, the connection of these three books is not to be viewed as a unity,
forbidding their original independent existence, and if, notwithstanding all traces of an almost
contemporary origin, no common author needs to be assumed for them, nothing is more
natural than to regard one of the two or three supposed authors as the originator of that
redactional conformation on which the present affinity and mutual relation of the three
books, so far as it betrays the hand of a literary reviser, depends. And in all probability
this redactor was the author of Chronicles, as a compilation presupposing the existence of the
other two, and adapting itself to them. The already extant works concerning Ezra and
Nehemiah, proceeding perhaps from the younger contemporaries of these men, may have
served as the occasion and impulse to this writer to present the previous history of God's
people in a like spirit of Levitical, priestly pragmatism, and in a similar annalistic method,
and so to project his review of the progress of the kingdom of God from Adam to the end of
the exile, runuing parallel with the earlier historical books, which he partly supplements and
partly abstracts. That he prefixed the closing verses of this work as an introduction to its
sequel the book of Ezra, to mark externally the connection of the two works, must be con-
sidered more probable from the above remarks, than the reverse hypothesis of Bleek, that "he
brought over the first verses of that work (Ezra) as the close of this latter." Comp. through-
out Bleek, Einl. § 171, p. 404 f., with whose representation of the origin of our three works
we only differ on this subordinate point, while we must regard it otherwise as the most satis-
factory solution of the present question.
Concerning the person of this author of Chronicles and final redactor of Ezra and Nehemiah
who belonged to the last years of the Persian dynasty, only this can be established, that he
must have belonged to the Levites of the second temple, and in particular to the singers or
song-masters, in whom he takes a special interest, as the constant putting of them forward
(as also the porters) along with priests and Levites in many parts of his work shows; see above
§ 2, Remark, p. 6. When Keil (Comment, p. 17 ff.) urges against this hypothesis the fact'
that " in all places where he speaks of musicians and porters we also find the priests men-
tioned," sufficient attention is not paid to the fact, that this express mention of such inferior
officers as singers and musicians, along with the priests and other officials of the temple,
implies a special interest in them on the part of the author. Certainly the porter is often
mentioned in the same places; but the interest of the narrator in the" musicians and their
doings (into which he often enters minutely, while he only mentions the porters by the way)
plainly outweighs everything else. And nothing is obviously deducted from the authority and
credibility of our writer, if we think of him as an Asaph of the later sanctuary, though his
identification with Ezra the priest becomes thereby impossible.
Remark.— The difficult passage 1 Chron. iii. 19-24, the full elucidation of which we must
reserve for the commentary itself, names from Hananiah, the son of Zerubbabel five other
generations, represented by Shechaniah, Shemaiah, Neariah, Elioenai, and Hodaiah, the last of
which generations, Hodaiah with his six brothers, which appears to be nearly contemporary with
the author of our work, can scarcely, even if we reckon a generation at 30 years, have flourished
before 350 or 340 B.c TB this date points also another note contained in ver 22. The
Hattush here mentioned as great-grandson of Zerubbabel, is perhaps the same Hattush men-
tioned, Ezra vin. 2, as a descendant of David, and as brought under Ezra from Babylon to
Judea Now, as m vers. 22 and 23 the grandsons of Neariah, a younger brother of this
Hattush, are mentioned, we shall thus be carried down beyond the year 400, as the earliest
possible time of the drawing up of this genealogy; and the omission of some intervening
members after Hattush would carry it down considerably later. These chronological com!
bmations taken from 1 Chron. m. 19 ff. may not appear absolutely certain and infisputaWe
as the Hattush of Ezra might possibly be different from that of our passage (comp tllEil
INTRODUCTION. 11
p. 496), and aa, especially in ver. 21, where all connection of the iVQI '33 with the fore-
going is wanting, the suspicion (uttered by Vitringa, Heidegger, Carpzov, etc.) of cor-
ruption, or the supposition that a fragment of some other genealogy has crept into the text
(Havern., Movers, Keil, etc.), appears sufficiently plausible. Notwithstanding this uncertainty
and partial obscurity of the passage, the opinion expressed is probable enough ; and the more
so, the more clearly the other considerations (under c-e) above mentioned point to a still
later time than that of Ezra and Nehemiah.
[The data presented by the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, prove, at most, that
a touching hand was applied to them after the lifetime of Ezra and Nehemiah, simply adding
a few names to a list or pedigree. But this comes far short of proving that these works were
not produced by Ezra and Nehemiah, the authors to whom they are usually assigned. To
give even plausibility to this negative conclusion, it is necessary to apply our modern notions
or habits of composition to the men of ancient times, before printing was invented, or the
rules of literature determined. There is great risk of mistake in taking this important step,
as the modern man of letters is liable to carry up into those primitive days his own subjective
views, and make a world of ancient literature after the fashion of the nineteenth century. To
infer, for instance, that a work was not composed till the last person now named in it had
lived and flourished, may seem legitimate. Yet it is not necessarily true even of modern
works, as names and facts may be added by an editor or continuator. Still less can it be
affirmed of ancient works antecedent to printing, especially when they are of national
importance, and under the care of men competent and authorized to make such trifling addi
tions as are supposed by some to discredit the authorship of Ezra and Nehemiah. — J. G. M.]
§ 4. MATTER, PLAN, AND OBJECT OF THE WOEK.
In regard to matter, Chronicles falls, as already stated, into two main divisions — a shorter
genealogical, i. 1-9, and a longer historical one. If we take into account the several groups
of genealogical and historical material that exist within these main parts, the following detailed
scheme of contents results : —
I. Genealogical tables or registers, with brief historical data, 1 Chron. i.-ix.
a. Genealogies of the patriarchs from Adam to Israel and Edom, with the descendants
of the latter till the era of kings, i.
6. The sons of Israel and the generations of Judah till David, with David's posterity till
Elioenai and his seven sons, ii.-iv. 23.
c. The generations of Simeon, and the transjordanic tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-
Manasseh, till the deportation of the latter by the Assyrians, iv. 24-v. 26.
d. The generations of the Levites, with a statement of their cities in the different tribes,
v. 27-vi.
e. The generations of the remaining tribes, except Dan and Zebulun, and in particular,
of the Benjamite house of Saul, vii., viii.
/. The inhabitants of Jerusalem till the period of kings, with the genealogy of Saul
repeated, forming the transition to the history of David, ix.
II. History of the kings in Jerusalem from David to the exile.
1. David, x.-xxix.
a. Introduction ; the fall of the house of Saul, x.
6. David's elevation to the throne ; arrangement of his residence at Jerusalem ; wars
and enumeration of the people, xi.-xxi.
[Removal from Hebron to Jerusalem, xi. 1-9 ; the heroes and worthies of David,
xi. 10-xii. ; preparation for removing the ark to Jerusalem, xiii. ; David's house-
building, family, and wars with the Philistines, xiv. ; the solemn conveyance of the
ark, xv., xvi. ; David's purpose to build a temple to the Lord, xvii. ; his wars,
xviii.-xx. ; the numbering of the people, with the plague ; determination of the
place for the future temple, xxi.l
12 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
c. David's arrangements concerning the temple ; other spiritual and temporal regula-
tions ; last will and death, xxii.-xxix.
[Provisions for the temple, xxii. ; division of the Levites and priests, and order of
their service, xxiii.-xxvi. ; division of the war officers, and order of the service,
xxvii. ; last directions concerning the transfer of the government to Solomon, and
end of David, xxviii., xxix.]
2. Solomon, 2 Chron. i.-ix.
a. His solemn sacrifice at Gibeon, and his riches, i.
b. The building and consecration of the temple, ii.-vii.
c. Solomon's building of cities, and serfs; religious ordinances; navigation to Ophir;
intercourse with the queen of Sheba ; glory ; length of reign, and end, viii., ix.
3. The kings of Judah, from Rehoboam to Zedekiah, x.-xxxvi.
a. Rehoboam ; the prophet Shemaiah, x.-xii.
6. Abijah, xiii.
c. Asa ; the prophets Azariah son of Obed, and Hanani, xiv.-xvi.
d. Jehoshaphat; the prophets Micah son of Imlah, Jehu son of Hanani, etc., XviL-xx.
e. Joram ; letter of the prophet Elijah, xxi.
f. Ahaziah, xxii. 1-9.
g. Athaliah, xxii. 10-xxiii.
h. Joash ; the prophet Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, xxiv.
i. Amaziah, xxv.
k. Uzziah, xxvi.
I. Jotham, xxvii.
m. Ahaz ■. the prophet Oded, xxviii.
n. Hezekiah ; the prophet Isaiah, xxix.-xxxii.
o. Manasseh and Amon, xxxiii.
p. Josiah ; the prophetess Huldah, xxxiv., xxxv.
q. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah ; close, xxxvi.
From this survey of contents, the following points appear characteristic for the standpoint
%.. I plan of our historian : —
1. The taking up of the kingdom of David as a moment in the history of the tribe and
et> te of Judah, with the corresponding retreat of the genealogy and history of the northern
tri oes (cf which Dan and Zebulun are not even mentioned ; Issachar, Naphtali, Asher, and
half-Manasseh are only briefly noticed), and especially of the reigns of Saul and Ishbosheth,
at the same time with the total omission of Jeroboam and his successors, which determines
that of the prophets of the northern kingdom, and thus the action of Elijah, Elisha, etc.
2. The prominence given to the tribe of Levi, its ordinances and divisions, offices and
fuactions, — a moment appearing with characteristic force as well in the genealogical portion
(1 Chron. v. 27-vi. 66) as in the history of David (1 Chron. xxiii.-xxvi.), of Solomon and his
temple-consecration (2 Chron. v. ff.), of Rehoboam, Asa, Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah.
3. The preference for reporting genealogical series, which goes so far, that one list of this
kind is unnecessarily repeated (that of the house of Saul, 1 Chron. viii. 29 ff. ; coinp. with
ix. 35 ff.) ; and in the history of David, a register of his heroes, worthies, and offices, is inserted
several times in apparently improper places (thus 1 Chron. xii., the list of the heroes adhering
to him during his persecution by Saul, that of his worthies who raised him to the throne in
Hebron, and xxvii., the summary of his forces, princes, and officers, for which a more suitable
place would have been xviii. 12 ff.).
4. The visible inclination to dwell on the glorious periods of the theocracy and the theocratic
worship, and by depicting such bright seasons, and treating as briefly as possible the contrary
times of darkness and superstition, to display conspicuously the full blessing of preserving pure
the national religion of Jehovah and the legitimate temple-service : on which account" such
reigns as those of David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah, are depicted
with peculiar delight; while the last days of Solomon, the rule of Ahaziah and Athaliah, and
that of the last kings before the exile, are despatched with comparative brevity, or entirely
omitte 1, like the whole history of the kingdom of Ephraim.
The above-mentioned moments appear still more clearly as favourite points of history and
INTRODUCTION. 13
fundamental peculiarities of our historian, if we compare the course of his historical repre-
sentation with that of the parallel historical books, especially the books of Samuel and Kings.
Characteristic for the time before the kings is his endeavour, by suitable abbreviations of the
genealogical sections of Genesis, to give the clearest possible view of the descent of the house
of David from the antediluvian patriarchs ; comp. 1 Chron. i. 1-4 as an abridgment of Gen. v. ;
1 Chron. i. 5-23 as a corresponding abbreviation of Gen. x. ; 1 Chron. i. 24-27 as contracted
from Gen. xi. 10-26 ; 1 Chron. i. 29-33 as recapitulated from Gen. xxv. 1-15 ; 1 Chron.
i. 35-54 as recapitulated from Gen. xxxvi. 10-43 ; 1 Chron. ii. 1-5 as a summary of the list
of Jacob's sons (especially those of Perez) in Gen. xlvi. 8-12; also 1 Chron. ii. 10-12 (list of
the descendants of Ram to Jesse) with Ruth iv. 19-22 ; and in particular, the list of the
Levitical cities, 1 Chron. vi. 39-66, with Josh. xxi. 10-39. There is throughout, as these
parallels show, an endeavour aiming at the exaltation of the Davidic sovereignty as the
brightest point of the history of God's people before the exile, by which the author has been
guided in the genealogical preface to his history. For the history of David are equally
significant, both that which is omitted of the books of Samuel, and that which is added as a
supplement. He has here omitted most of the facts concerning the relation of David to Saul
and his house (in particular the reign of Ishbosheth, 2 Sam. i.-iv. 9) ; nearly all the events of
David's private life, especially those less favourable to his call, as the scene with Michal
(2 Sam. vi. 20-23) ; the adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam. xi., xii.) ; the dishonour of Tamar
by Amnon ; Amnon's death by Absalom, and Absalom's rebellion, with its consequences
(2 Sam. xiii.-xix.); the revolt of Sheba (2 Sara, xx.) ; the delivery of some descendants of
Saul to the Gibeonites for execution (2 Sam. xxi. 1-14) ; David's thanksgiving song and last
words (2 Sam. xxii., xxiii. 1-7) ; Adonijah's attempt at usurpation, and the thereby hastened
anointing of Solomon (1 Kings i.) ; lastly, David's last will regarding Joab, the sons of Bar-
zillai, and Shimei (1 Kings ii. 1-9). On the contrary, he has supplemented the account of the
older historians by his list of the brave men from all tribes who joined David during the per-
secution of Saul, and the warriors who made him king in Hebron (1 Chron. xii.), by his
account of the part taken by the Levites in the conveyance of the ark (1 Chron. xv., xvi.), his
long descriptions of David's preparations for the building of the temple (xxii.), his no less full
statistical description of the priests and Levites, and the military and civil officers under David
(xxiii.-xxvii.), and his account of the arrangements made by David shortly before his death in
a great assembly of the people (xxviii., xxix.). It is not less characteristic, that the author
has omitted in Solomon's history a number of facts which refer to the private life of this king,
and are partly unfavourable to his character, as the punishment of Joab, Shimei, and Adonijah
(1 Kings ii. 13-46), the marriage with Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kings iii. 1-3), the wise judg-
ment of the king, and the full picture of his glory and wisdom (1 Kings iii. 16-v. 1), his
palace (1 Kings vii. 1-12), his polygamy and idolatry, with the consequences following as a
divine judgment (1 King3 xi. 1—40), while he reports all that relates to the building and con-
secration of the temple, the building of cities, bond-service, trade with Ophir, etc., at equal,
if not greater length, than in the books of Kings. Lastly, in the period from Solomon to the
exile, he significantly omits the whole history of the ten tribes, their kings and prophets, with
the sole exception of the friendly or hostile relations in which they stood to the kingdom of
Judah (to which belongs also the letter of Elijah given in 2 Chron. xxi. 12 ff.). On the con-
trary,, regarding the kingdom of Judah in this period, a whole series of supplementary accounts
are given, especially such as serve to glorify the theocratically-disposed sovereigns of this
kingdom, but others also that exhibit along with these bright places darker shadows of the
apostasy and the resulting national misfortune ; as accounts of Rehoboam's cities of defence,
reception of the Levites driven from the northern kingdom, and family connections (2 Chron.
xi. 5-24) ; of Abijah's war with Jeroboam, his wives and children (xiii. 3-21) ; of Asa's victory
over the Kushite Zerah, and the action of the prophets Azariah and Hanani under this king
(xiv. 3-15, xv. 1-15, xvi. 7-10) ; of Jehoshaphat's internal and external administration, and
his great victory over the allied Ammonites, Moabites, and others (xvii.-xx.) ; of Joram'a
fratricide, idolatrous reign, and punishment (xxi. 2-4, 11-19) ; of Joash's final fall into idolatry
after the death of Jehoiada (xxiv. 15-22) ; of Amaziah's increase of his army and idolatry
(xxv. 5-10, 14-16) ; of Uzziah's successful war with the Philistines and Arabians, his fortifi-
cations and his troops (xxvi. 6-15) ; of Jotham's fortifications and victory over the Ammonites
(xxvii. 4-6) ; of the theocratic reforms of Hezekiah, his Passover, and the abundance of his
14 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
treasures (xxix. 3-31, xxxii. 27-30) ; of Manasseh's removal to Babylon, repentance, and
return from captivity (xxxiii. 11-17) ; of Josiah's Passover, and the part taken in it by the
priests and Levites (xxxv. 2-19).
The author has no very fixed principle in making his abbreviations and additions ; other-
wise, notwithstanding his theocratic tendencies, he would have imparted some traces of David a
family history, and along with the building of the temple and the cities, would have noticed
that of Solomon's palace (1 Kings vii. 1-12) ; he would perhaps have been silent on the idolatry
of Joash and Amaziah, as well as of Solomon, and have dwelt longer on the bright point of the
Jewish monarchy in the reign of Josiah ; and' if it concerned him to bring out the dark shadow
of apostasy with the light spots of this later period, he might have given a fuller account of the
idolatrous reign of Ahaz, and of the misgovernment of the last kings, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin,
Zedekiah, etc. The inconsistency indicated by a dim perception of his design, and a want of
thorough pragmatism, rests undoubtedly on the nature of his sources, the disproportion in the
matter of which must have produced a similar defect in himself, and prevented him from
exhibiting a uniform whole resulting from a single casting. On the whole, however, the
correctness of our remarks on the prevailing tendency of the author is not prejudiced by these
anomalies. It is indubitable, from his priestly-Levitical standpoint, that he wished in general
to relate the theocratic civil and religious history of the Jews from David with a chief regard
to their bright periods, and a recognition of their times of apostasy being invariably attended
with divine judgments, and to hold up to his contemporaries a mirror encouraging them to
fear God, and warning them against unfaithfulness to the Lord. Otherwise than the author
of the books of Kings, who relates the events more objectively in their natural order, "our
author places the facts and occurrences in connection with the conduct of the prince and the
people toward the Lord, and endeavours so to illustrate the historical facts, that they teach
how God rewards the faithful with peace and blessing, and visits the revolt from His covenant
with penal judgments. The narrative thus acquires a parenetic character that often rises to
the rhetorical manner. This parenetico-rhetorical stamp of his work meets us not only in the
many speeches of the agents, but also in many historical delineations (for example, in Joram,
2 Chron. xxi. ; in Ahaz, xxviii. ; in Manasseh, xxxiii. ; and in Zedekiah, xxxvi. 12-21). From
this parenetic tendency, and the reflective mode of viewing history, is explained the greater
part of his deviations from the parallel accounts in Samuel and Kings, as well the omission of
collateral circumstances as the pictorial descriptions of religious regulations and festivals, the
manifest object of which is to awaken in the mind of the reader delight and joy in the attractive
services of the Lord, and to confirm the heart in fidelity to the Lord and His law " (Keil,
Comment, p. 11). On account of this property, directed with special preference to the worship
and the officers of worship, this history has been designated as specially Levitical, — a designa-
tion which is only suitable and free from misconception, when we bear in mind that it is not
the Levites as such, but as the ministers of the lawful theocratic worship, the source of all
salvation and blessing for the people of God, to whom the author devotes his special attention.
"The Chronist wishes, not to glorify the Levites and the Levitical worship, but rather to lead
the proof, from the history of the kingdom in Israel, that faithfulness to the covenant which
the Lord has made with Israel brings happiness and blessing; neglect of it, misery and per-
dition. But Israel shows fidelity in walking after the standard of the law given by Moses,
when he worships Jehovah the God of his fathers in His sanctuary, as He has appointed in the
ordinances of worship. The author lays stress on the Levitical worship only so far as the
faithfulness of Israel shows itself in its careful observance " (Keil, Comm. p. 8).
Remark — The forty or more parallel sections which the part of Chronicles, common with
the books of Samuel and Kings, presents, now in longer, now in shorter form, and now in
corresponding, now in deviating sequence, are exhibited in the following table (from Keil,
EM. p. 479 ; comp. Davidson, Introd. p. 81 sq., and Tiibingen Theolog. Quartalschr. 1831,
p. 209 ff.) :—
1 Chron. x. 1-12,
xi. 1-9,
xi. 10-47, .
xiii. 1-14,
xiv. 1-7, 8-17,
1 Sam. xxxi.
2 Sam. v. 1-3, 6-10.
„ xxiii. 8-39.
„ vi. 1-11.
„ v. 11-16, 17-25.
INTRODUCTION.
U
1 Chron. xv., xvi.,
„ xvii., .
„ xviii., .
„ xix., .
„ xx. 1-3,
„ xx. 4-8,
„ xxi., .
2 Chron. i. 2-18,
„ i. 14-17, .
v "•,
„ iii. 1-v. 1, .
„ v. 2-vii. 10,
„ vii. 11-22, .
„ viii., .
„ ix. 1-12, 13-28, .
„ ix. 29-31, .
„ x. 1-xi. 4, .
„ xii. 2, 3, 9-16, .
„ xiii. 1, 2, 22, 23, .
„ xiv. 1, 2, xv. 16-19,
„ xvl. 1-6, 11-14, .
„ xviii. 2-34, .
„ xx. 31-xxi. 1,
„ xxi. 6-10, 20,
„ xxii. 1-6, 7-9,
„ xxii. 10-xxiii. 21,
„ xxiv. 1-14, 23-27,
„ xxv. 1-4, 11, 17-28,
„ xxvi. 1-4, 21-23, .
„ xxvii. 1-3, 7-9, .
„ xxviii. 1-4, 26, 27,
„ xxix. 1,2,.
„ xxxii. 1-21, .
„ xxxii. 24, 25, 32, 33,
„ xxxiii. 1-10, 20-25,
„ xxxiv. 1, 2, 8-32,
„ xxxv. 1, 18-24, 26, 27,
„ xxxvi. 5, 6, 8-12,
„ xxxvi. 22, 23,
1-4.
2 Sam. vi. 12-23.
„ vii.
„ viii.
„ xi. 1, xii. 26-81.
„ xxi. 18-22.
„ xxiv.
1 Kings iii. 4-15.
„ x. 26-29.
„ v. 15-23.
„ vi., vii. 13-61
„ viii.
„ ix. 1-9.
„ ix. 10-28.
„ x. 1-13, 14-29.
„ xi. 41-43.
„ xii. 1-24.
„ xiv. 21-31.
„ xv. 1, 2, 6-8.
„ xv. 11-16.
„ xv. 17-24.
,, xxii. 2-35.
,, xxii. 41-51.
2 Kings viii. 17-24.
„ viii. 25-29, ix. 16-28, x. 12-14.
„ xi.
„ xii. 1-17, 18-22.
„ xiv. 1-14, 17-20.
„ xiv. 21, 22, xv. 2-7.
„ xv. 33-36, 38.
„ xvi. 2-4, 19, 20.
„ xviii. 2, 3.
„ xviii. 13-xix. 37.
„ xx. 1, 2, 20, 21.
„ xxi. 1-9, 18-24.
„ xxii., xxiii. 1-3.
„ xxiii. 21-23, 28, 29-34.
„ xxiii. 36, 37, xxiv. 1, 6, 6, 8-19.
Ezra i. 1, 2.
The value of this table of parallel passages consists in this, that it not only exhibits the
mutual relation of the sections, showing now an extension, now an abridgment, on the part of
our author, but also indicates where deviations in the order of the several events take place.
For in the order of his materials the Chronist by no means agrees throughout with the books
of Samuel and Kings ; as he, in 1 Chron. xi. 10-47, takes a list of David's heroes from 2 Sam.
xxiii. 8-39, and attaches it to events which are parallel with 2 Sam. v., and the account in
2 Sam. v. he does not reproduce continuo, but takes beforehand the section 2 Sam. vi. 1-11
(see 1 Chron. xiii. 1-14), as he farther places the history of David's numbering of the people,
and of the plague, 2 Sam. xxiv., not quite at the end of the section belonging to David, but
subjoins to it accounts of David's provision for the building of the temple, as well as his
spiritual and temporal officers (1 Chron. xxii.-xxix.) ; as he also, in Solomon's history, takes
beforehand the small section concerning Solomon's treasures and troops, 1 Kings x. 26-29, and
places it beside that which is related in 1 Kings iii.— v., and so on. Tiat which appears
arbitrary in these deviations, vanishes when we reflect that our author followed not so much
the books of Samuel and Kings in their existing state, as certain old sources partly lying at
their foundation, and partly deviating from them ; and thus the nature of his sources had an
effect on determining the arrangement and sequence of his materials.
16 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
[To this very thoughtful and interesting section it may be added, that the author of
Chronicles confines his attention to David, and the kingdom founded on the promise made to
him in 2 Sam. vii. Hence he excludes from direct consideration the kingdom of the ten tribes,
which gradually fell into idolatry, and had long ceased to exist at the time in which he wrote.
The facts do not warrant us in limiting his theme or his aim more than this, and therefore
prevent us from charging him with any inconsistency which an imaginary limit of a narrower
kind might create. The temple and its ordinances of worship become a prominent matter of
fact in the kingdom of God, and its ministers and services claim a corresponding place in the
history of this kingdom, without any motive in the writer more special than zeal for the glory
of the true and living God. — J. G. M.]
§ 5. SOURCES OF THE CHRONIST.
From a closer examination of the contents of the several sections, it appears an indubitable
fact that the peculiar stamp of our history depends on the nature of certain sources used by
the author, which must have been in great part different from the historical books contained
in the canon, and must have included many other accounts in addition to these.
I. Of the genealogical tables and registers, and the geographical terms in the first or
genealogical part (1 Chron. i.-ix.), only the introductory data referring to the patriarchs and
the posterity of Edom, which are contained in 1 Chron. i.-ii. 2, appear to be wholly and
without exception taken from Genesis (see the special proof above, § 4, p. 11). A derivation
of these data from any other source than Genesis is improbable, for this reason, that they
follow very exactly the order of this book (extracting and recapitulating from Gen. v., x.,
xi., xxv., xxxvi., and xxxv. 22 ff.), and they do not present a single supplementary notice.
A quite different impression is made by a comparison of the following genealogies and
historical notices with the corresponding data of the Pentateuch, the book of Joshua, and the
other historical books. These matters occur in those older books neither as continuous series
of names, nor as genealogical lists interwoven with shorter or longer historical data (as, for
example, ch. iv. 22 f., iv. 39-43, v. 10-19). So far as they occur in them, they appear in
quite a different connection, seldom forming longer series running through many generations;
not leaving the impression of genealogical registers, or dry lists of names with occasional
historical statements, but rather as integral moments of pragmatic narrative ; while, in our
book, they bear throughout the character of a genealogical register. In many deviations also,
which are found in the number of generations, the genealogical materials of our book appear
independent of the older histories ; such as in the diverse spelling of many names, which may
rest partly on mere errors of writing (which might easily creep in, especially in lists of names;
compare the collection of notorious errors of this kind in Movers' Krit. Unters. p. 66 ff., and
see beneath, in our exeg. explanations, passim), but in no small part owe their origin to a
different tradition ; as so many differences regarding geographical data (for example, regard-
ing the names of the Levitical cities, 1 Chron. vi. 39-66, compared with Josh. xxi. 10-39)
must be referred to diverse old traditions, and, therefore, to peculiar sources. And such
must be those of his sources that had in great measure prepared the way for his collecting
and arranging propensity, in so far as they themselves contained longer genealogical series,
composed in like manner, and interwoven with like historical data, and so were not prag-
matically-fashioned historical works from which he must have artificially constructed his lists.
He himself testifies in some places, that what he presents in genealogies and other lists of
names is not the fruit of his arranging and editing care, but is derived from sources of a
genealogical kind. For at the tribe of Gad, 1 Chron. v. 17, he refers to a list of the families
of this tribe that was prepared in the time of Jotham, king of Judah, and Jeroboam n. of
Israel ; at Issachar, 1 Chron. vii. 2, he refers to a census of this tribe made in the time of
David ; and it is said, ix. 1, that a census of "all Israel," that is, of the whole northern
kingdom, had been made. And as in the second or historical portion reference is several
times (xxiii. 3, 27, xxvi. 31, xxvii. 24) made to a census in the reign of David, and as the
book of Nehemiah, which so nearly resembles our work in contents, mentions a list of the
heads of the Levitical houses prepared in the time of the high priest Johanan (xii. 23),
and a register found by Nehemiah of the families that returned with Zerubbabel from'tho
INTRODUCTION. 17
exile (vii. 5 ; comp. also Ezra ii. 59, 62), it appears not only highly probable, but absolutely
certain, that there were ample and authentic genealogical sources from which our author took
his lists. And it certainly appears from 1 Chron. xxiv. and ix. 1 (comp. Neh. xii. 23) as if
a part at least of these sour&s had been a constituent part of a greater historical work,
namely, that old chronicle of the kingdom which is entitled, 1 Chron. xxvii. 24, Dibre
hajjamim (the book of the chronicles of King David), and, ix. 1, as " the book of the kings of
Israel." In particular, the short lists in 1 Chron. v. and vii. of the ten tribes according to
their families and houses, may be extracts from the genealogical and statistical part of these
old annals of the kingdom; while the lists of a purely chronological kind, which refer to
celebrated families or to single persons, of public or of eminent private character, may have
come rather from the old family archives, to which our author, or other collectors before him,
had found access. It is at all events natural to suppose that the endeavours of the times of
Zerubbabel and Ezra to enter into relation with the time before the exile, and to make the
most diligent use of the connection with it, prepared the way for his hunting up and making
use of these genealogical registers. " In the endeavour of the new community to restore the
old relations, the divisions of the tribes, being connected with the whole remnant of the old
community, must have acquired a new importance, and Chronicles is itself a proof of the
attention that was paid to them. Its author gladly admits lists into his work, because he
himself in this respect moves in the direction prevalent in his time. In short, from various
sides comes to us the certainty, that the author of Chronicles was able to draw older lists of
the divisions of the tribes and their number from other sources perhaps, but also, according
to his own showing, from historical works in which the results of the registration and
numeration of the families were collected. And his lists themselves point to a derivation
from historical works; for they contain brief historical accounts standing in the closest con-
nection with the recited names, and in them occurs the remark that something has continued
" unto this day " (1 Chron. iv. 41, 43, v. 26), — a remark which, it is evident, cannot proceed
from him who was charged with making out the lists, and is not added by the author of
Chronicles, because it refers not to his time, but to the date of the work used by him, and is
taken thence along with the other data" (Bertheau, p. xxxi. f.). Even an approximately
exact determination of the date of these lists can scarcely be given, because often an old list
may have been carried on some steps, either by our author or by some earlier investigators or
collectors before him, so that its original closing point can no longer be clearly ascertained.
Meanwhile, the fact that there were older or younger genealogical sources on which he rested
in ch. ii.— ix., is by no means disturbed or rendered doubtful by the partial uncertainty of
their age, or the impossibility of sharply separating them from one another.
II. A still more ample array of ancient sources and accounts must have been accessible to
our author for his second or historical part; for at the death of almost every king he refers
to writings in which his acts and the events of his reign are recorded; only in Joram,
Ahaziah, Athaliah, and in the later kings Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, are these
references to older sources wanting. He cites in all the following sources: —
1. In David, the " words " {dibre) of Samuel the seer, of Nathan the prophet, and Gad the
seer ("spier"), 1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2. In Solomon, the " words" of Nathan the prophet, the
prophecy (nW3J) of Ahijah of Shilo, and the "visions" (nirn) of Iddi the seer against
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, 2 Chron. ix. 29; 3. In Rehoboam, the " words" of Shemaiah the
prophet and of Iddo the seer, xii. 15 ; 4. in Abijah, the " Midrash " of Iddo the prophet, xiii. 22;
5. In Asa, the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, xvi. 11 ; 6. In Jehoshaphat, the
" words" of Jehu the son of Hanani, which were inserted in the book of the kings of Israel,
xx. 34; 7. In Joash, the " Midrash " of the book of the kings, xxiv. 27 ; 8. In Ainaziah, the
book of the kings of Judah and Israel, xxv. 26 ; 9. In Uzziah, a " writing" (ana) of Isaiah
the prophet, xxvi. 22 ; 10. In Jotham, the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, xxvii. 7 ;
11. In Ahaz, the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, xxviii. 26; 12. In Hezekiah, the
"vision" (;irn) of Isaiah the prophet, in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel,
xxxii. 32; 13. In Manasseh, the "words" of the kings of Israel, as well as the words of
Chosai, xxxiii. 18, 19 ; 14. In Josiah, the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, xxxr. 27 ;
15. In Jehoiakim. the same work, xxxvi. 8.
B
18 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
That this list of sources admits, Bay demands, a considerable number of reductions, appears
indubitable, if we reflect that the thrice quoted "book of the kings of Judah and Israel" can
hardly have been different from the as often quoted " book of the kings of Israel and Judah,"
and also bear in mind the obvious identity of the "book of the kings of Israel" mentioned in
No. 6, and the "words of the kings of Israel" quoted in No. 13, with that Israelito- Jewish
book of Kings. For the name " Israel " in the latter two references can only be the collective
designation of the whole people (as it deals, in both rases, with accounts of the kingdom Df
Judah, and not of the northern kingdom); and the phrase "book," or "words," — that &,
events, history of the kings of Israel, — appears to be merely an abbreviation of the more
complete title. According to this well-ascertained assumption, which is shared by almost all
recent writers (Movers, Ewald, Bertheau, Dillm., Keil, Graf, and Fiirst, GescJi. der bib!.
Liter, ii. p. 214), the sources here quoted of a properly historical (not prophetical) character
reduce themselves to one chief work — a great annalistic history of the kingdom of all Israel.
It remains doubtful whether the book used by the author for the reign of Joash, which he
calls the "Midrash" of the book of Kings, was identical with this great work, or different
from it. For the identity, Keil had formerly maintained {EM. 1 Aufl. p. 494) that the
history of Joash agrees as exactly with 2 Kings as the history of those kings for which the
book of the kings of Israel and Judah is quoted ; but he has recently acknowledged the
objections raised to this by Bertheau to be on the whole plausible, or at all events difficult to
refute. Accordingly, it would be hazardous to hold the phrase "IQD CTIO as at once equiva-
lent to the simple 1BD, even if we wished to take EH1D, after 2 Chron. xiii. 22, in the sense
of essay, treatise (so Ewald, Gescli. Isr. i. 295), and not rather, as appears more obvious, and
creates no tautology with nsD, in that of exposition, commentary (Gesen., Thenius, Fiirst,
etc.). And the assumption appears not far-fetched, that "the connection in which the
apostasy of the king, the prophecy of Zechariah, and the victory of a small number of Syrians
over the numerous host of the Jews stand in Chronicles, was set forth prominently in a
Midrash or exposition of the book of the kings of Israel and Judah" (Bertheau, p. xxxiii.).
The weight of these grounds for assuming the diversity of the "Midrash" of the book of the
kings quoted 2 Chron. xxiv. 27 from that book itself, cannot be mistaken. Yet it still
remains uncertain whether we are to regard it as an explanatory work referring to the whole
book of Kings, that might be used even elsewhere without express mention by our author, or
as consisting of elucidations or digressive additions referring merely to the reign of Joash and
its relations. The first view is that of Fiirst (in p. q.), who, on the ground of Talmudic usage,
explains the term Midrash by " enlargement of the history from oral or written tradition," and
transfers this process of legendary enlargement of the old book of Kings, or embellishment of
it with historical "Midrash," to the first Persian period, without being able, however, to
adduce definite grounds for this course.
It is difficult, also, to decide the question concerning the relation of the book of the kings
of Israel and Judah, so often quoted by our author, to the works often adduced in the
canonical books of Kings, which are there separately designated as " the book of the chronicles
(dibre hajjamim) of the kings of Israel," and the book of the chronicles of the kings of
Judah. In contents, these annalistic sources of the canonical book of Kings must be identical
with the chief written source of our Chronist, as the mostly verbal agreement of the accounts
concerning the same transaction in that, as in this, shows. But what was to the author of
the book of Kings two distinct works, one referring to the north and one to the south
kingdom, this the Chronist must have had before him in the shape of one single work ; for
he quotes it under the name of the book of the kings of Israel for several of "the southern
kings, and for such even after the downfall of the northern kingdom as Manasseh, Josiah,
and Jehoiakim. It is now a question, however, whether this single source of the Chronist
was a later elaboration or combination of the dibre hajjamim, or old annals, quoted separately
by the author of the book of kings of Israel and Judah, which were no longer extant or was
to be held as nothing else than our present book of Kings, so that the wavering manifold way
of designating it was to be set down merely to the account of the defect of our author in
diplomatic accuracy. Against the latter assumption (still not unfavourably discussed by
Keil, p. 20 of his Comment.) speaks decidedly, a, the circumstance that the Chronist often
refers to the book of the Kings, etc., as a source presenting full details, whereas the canonical
INTRODUCTION. 19
books of Kings present not at all a fuller, but quite a briefer statement (comp. for example,
his account of Jotham 2 Cbron. xxvii. with 2 Kings xv. 32-38) ; 6, the circumstance that the
Chronist presents a mass of accounts for which we look in vain in the books of Kings ; and
c, the statement contained in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18 concerning Manasseh, that his prayer to
God, and the words of the seers that spake to him, are written in the words of the kings of
Israel, by which our canonical book of Kings, with its very meagre account of Manasseh,
cannot possibly be meant. Equally impossible is, however, also the supposition of the identity
of the annalistic sources of the Chronist with the double dilre hajjamim of the books of Kings
(Keil, Bleek, Davidson, etc.) ; for these are uniformly quoted as two different works, the one
referring to Israel, the other to Judah. On the other hand, the Chronist never uses the name
dibre hajjamim for his source; for it could only be in 1 Chron. xxvii. 24 that he referred to it
under this name, which, however, canDot be called probable, and if it were the case, would
of itself prove nothing. In short, the apprehension of the " book of the kings of Israel' and
Judah " as a later combination of the dibre hajjamim mentioned in the books of Kings (Ewald,
Bertheau, Dillm., Graf, Noldecke, etc.) remains alone probable. Scarcely anything more
definite can be ascertained concerning the form and date of these two annalistic sources, of
which the older, twofold in form, forms the basis of the books of Kings ; the younger, parallel
to this, that of Chronicles. Only so much appears, that they bore not a political- official, but
rather a prophetical character, — that is, they were not at once identical with the official records
of the acts and events of the several reigns made by the royal chancellors or historiographers
(D'H'atO) (as Jahn, Movers, Stahelin, and others thought), but annalistic representations of
the history of the kingdom derived from these official records, composed by prophetic writers,
and, therefore, conceived in a prophetic spirit, and like our books of Kings and Chronicles,
founded upon them, breathing a prophetic pragmatism. Farther, with respect to the date of
these old annalistic histories of the kingdom, this at least appears certain, that the older
works used by the author of the books of Kings were composed before the fall of the two
kingdoms, as the oft-recurring formula " unto this day " presumes clearly the existence of the
kingdom in question, and that the new elaboration of those old annals used as the chief
source of the Chronist must have originated at least before the exile, because this also some-
times presents the phrase under circumstances that forbid the dating of the collection after
the exile (see 2 Chron. v. 9, viii. 8, x. 19, xxi. 10, and therewith comp, 1 Kings viii. 8, ix. 13,
21, xii. 19, 2 Kings ii. 22, viii. 22, x. 27, xiv. 7, xvi. 6). Comp. Keil, Comment, p. 21 ft., who
justly infers the composition of the sources in question before the exile from the double
circumstance— " that, on the one hand, the references to these annals in both kingdoms
continue not to the last kings, but (so at least in the book of Kings, 2 Kings xv. 31, xxxiv. 5)
close for the kingdom of Israel with Pekah, for that of Judah with Jehoiakim; on the other
hand, in several events the formula ' unto this day ' occurs, which, because it mostly refers
not to the time of the exile, but to the times of the still existing kingdom, cannot proceed
from the authors of our canonical books of Kings and Chronicles, but is taken over from the
sources used, and in these can only then be rightly conceived, if they were written » more or
less brief time after the events." How completely arbitrary are, therefore, such dates as
those of Noldecke {Die Alttestamentl. Literal, p. 59), namely, that the dibre hajjamim, or
" old lost chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah," were first composed about 550 B.C.,
during the exile, and the head source of the Chronist thence derived (the book of the
kings of Israel and Judah), like the parallel canonical books of Kings, were of still later
origin, — this needs no special proof. And again, that the latest times before the exile
might very well be the date of the prophetic annals serving the Chronist as chief source,
must be evident enough, when we think of the efforts of a king like Josiah, and the learned
literary labour of a prophet like Jeremiah. Against Bahr's opinion (Die Bilcher der K. vol.
vii. of the Bibelw. p. ix. ff.), that for the activity of an annalistic collector such as is now
under consideration, the time shortly before the fall of the kingdom, the time of complete
disorder, seems to be the least adapted, Keil appears to be justified in mentioning the prophet
Jeremiah, who belongs precisely to this time, and must have been particularly occupied with
the older sacred writings. And like the writings of this prophet, an annalistic historical
work such as that in question might very well escape the destructive catastrophes of the
time of Nebuchadnezzar, and by some means come into the hands of its later extractors and
20 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
redactors (namely, the author of the canonical book of Kings, who, according to Bahr, p. viii.,
wrote still during the exile and in Babylon, and then our author after the exile).
Further, with regard to the prophetical writings above enumerated under Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 9,
12, and 14, it is a question whether we are to see in these independent historical works, or
mere constituent parts of the before-mentioned " book of the kings of Israel and Judah."
Against the independence affirmed by most older writers, and recently by Bleek, Davidson,
Furst, Keil, etc., and for the hypothesis that they were merely sections of the great annalistic
book of Kings, named after certain contemporary prophets, Ewald, Berth., Dillm., Noldecke,
and even Bahr in p. q., mainly urged the circumstance, that of two of these prophetic writings,
the dibre of Jehu (No. 6) and the " vision " of Isaiah (No. 12), it is expressly said by the
Chronist that they were in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, or what amounts to the
same thing, were inserted in it (No. 6). But, 1. What is said of these two writings can
scarcely be transferred at once to all other writings of this kind ; the notice referring to their
incorporation into the greater historical work, or their belonging to it, must have been repeated
oftener than once or twice, if serious doubt of their independence were to be justified. 2. The
"Midrash" of the prophet Iddo mentioned 2 Chron. xiii. 22 (No. 4), even because it is called
a Midrash, cannot possibly be regarded as a separate section or integral part of the great book
of Kings ; rather might it have been a separate part of the after-mentioned (xxiv. 27) "Mid-
rash of the book of Kings," but would still even then be considered distinct from that older
historical work. 3. The statement made regarding Isaiah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 22, that he "wrote
(3J"I3) the acts of Uzziah, first and last," may certainly refer to a historical book composed by
him, and incorporated at once into the great book of Kings, and so be understood in the sense
of that hypothesis; but by the prophecy (nttfDJ) of Ahijah of Shilo, and the visions (nitn)
of Iddi against Jeroboam (2 Chron. ix. 29, No. 2), it is highly improbable that we are to
understand historical works. These writings, as well as the incidentally-mentioned vision of
Isaiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 32), appear to have been rather books of prophecy, with occasional
historical notices; writings which, from their predominant character, were little fitted for in-
corporation in a great historical work, and of which, therefore, if such incorporation took place,
it needed to be expressly mentioned (as in the vision of Isaiah above). 4. And where these
writings of prophets are introduced with the term dibre, "words," as in Samuel, Nathan, and
Gad (No. 1), in Nathan (No. 2), in Shemaiah and Iddo (No. 3), in Jehu (No. 6), and in Chozai
(No. 10), it is at least as natural, after the analogy of the superscriptions in Amos i. 1, Jer.
i. 1, etc., to think of books of prophets as of historical notices ; and it is at all events significant,
that only of one of these prophetic works, the dibre of Jehu son of Hanani, is its insertion in
the book of the kings of Israel expressly mentioned, whereas of the remainder nothing of the
kind is stated. 5. The dibre Chozai (Tin '"Dl), indeed, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19, are named
along with "the words of the kings of Israel " (as in ver. 18) as historical sources for the reign
of Manasseb, and thus plainly distinguished from the book of Kings, and by no means repre-
sented as part of it. Whether these dibre Chozai were actually the writing of an otherwise
unknown prophet, Chozai or Chazai (possibly an abbreviation of rPtn ; comp. Furst, ii. 216),
or the phrase be rather identical with Qi}nn i-i:n in the previous verse, so that an error in
writing is to be assumed, and the original reading, according to the Xo'yo; Tuv i^unav of the
Sept., restored, — in any case, here is an independent prophetic book, distinct from the old book
of Kings, which is not very favourable to the hypothesis that all these various writings belong
to that historical work. 6. And the somewhat obscure and ambiguous phrase t»rvni"6 after
the form of quotation, " Are they not written in the words of Shemaiah the prophet and of
Iddo the seer" (2 Cbron. xii. 15 ; see above, No. 3), can afford no proof of the dependence of
the two works to which it refers. For whether we interpret this enigmatical phrase by "on
genealogy," or, supplying in or TYl Ds3, by "on the genealogy of the house of David,"1 in
no case does it appear an addition from which the dependence of the " words of Iddo the
1 The latter assumption is rendered probable by the rendering of the Targumist : " in the "enealogy of
the house of David." It has, at all events, far more for it than the unmeaning ».) »,«£„< «i«5 0f the
Sept. (which Movers, p. 179, labours in vain to reduce to a various reading of the original), or the no less
unintelligible et diligenter expotita of the Vulg. Comp. also Furst in p. q., p. 215, and in bis Hebrew
Lexicon under CITHn.
INTRODFCTION. 21
eeer," that is, their belonging to a greater work of another kind, must bo concluded ; for not
the place where those words of Iddo are to be found (Ew., Berth., etc.), but rather the end
they are to serve, — their purpose, namely, to be a genealogy, — appears to have been intended
by the preposition ^. 7. Further, from the circumstance that " reference is male for the whole
history of David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Jehoshaphat (as well as Uzziah) to prophetic writingo,
and likewise for the whole history of Asa, Amaziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Josiah to the book
of the kings of Israel and Judah " (Berth, p. xxxvi.), no argument can be drawn for the
assumption of one connected historical work of which those prophetic writings were only
separate facts. From that circumstance, it merely follows "that in some kings the prophetic
writings, in others the history of the kingdom, contained everything important on their life
and reign, and that the history of the kingdom presented also accounts concerning the action
of the prophets in the kingdom, as the prophetic writings concerning the affairs of the kings "
(Keil, p. 23). What grounds determined the Chronist to refer for the one king to the royal
annals, and for the other to the prophetic writings, it is impossible to conjecture, and it wou'd
be equally impossible to ascertain, in the case of the dependence of both kinds of writing (so
if the question were about only two ways of quoting one and the same greater work). 8.
Lastly, if (by Bahr, in p. q., p. viii. ff.) the verbal agreement of certain sections declared by
our Chronist to be taken from the writings of particular prophets, as Nathan, Shemaiah and
Iddo, Isaiah and Chozai, with the sections of the books of Kings that are quoted as taken
from the old royal annals of Israel or of Judah, is urged to make it probable "that the book
of the kings of Judah consisted of the historical writings of several prophets or seers," this
line of argument cannot be admitted as cogent. For Chronicles exhibits ill the reigns of
Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Uzziah, and Manasseh, along with some things verbally agreeing
■with the books of Kings, whole series of accounts exclusively its own, for which the prophetic
writings in question must have formed the source. And that a partly verbal accordance of
their accounts with those of the old book of Kings takes place, only proves that this work was
composed by the use of still older prophetic writings, to which a very high value belonged as
contemporary records, but not that those prophetic writings formed integral parts of the book
of Kings. It may be that the words of Nathan the prophet were taken in great part into his
work by the later compiler of those dibre hajjamim from which the author of the canonical
book of Kings mainly drew, and likewise the words (res gestx, note-books) of Gad, Shemaiah,
Iddo, etc. But must the independent existence of these old prophetic sources forthwith
cease? Might not these prophetic books, also, like the dibre hajjamim or the "history of the
kings of Israel and Judah " derived from them, if not collectively, yet in great part, have been
preserved through the storms of the exile, to serve the collectors after the exile as sources and
helps for their annalistic compilations? Where so many and so variously named sources are
adduced, as in our author, it is most natural to suppose him actually to have access to a very
rich field of original materials. The contrary supposition, which refers the constant change in
his citations partly to unnecessary parade of literary knowledge and unmeaning fondness for
a piebald multiplicity of terms, partly to inaccuracy or negligence, encounters far greater
difficulties, and makes such a variety of hypothetical helps necessary, that it cannot be regarded
as moving on the soil of sound historical investigation.
Moreover, it must be, and is confessed by the opponents of our hypothesis, for example by
Bertheau, p. xxxviii., that our author, besides the sources actually cited, may have used an
indefinite number of such works as he did not find it necessary to adduce. Thus, for his list
of David's heroes (1 Chron. xi. 10-47), David's worthies in Hebron (xii.), the military and
civil officers of this king (xxvii.), the families and divisions of the Levites, priests, singers, etc.
(xxiii.-xxvi.), he certainly used old documents, which, however, he does not think it necessary
expressly to adduce, perhaps because it was understood of itself that they were of an official
kind, and therefore trustworthy (comp. for example, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4, where the author
makes Josiah mention at the feast of the Passover a ana of David and a 3D3D of Solomon
concerning the services of the Levites and priests, or the temple liturgy, — documents, without
doubt, which he himself had used in those sections of his first book [xxiii.-xxvi.]), or which
he did not cite, "because he had taken them wholly into his work" (Keil), so that there was
no place for a reference to them for further details. That our canonical books of Samuel and
Kings belong to these rich sources v.ied by our author is still possible ; for the frequent veibal
22 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
coincidence of his accounts with those of these books, may in some cases rest on the direct oae,
as well as on the copying, of a common ancient source ; and it would not be impossible that
by the words of Samuel the seer (nxin $>NW' njn) cited in 1 Chron. xxix. 29 our books
of Samuel were meant. Yet the pretty numerous material as well as formal and verbal
variations, which the parallel texts present almost everywhere, form a weighty counterpoise
against, this supposition ; and what Movers, p. 95 ff., de Wette {Einl. § 192a), Ewald {Gesch.
i. 238), Bleek {Einl. § 167, p. 400), and recently Graf {Die ge.ichichtl. Backer, p. 114 ff.)
have adduced in its favour, appears, from the replies produced by Havernick, Bertheau, and
especially by Keil {Einl. § 144, 2), to be, if not quite refuted, yet shaken in such a degree,
that far the greater probability lies on the side of those who exclude our books of Samuel and
Kings from the sources used by the Chronist.
§ 6. CREDIBILITY OF THE CHRONIST.
The question of the credibility of our author would be simply answered by the remarks
already made on his historical sources, and would admit of no unfavourable answer, if
throughout and in every respect a faithful use of his sources may be presumed. That this
praise can only be conceded to him in a limited sense, has been recently asserted, after the
example of K. H. Graf (in p q. p. Ill ff.), again by several critics, as Ed. Riehm {Stud, und
Krit. 1868, ii. p. 376 ff.), H. Sehultz {Altttstamentl. Theol. ii. p. 274 f.), H. Holtzmann (in
Bunsen's Bibelwerk, vol. iv. part 2, p. 12 ff.), and even Bertheau {Jdhrb. f. deutsche Theol.
1866, p. 159 f.). The latter had formerly defended the substantial credibility of the author,
as one employing good old sources, and using them with sedulous care, against the blunt
attacks of de Wette and Gramberg (who made the Chronist merely copy the books of Samuel
and Kings, but in all places deviating from them, distorting them in an arbitrary manner,
misinterpreting, embellishing, or supplementing by invented additions1), and thus almost
without reserve accepted that which J. G. Dahler {De libr. Paralip. auctoritate ulque fide hist.,
Argentor. 1819), Movers {Krit. Untersuch., etc.), Keil {Apol. Versuch and Einl. ins A. T.),
Havernick {Einl. 1839), Ewald, and others had brought forward on behalf of the Chronist.8
On the contrary, he is now {Jahrbucher f. d. Theol. in p. q., in a review of Graf's work, and
ji art. " Chronik " in Schenkel's Bibel-Lex.) gone over to the modified reproduction of the
de Wette-Gramberg view attempted by Graf, at least so far as to confess that he had not
formerly estimated highly enough, nor duly considered, the proper action of the author of
Chronicles ; he had taken him for a more trustworthy and objective extractor from his sources
than he really was. Th. Noldecke has gone still farther, in his treatise on Die Alttestamentl.
Literat. (1868, p. 59 ff.). By such sentences as, " All great wars mentioned only in Chronicles
must be very suspicious," "his narrative is therefore very defective," "he proceeds very
negligently, and often contradicts himself," and so on, he has almost wholly returned to the
position of Gramberg, and has thereby incurred the severe censure even of F. Hitzig. The
latter not long ago (in a conversation on Nbldecke's paper concerning the inscription of Mesha,
king of Moab, in the Heidelberg Jahrb. der Literat. 1870, p. 437) expressed his surprise to
hear Mr. Noldecke assert that "the account 2 Chron. xx. is a strange story, only a trans-
formation of 2 Kings iii., with the removal of difficulties, and the addition of a great deal of
edifying matter." He further remarks : " This is the strangest thing that has occurred to the
writer 6ince Volkmar wished to see the Apostle Paul in the false prophet of the Apocalypse.
Has Mr N ever thought of the origin of the valley of Jehoshaphat in Joel iv. 2 ? Has he
1 De Wette, Beitr. zur Einl. ins A. T. i., Halle 1806, and Lehrb. der hist.-krit. Einl., etc., 1817,
6th ed. 1845 ; C. P. W. Gramberg, Die Chron. nach ihrem geschichtl. CharaUer und ihrer Glaubumrdig-
Iceit neu geprilft, Halle 1823. Comp. also Gesenius, Gesch. der Hear. Sprache und Schrift, 1815, § 12,
p. 37 ff., and Komment. zu Jes., 1821, i. 268 ff.
2 Kurzgef. exeg. Handb., Einl. p. xliii. : "That the author of Chronicles ever intentionally distorted
the sense or made false statements does not appear from the comparison of the sections parallel with
Samuel and Kings. The parallel sections rather warrant the assumption, that even where he imparts
accounts and statements that are not found in the other books of the O. T. , he adhered most closely
to his sources," etc. Quite similar to this is the language of Dillmann in the art. " Chronik " in Herzog'e
Beal-Encycl. p. 693.
INTRODUCTION. 23
read Movers on Chronicles ? And is he always so bright, that he should stain the hypotheses
of others? Quis tulerit Gracchos?" etc.
We cannot but see in this venomous onslaught of the Heidelberg theologian a chastisement
on the whole deserved ; for even in the more moderate and more carefully supported views of
Graf there is expressed, in our opinion, a great deal of hypercritical arrogance and vehement
prejudice against our author. Accordingly he appears as a biassed historian going to work
in an unconscionable manner, idealizing, embellishing, and often capriciously transforming on
a narrow Levitical principle, moved by the desire to write the history of the Jews, so that it
shall be an impressive admonition to keep the commandments of God, especially to observe
the ordinances of worship, and at the same time a solemn warning against apostasy from
God. Instead of adhering closely to that which is found in his sources, he stamps on his work
(which is a history of the Church more than of the people or kingdom) throughout his
Levitical-priestly tendency, along with the characteristic spirit of his late age ; he writes the
history so as the variously-distorting and colouring mirror of the fourth century B.C. reflects
i*) and on behalf of the tastes and requirements of his contemporaries, seizes glaring colours,
institutes striking contrasts, and handles the original material capriciously after his manner
(comp. Berth, in the Jahrbuchern fur deutsche Theol. in p. q.). Thus he makes use of the
books of Samuel and Kings as if not the only, yet the principal sources, leaves out what ap-
pears to have no interest for his time and tendency, and alters their reports in various places
as he requires, by means of enlarging insertions, various changes of meaning, and recastings,
so that the number of passages borrowed by him from these books appears much smaller than
it really is. Such is, above all, his whole history of David (1 Chron. x.-xxix.), a work formed
by the manifold transformation of the corresponding account in the books of Samuel ; only
the lists of names inserted therein, especially those in ch. xxiii.-xxvii., are derived' from
special sources, — by no means, however, more respectable nor earlier than the exile ; and the
words of Samuel the seer, of Nathan the prophet, and of Gad the seer, mentioned 1 Chron.
xxix. 29, are not special prophetic writings of a high age, but mere sections of our canonical
books of Samuel. Thus it cannot be determined how far those sources are only freely and
inaccurately used by him ; and this applies as well to the sources of the history of David as to
the genealogical sources used by him in the time before David (in 1 Chron. i.-ix.). Farther,
our Chronist's representation of the history of Solomon (2 Chron. i.-ix.) is merely elaborated
on the basis of 2 Kings i.-xi., with the omission of Solomon's secular doings, his palace build-
ing, and idolatry ; only in viii. 36 gleams forth a peculiar source different from 1 Kings ix.
17-19, which is used by him. Such sources also, differing from the text of the book of Kings,
are used in the sections on Rehoboam (2 Chron. xi. 5-xii. 18-23), Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat,
Ahaziah, Joash, Uzziah, Jotham, and Hezekiah. Throughout the Chronist has made use of
these sources, which are all to be referred to the " book of the kings of Israel and Jud ah "
lying at the root of the canonical books of Kings, in accordance with his object. This trans-
forming bias of the Chronist appears most surprising in the narrative of the fali of Athaliah
by the co-operation of the priests and Levites (xxiii.) ; as also in the embellished accounts of
the successful wars of Abijah against the northern kingdom (xiii.), in which, at the most, the
statement of the three cities conquered by him (ver. 19) rests on old written sources ; and
likewise in the account of Solomon's ascending the throne (1 Chron. xxviii. 29), the deviations
of which from 1 Kings i. are due to the inventive turn of the Chronist, and not to any written
or oral traditions whatever ; as well as in the accounts concerning the divisions of the
priests, Levites, and singers in David's preparation for the temple, and in the building and
consecration of it by Solomon, wherein it is evidently the design of the writer to represent
the relations of these religious officials as already existing at the time of the founding of the
temple.
The Kpmov tptvies of Graf's accusations and suspicions of the historical character of our
work wnsists in the totally unfounded presupposition, that the author made use of the
canonical books of Samuel and Kings almost alone, as sources, and that his deviations from
them are to be ascribed to the caprice of the redactor. We have already shown it to be
extremely probable that our author made no use whatever of these books (§ 5). The number
of passages in which there is a verbal coincidence of his accounts with those of the older
historical books is comparatively small, and even these may without much difficulty be re-
garded as flowing from a common source, so that the assumption that they belong to the
24 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
sources of our author appears by no means necessary. But even if it were proved, both that
he drew from the historical books of the canon, and that he made a free use of them with an
occasional departure from them, his credit as a trustworthy historian in all essential matters
would suffer no more than it would from a similar use of his other materials.
1. For his parenetic tendency permitted him, if he did not interfere with the objective
historical fact, in numerous cases to transform the old accounts to suit bis peculiar Levitical-
ecclesiastical pragmatism, to which, in respect of the times of our author, as full a privilege
must be conceded as to the theocratico-prophetic pragmatism of the older historians (comp.
the examples to be adduced under No. 4). And that the non-subjective mode of our historian,
compared with the more objective fashion of the books of Kings, led to no distortions, falsifi-
cations, or arbitrary transformations of facts, is manifest from the ciicumstance already
noticed, that he has not kept back all that was at his command on behalf of his pragmatic
tendency, and has often omitted matters of consequence for his point of view, so that he may
be justly charged with a certain degree of inconsistency (comp. § 4).
2. A quite harmless and allowable class of alterations, that our author makes in his
materials, refers to the genealogical lists, especially those of the first part, where he in part
arranges anew and groups in certain proportions the lists of names taken from the Pentateuch,
not so much to aid the memory as to exhibit the numerical law and symbolic import of these
parts of sacred history. Thus he not only in ch. i. keeps apart the ten patriarchs from
Adam to Noah and the ten from Noah to Shem, but derives, certainly without defining or
marking this by giving express prominence to the number, 70 nations from Noah, 70 families
from Abraham, and 70 descendants from Judah (i. 28, ii. 25), refers the eight sons of Jesse to
the sacred number seven, aud leaves out, partly from a religious and symbolic consideration,
the tribe of Dan repeatedly in his enumeration of the tribes (see on vii. 12). It is obvious
that by none of these idealizing changes of the genealogical matter that come to hand is a
proper distorlion of the historical relations effected, and still less by so many other less
intentional alterations, such as the transpositions and reductions iu the series of names in
Genesis ; for example, iv. 1 ff.
3. Another class of alterations, which proceed as little from caprice or culpable negligence,
belongs to the linguistic department. It consists in the exchange of many phrases and turns
belonging to the old Hebrew for the corresponding phrases of the later language, and has iu
most cases no deeper ground than such orthographic changes as the scriptio plena instead of
the defectiva, and the reverse — the introduction of later, Araniaizing forms instead of the older
ones To this belong the change of older formations, as roi>DD, narifl, D^iy, etc., into the
later nwTO, ponfi, Dib'j;; the change of the construction by omission of the infin. absol. with
the verb Jinit., or by the use of the preposition ^N or of n loc. in verbs of motion, as
S03, t]?n, TV]); the avoiding or paraphrasing of certain pregnant constructions of the older
language, and the like (comp. the collection of numerous examples of all these in Movers, p.
200 ff.; and after him, in Havernick and Keil, EM. § 142, p. 482 ff.). These deviations
from the old forms of the sources are of the less importance, as they are carried to a very small
extent, and the character of the original may almost always be clearly distinguished from that
of the chronicle.
4. Of scarcely more importance are those changes occasioned by the religious and dogmatic
*iews of the author, which, without touching the facts, bring out new aspects of the religious
side of the history. For example, in the account of David's numbering of the people where
the author (1 Chron. xxi. 1) refers that which in the older account (2 Sam xxi 1) is
represented as the direct effect of the divine wrath to the subordinate activity of Satan and
where he represents God's "being entreated" at the end of the older account (2 Sam xxiv
25) in a more concrete and pictorial manner as an " answering from heaven by fire upon the
altar of burnt-offering " (comp. also 2 Chron. vi. 1 with 1 Kings viii. 54 f.) ; or as in sucli
pragmatic reflective additions as 2 Chron. vii. 11 ("all that he wished to do in the house of
Jehovah and in his own house was successful," for which the older parallel 1 Kings ix 1 has
only " what he wished to do," etc.) ; likewise 2 Chron. viii. 11 (the ground on which Solomon
built a separate house for Pharaoh's daughter; comp. 1 Kings ix. 24) ; 2 Chron xxii 7 (aiving
prominence to the divine dispensation occasioning the death of king Ahaziah; comp 2 Kings
INTRODUCTION. 25
viii. 29) ; 2 Chron. xviii. 31 (" And Jehovah helped him, and God drove them from him ; n
comp. the account omitting all such remarks, 1 Kings xxii. 82 f.) ; also 1 Chron. x. 13 f.
(remark on Saul's deserved death ; comp. 1 Sam. xxxi. 12), and xi. 3 (reference to Samuel's
prophetic announcement of the coronation of David at Hebron ; comp. 2 Sam. v. 3).
5. A further class of deviations from the older parallel accounts involves a number of
actually erroneous statements, that are mostly to be ascribed to old corruptions of the text
either found in the sources of the Chronist or introduced into his work by the fault of
negligent transcribers, and therefore cannot affect the character and credibility of the author.
The only nearly certain example of an error on his part, arising apparently from geographical
ignorance, is the explanation of the Tarshish ships of the Red Sea as being designed to trade to
Tarshish (2 Chron. ix. 21 and xx. 36). This appears, according to 1 Kings x. 22, xxii. 49, to be
a real misinterpretation, ■which can be removed no more by an identification of Tarshish with
Ophir than by the supposition that our author was acquainted with a place of the name of
Tarshish (thus, an eastern Tartessus) in Ophir or its neighbourhood (comp. Bahr on 1 Kings
x. 22, and the exeg. expl. given on 2 Chron. ix. 21). If we except this one passage, all else of
an erroneous nature in his text is most probably to be reduced to errors in copying, that
either existed in his sources or were introduced into his text. Under this head come especially
the numbers which deviate from those in the books of Samuel and Kings, on account of
which it has been thought necessary (by de Wette, Gramberg, etc.) to impute to him arbitrary
exaggeration of the greatness of Israel before the exile, of his armies, population, treasures,
offerings, etc., without considering that the older historical books often exhibit notorious
corruptions of the text in numbers (for example, the 30,000 chariots of the Philistines in
1 Sam. xiii. 5, or the 70 men and 50,000 men of Bethshemesh in 1 Sam. vi. 19 ; comp. more
examples of this kind in Wellhausen, Der Text der Biicher Samuelis, etc., pp. 20, 66, 81, 133,
219, etc.), and that in some cases Chronicles gives the smaller and more credible number ; for
example, 2 Chron. ix. 25, where it mentions 4,000 stalls for Solomon's horses, which is
certainly more correct than the parallel text 1 Kings v. 6, where the number of these horses
and stalls amounted to 40,000 (comp. Bahr's crit. note on the p., p. 2G). As notorious instances
of textual corruption in numbers not due to the author, are to be noted 1 Chron. xxi. 5, where
the 1,1 00,000 men in Israel rests on a simple clerical error for 800,000 ; 2 Chron. xvi. 1, where,
instead of the 36th, the 16th year of Asa is to be read (as in the previous verse instead of
the 35th the 15th); 2 Chron. xx. 2, where the 42 years of King Ahaziah's age, instead of the
22 of 2 Kings viii. 26, appear to have arisen from the exchange of D aQd 3. That the use of
the letters for numbers is very ancient, and was adopted long before the Masoretic recension,
is proved by the circumstance that the Sept. exhibits in its text a great deal of the errors in
numbers arising from the exchange of letters, and indeed not merely in Chronicles, but in
various other books; for example, in Ezra ii. 69, where it reproduces the error of 61,000, instead
of 41,000, Darics from the Hebrew text (comp. Neh. vii. 70-72), and often also in the books of
Samuel, etc. Along with these numerical errors resting on the corruption of the text, there are
a great many cases in which the Chronist himself or his source before him shows decided
differences in his numbers from the other canonical books ; and these are by no means at once
to be ascribed to the boastful and exaggerating bias of the author. Rather, as Keil (Komm.
p. 30) justly points out, are we to bear in mind, wioh regard to these different numbers, a.
" That they are generally round numbers determined only to thousands, depend therefore not
on actual numbering but on loose estimates of contemporaries, and assert nothing more than
that the size of the army and the number of the slain or the captives was rated very high ; "
and 6. " That in the quantity of gold and silver collected by David for the building of the
temple, — 100,000 shekels or hundredweight (D""133) of gold and 1,000,000 hundredweight of
silver, 1 Chron. xxii. 13, — the actual amount cannot be ascertained, because we know not the
weight of the shekel of that day," — a circumstance that must be taken into account in many
other differences, as the exegesis of the several passages will show.
6. Actual deviations from the older historical works, but still none that can be charged to
our author as wilful distortions or falsifications, are contained in many of the speeches ascribed
to David, Abijah, Asa, and other kings, or even to private persons, especially prophets ; for
sxample, the speeches of David given in 1 Chron. xiii. 2 f., xv. 12 f., xxviii. 2-10, xxix.
I ff., 10 ff., which have little or no parallel in the books of Samuel ; that of Abijah, 2 Chron.
26 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
xiii. 4-12 ; of Asa, 2 Chron. xiv. 11 ; of Azariah son of Oded, 2 Chron. xv. 1-7 ; of Hezekiah,
2 Chron. xxxii. 7 f., etc. That the greater number of those speeches, if not all, were con-
tained in the sources of our author, may be concluded with sufficient certainty from the
one circumstance, that three speeches of Solomon which he communicates (2 Chron. i. 8-10,
vi. 4-11, 12-42) occur in almost the same words in the book of Kings, whence his fidelity
and care in the reproduction of such pieces are manifest. Here the speeches of different
persons distinguish themselves in a characteristic manner by their line of thought, their
figures and turns ; the peculiar speech and style of the Chronist is stamped upon them only
in a comparatively small degree. This is very striking in three of David's speeches, namely,
in the longer addresses relating to the future building of the temple by Solomon (1 Chrcn.
xxii. 7-16, xxviii. 2-22, xxix. 1-5). Here the author appears, as the manifold conformity of
that which is put in the mouth of David with his peculiarities in thought, speech, etc., shows,
to have acted pretty freely, and without resting on sources to have attempted an ideal
reproduction of the thoughts moving the soul of the aged king and uttered by him. But
the prayer of David annexed to the last of these addresses, 1 Chron. xxix. 10-19, proves
itself to be derived from ancient sources by its manifold coincidence with the Psalms of
David (see on vers. 11 and 15), especially ver. 18, with which it agrees in the characteristic
accumulation of predicates of God. And all the other speeches in question show similar
traces of old original peculiarities foreign or remote from the Chronist's manner of thought,
speech and style ; for example, that of Abijah, 2 Chron. xiii. 4-12, that, among other
accordances with our author, exhibits in the phrases Q'pn QiB>JX and byhl ^3 clear marks
of their connection with the usage of the time of David and Solomon ; that of Hezekiah,
2 Chron. xxxii. 7 f., in which the phrase -)B>2 JJ11T reminds us of his intercourse with the
prophet Isaiah (Isa. xxxi. 3) ; lastly, the shorter or longer utterances handed down by
various prophets, which generally contain much that is original, especially that of Azariah
son of Oded addressed to King Asa, 2 Chron. xv. 1-7, which, by its remarkable coincidence
with parts of the Oratio eschatoloyica of Christ, as Matt. xxiv. 6 f., Luke xii. 19, proves itself
to be an old independent creation of the genuine prophetic stamp (comp. C. P. Caspari,
Der syrisch-ephraim. Krieg, Christiania 1849, p. 55 ff.). Thus it is essentially the same with
the speeches given by our historian as with those in the other historical books, from the
Pentateuch and Judges down to the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John. The
original and subjective proper to the late reporter appears in them connected as matter and
form, as seed and shell, without any sharp distinction of the reporter's addition from the
original text. But a certain formative influence of the original type proper to the old source
appears in the diction and style of the younger writer. And as the glass transmits no light
without imparting its peculiar hue, or the instrument conveys no tone without its own
individual modification, so the physiognomy of the speeches in our book exhibits that
mutual influence of the proper individuality of the author and of the materials that have
come down to him from the past, that interchange of subjectivity and' objectivity, which
displays itself in a similar way in the speeches of Judges and Kings (especially the prophetical ;
comp. Delitzsch, KorAm. zu Jesaja, Eiul. p. xiv. f.), and also in the New Testament, in the
speeches of Christ in John, and of Peter, Stephen, and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles.
7. The last class of deviations chargeable to the subjectivity of the Chronist relates to the
descriptions of religious festivals, particularly in the history of David (1 Chron. xv., xvi.),
Solomon (2 Chron. v.-vii.), Hezekiah (xxix.-xxxi.), and Josiah (xxxv.), where the same
circumstantial description of certain acts of worship, especially of the playing and sinking
of the Levites and priests, constantly recurs, and always in essentially the same rhetorical
dress, and with the same phrases and liturgical formulas (comp. § 2 above). It may seem
at first sight that the author in such descriptions dates back the liturgical usages and
ceremonies of his own age, and transfers not only his Levitical and priestly mode of thought
but the religious customs and performances of his time, uncritically to the worship of the
reigns of David, Solomon, Hezekiah, etc. But the suspicions in this direction expressed by
de Wette, Gramberg, and recently by Graf, Nbldecke, Holtzmann, and others, rest on a
twofold misconception— (1) That the sacrificial worship, according to the rules of Leviticus
or the introduction of music and singing of psalms, dates from the exile ; and (2) that our
author, whenever he treats of the occurrence of such usages, writes wholly without ancient
INTRODUCTION. 27
Bources, and so lays himself open to the charge of arbitrary falsifications of history in favour
of his own views and times. On the contrary, the essentials of the form of worship
undoubtedly go back to the times of Moses, or at all events, long before the exile ; and the
modification which our author makes in his accounts of the festivals consists only in individual
touches and details, whereby he endeavours to trace out for himself and his readers a clear
picture of the actual events. That he herein allowed himself a certain drawing together of
far-separated times and customs, a presentation of earlier usages in the light of the current
times, — in short, a modernizing process in minor particulars, — does not on the whole mar the
credibility of his narrative. It may be that in 1 Ohron. xvi. 8-36, in describing the solemn
conveyance of the ark to Jerusalem, he lets a psalm be introduced by Asaph and his brethren
which David had not literally composed for this solemnity, but which was an ideal reproduc-
tion of the psalm then sung, but springing from a later time; that he allowed himself here
the same sort of substitution as if a modern historian were to set back Luther's " Ein feste
burg," etc., from the year 1530, or from the time of the Augsburg Diet, to which its origin
was really due, till the year 1521, or the time of the Diet of Worms. In like manner, what
is said (1 Chron. xxviii. 11-19) of the several materials and vessels of the future temple
which David reckoned up and handed over to Solomon may involve a proleptic idealizing and
altering of the transaction, which forms a deviation not only from the far simpler and shorter
account in the book of Kings, but from that which lay before the author regarding the last
acts of the reign of David. And so it may be with several other details of religious action
in the statements of our author ; for example, his notice of the temple gates and porticos
Bnder David (1 Chron. xxvi. 16-18), of the reform of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxix. ff.), etc.
On the whole, these freer combinations of historical events, corresponding with the priestly
Levitical pragmatism and parenetic tendency of the author, derogate nothing from the credi-
bility of his narrative. It remains, therefore, highly probable, that much if not most of these
modifications of the history before the exile had its root in the sources before the author,
particularly in the "book of the kings of Israel and Judah," the harmony of which, with his
views and predilections, must neither be exaggerated nor underrated (comp. Del. in p. q.,
p. xvi.).
On the whole, a marked subjective colouring of his narrative in the direction of the
priestly-Levitical standpoint may be ascribed to our author ; he may be charged with having
less aptitude for quiet, strictly objective conception and presentation of his materials than his
predecessors, the authors of the books of Samuel and Kings, and with putting forward his
didactic-moralizing bent often too strongly, and not always free from a legal externality of
thought and intuition. But it appears unwarranted to reproach him with a want of love for
the truth or an uncritical levity in dealing with facts, or to charge him with wilful invention
or falsification of history ; for the solid foundation of old original tradition gleams forth at
every step of his narrative, and conveys, even where he goes farthest from the parallel text
of the books of Kings, and brings in the most important supplements to their report, the
impression of the highest trustworthiness : for example, in the accounts of Eehoboam's
building of forts and his domestic concerns (2 Chron. xi. 5 ff., 18 ff.) ; in the statements
concerning the three cities conquered by Abijah, and concerning his family (xiii. 19-21) ; in
the history of Jehoshaphat, so full of concrete details of the most trustworthy kind (xvii.-xx.) ;
in the surprisingly exact yet obviously authentic statements concerning Amaziah's troops
jired from Israel, and the plundering raid in which they engaged after they were discharged
(xxv. o ff.) ; in the history of Manasseh, for the details of which he certainly, not without
grounds, refers to older sources, as the book of the kings of Israel and the words of Chozai
( xxxiii.) etc Th: Levitical -priestly and legal external stamp of his history may be regarded
as a characteristic mean between the prophetic pragmatism of the older historians, as the
authors of the books of Samuel and Kings, and the pharisaic pragmatism of the writers after
the canon, as the author of the 2 Maccabees, or Josephus.1 Yet he stands incomparably
nearer to his prophetic predecessors of the time of or immediately before the exile, than to
these Epigoni of all Old Testament history ; and not a trace is to be discovered in him, either
1 Comp. H. Schultz, Alttestamentl. Theol. ii. p. 274 f., and Oehler's remark on this passage (Allj.
liter. Anzeig. 1870, Nov., p. 340) : "The way in which here (in Chron.) the doctrine of retributiop
conies forth, forms the transition to the pharisaic rejection of it, as the comparison of the second book
af ll*)cabees exhibits also in this point the partition between Judaism in the canon and after it."
28 THE BOOKS OF CHRONICLES.
of the spiritless externality or fanatical rigorism of the doctrine of retribution as it appears
in such apocryphal books as Judith, 2 Maccabees, etc., or of the Rome-favouring, and there-
fore anti-national and untheocratic, pragmatism of the Pharisee Josephus.
Remark.— With respect to the text of Chronicles, Jerome perceived that the greatest
critical care must be taken, especially on account of the many names which are presented
in it, and have been variously corrupted and distorted in the Sept. and the Itala : " Ita et m
Gratis et Latinis codicibus hie nominum liber vitiosus est, ut non tarn Hebrgea quam .barbara
quxdam et Sarmatica nomina congesta arbitrandum sit." Thus he speaks in his Prief. in :ib.
Paralip. juxta Sept. interp. (Opp. t. x. p. 432, edit. Vail.); and he relates there that he
employed a learned Jew of Tiberias, and with him compared the text, " a vertice ut aiuvt usque
ad extremum unguem." In the relative fidelity and accuracy that otherwise notoriously exists
in this part of the Alexandrine version (and the Itala, which agrees with it word for word),*
this observation, which he was compelled to extend on further examination to the numerical
data of Chronicles, and to many other details, is certainly remarkable. In a still higher
degree must he have been surprised, on a more extended knowledge of languages and an
exacter method of critical investigation, by the state of the text of another old version of
our book, the Syriac version or Peshito (with its omissions of whole series of names, its
various gaps and interpolations, its transpositions and occasional arbitrary deviations from
the original).2 The acknowledgment of no small uncertainty of the original Hebrew text
itself is forced upon us in view of this serious corruption of the oldest versions, in which the
later of necessity participate; for example, the Arabic version derived from the Peshito,
likewise the comparatively young Targum originating scarcely before the seventh century
(published, with a Lat. vers., by M. F. Beck, Augustx Vindel. 1680, and with greater critical
care by Dav. Wilkins, Amsterdam. 1715, 4) ; and hence arises for expositors the equally
important and difficult problem of a frequent correction of the Masoretic text, to be cautiously
executed and wisely limited, according to those versions, as well as the p rallel passages in
the older books of the caDon. This necessity of an occasional amendment in numbers and
names, imposed by the peculiarity of the text of Chronicles, was acknowledged by J. Alb.
Bengel ; for on 2 Chron. xxviii. I (comp. xxix. 1) he adds the marginal note, Hie videtur
lectio Grmca, qux viginti quinque annos Achazo tribuit, prseferenda Hebrseo. " Errors may
have more easily crept into the books of Chronicles, because they were not publicly read as
the books of Moses,'' etc. (Contributions to Bengel's exposition, and his remarks on the
Gnomon N. T. from manuscript notes, published by Dr. Osk. Wachter, Leips. 1865, p. 18.)
To this well-grounded conjecture regarding the very numerous textual errors of our book
Bertheau also points (Komm. p. xlvii.) : " It appeal's as if the same careful regard was not
paid to the text by the Jews in older times, to which we owe the faithful transmission of that
form of the text of most other books of the Bible that came into general acceptance about
the time of Christ ; comp. for example, 1 Chron. xvii. 18, 21 ; 2 Chron. ii. 9, x. 14, 16,
xx. 25, xxvi. 5." That, moreover, the endeavour to refer the deviations of the Chronist from
the other historical books of the Old Testament to mere corruptions of the text may be
carried too far, and has been carried too far perhaps by Movers (p. 50 ff.), at all events by
Laur. Reinke in his Beitrdgen zur Erkl. des Alten T., Abhandl. I., has been justly pointed out
by Davidson, Introd. ii, p. 114 sq.
[The only error here traced to the Chronist, and supposed to arise from his ignorance of
ancient geography, is the statement that ships of Tarshish (1 Kings x. 22, xxii. 49) were
ships trading to Tarshish (2 Chron. ix. 21, xx. 36). It may turn out, however, that the error
1 MoveTS (p. 93) calls the translation of Chronicles in the Sept. "a careful, skilfully-performed, and
strictly literal version ;" he praises it as " one of the best efforts of these translators," and as " by far
surpassing that of the books of Samuel and Kings proceeding from another author." On the close
adherence of the old Itala to the text of the Sept., comp. Kontsch, Itala und Tulgata (Marb. 186yj ;
Fr. Kaulen, Geschichte der Tulgata (Mainz 1868), p. 137 ff. ; and Ernst Ranke, Par Palimpsestorum
Wirceburgensium, etc., Vindob. 1871.
1 As examples of omission of long series of names, comp. 1 Chron. ii. 45, 47-49, iv. 7 ff. ; also of
leaving out other long sections, 1 Chron. xxvi. 13-27, 2 Chron. iv. 11-17, xxix. 10-19 ; of interpolations,
1 Chron. xii. 1, 17-19, xvi. 3, 42 ; of transpositions, 1 Chron. xii. 15, 2 Chron. xxviii. 23-25 ; of devia-
tions from the text or very free translations, 1 Chron. ii. 52, iv. 12-18, iv. 33-39, 2 Chron. xxii. 19, etc
Comp. Bertheau, p. xlvhi. ; and for the like peculiarities of the Arabic version derived from it,
Koediger, de orig. et indole Arab, librorum V. T. historic, interpretationis, Hal. 1829, p. 104.
INTRODUCTION. 29
lies with the modern critic rather than with the ancient chronicler. It is recorded that
Pharaoh Neko (617-601 B.C.) employed Phoenician mariners to sail from the Arabian Gulf
round Africa, and return by the Pillars of Hercules (Herod, iv. 42), — a voyage which was
accomplished in three years. Herodotus accepts the fact, though he discredits the statement
that in sailing round Africa they had the sun on the right, — a statement which goes to prove
the veracity of the reporters. And until it is proved that the Phoenicians were not acquainted
with this way of reaching Tarshish by hugging the shore of Africa, and bartering as they
went along for ivory and other African commodities, the geographical error has not been
brought home to this ancient and otherwise accredited writer. (See further on the passages
in the Comm.) We merely add to what has been here so ably and thoughtfully said on the
general question of credibility, that the supposed bias or leaning of the writer of Chronicles is
due not to any real narrowness or onesidedness, but to the necessity of having some distinct
and important end in going over the same ground as the former historical works. This end is
that which justifies the production of another history of the past times. The chronicler, we
have no doubt, had the Pentateuch and the former prophets before him, containing the history
of the dealings of Ood with ma; from the beginning, to the fall of the kingdom of Judah by
the capture of the city of David and the burning of the temple of Solomon. He could have no
reason for going over any part of this ground, unless he had some new aspect of the history
to signalize, and some new lesson to convey to the people of God on returning from the
captivity. This new thing is the distinct and exclusive history of the kingdom of David, with
its peculiar arrangements for the worship of the temple, in which the orders of priests and
Levites were established, and the masters of song took a prominent part. This is to be the
system of things until it has given birth to a new economy or development of the kingdom of
God on earth. And the new lesson, which is indeed an old lesson, is the uniform dependence
of national prosperity and progress on intelligent and voluntary walking with God in all Hia
ordinances and commandments. Chronicles therefore stands to the older history as Deutero-
nomy to the preceding four books of Moses, or as John to the synoptical Gospels. It would
have no warrant for its place in the canon, if it did not show an object distinct from that of
the older history; and instead of ascribing its peculiar characteristic to the idiosyncrasy of
the author, it behoves us to discern in it the special purpose for which it was appended to the
previous record. We do not expand this hint at present, but leave it to the consideration of
the reader. With regard, moreover, to the psalm committed by David to Asaph, 1 Chron. xvi.
7, for thanking the Lord, see on the passage. — J. G. M.]
§ 7. LITERATURE.
Neither the exegetical nor the critical literature of this book is very rich ; indeed, there is
scarcely one portion of the Old Testament that has found fewer labourers either in the one
respect or the other. The older Jewish commentators shrank from the many difficulties
which the genealogies of the first chapters presented. Yet a tolerably full commentary on
our book has been ascribed to Rashi (R. Solomon Isaaki, + 1105), which, however, according
to J. Weisse in Kerem Chemed (Prague 1841 ; comp. Fuist, Bibl. Jud. ii. 85), cannot proceed
from this celebrated Rabbinical scholar of the Middle Ages. Other Rabbinical commentaries
are those of Joseph ben David Aben Jechija (comp. the edit, of D. Wilkins, Paraphrasis Chal-
daica in ii. lib. Chron. auctore R. Josepho, Amstel. 1715), and of Isaac ben R. Sol. Jabez ;
comp. Carpzov. Introd. in Vet. T. p. 298; also R. Simon's Hist. Critique da V. Test., Par. 1680,
p. 30.
Of the Church Fathers, Jerome (only in a cursory and meagre way in his Qusestiones Hebr.
in Chron., Opp. t. iii. 851 sq.), Theodoret, and Procopius of Gaza have commented on
Chronicles; comp. Theodoreti ipuTr,ati; tic /3. a'x. /3' n«/>«?i«/x., Opp. edit. Schulze, t. i. p.
554 ff., and Prncopv, Gaz. scholia in libb. Reg. et in Paralip., edit. Jo. Meursius., Lugd. Bat.
1620, 4. — A "Latin commentary on Chronicles of the 9th century" has been published by
Abr. Rahmer, Thorn 1866.
Modern expositors since the Reformation. — None of the Reformers have treated Chronicles
exegetically, not even Brenz, by whom there are commentaries on the collective historical
books of the Old Testament. The expository writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth
SO THE BOOKS OF UUKOJNIUL,*;».
centuries are mostly collected in M. Pole, Synopsis criticorum, etc., Lond. 1669 ff.— Special
prominence is merited by Lud. Laoateri Comment, in Paralip., Heidelb. 1599, on account of
the very careful treatment of the genealogical lists. Comp. also Victorin Strigel, C°m™- m
libb. Sam., Reg., et Paralip., Lips. 1591; Erasm. Sarcerius, Comm. in lib. Chron., Basil. 1560 ;
and the Catholic commentaries of Nie. Serrarius (Comm. in lib. Reg. et Parahp., Lugd. Bat.
1618), Casp. Sanctius (in Paralip. II. «., Antw. 1624, Lugd. 1632), Jac. Bonfrere (Comm m
libr. Reg. et Paralip., Tornac. 1643). Likewise M. Fr. Beck, Paraphr. Chaldaica u. Mr.
Chron., Aug. Vindel. 1680, 83.
Of the eighteenth century: Aug. Calmet's Commentaire literal sur tons les hvres de lane et
nouv. Test., Par. 1707 ff.— Jo. Clerici, Comment, in Hagiogr., Amstel. 1731.— Joh. H. Michaelis,
Uberiores adnot. in Hagiographos V. T. libros, Hal. 1720, vol. iii. (the first book of Chronicles
treated by J. H. Michaelis, the second by J. J. Rambach).-H. B. Stark, Not* select® in
Pent, Jos., Jud., Sam., Reg., Chron., Esr., et Neh., Lips. I714.-Chr. Starke's Synopsis, part
iii. 2d edit., Leipz. 1756.— J. D. Michaelis, Uebers. des Alt. Test, in Anmerkungen fiir Unge-
lehrte, part xii., 1785. _ . .
Of the nineteenth century: J. B. D. Maurer, Comm. gram. crit. in V. T. vol. i., Lips.
1835 — E. Bertheau, Die Bwher der Chronik erklart (fifteenth issue of the Knrzgef. exeget.
Handbuch zum A. T), Leipz., Brockhaus, 1865.— C. F. Keil, Bibl. Komm. ttber die nach-
exilischen Geschichtsbucher : Chron., Ezr., und Esth. (part v. of the Bibl. Komment. iiber das A.
TV), Leipz., Dbrffl., and Franke, 1870 [translated in Clark's Foreign Theological Library].—
B. Neteler, Die Bilcher der biblischen Chronik, iibersetzt und erklart. Minister, Coppenrath, 1872
(second issue by this publisher of the General Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the
Old Testament on Catholic Principles).
Introductory critical monographs :— a. Of destructive tendency : De Wette, Beitrage zur
Einleitung ins A. T, part i., Leipz. 1806 (comp. above, § 6).— C. P. W. Gramberg, Die Chronik
nach ihrem geschichtlichen Charakter und Hirer Glaubwiirdigkeit gepriift, Halle 1823.— K. H.
Graf, Die geschichtlichen Biicher des A. T., two historico-critical discussions, Leipz. 1866, p.
114 ff.
b. Of apologetic tendency : J. G. Dahler, De libr. Paralip. auctoritate et fide historica,
Argentor. 1819.— E. F. Keil, Apol. Versuth iiber die Biicher der Chronik und iiber die Inte-
grilat des Baches Esra, Berl. 18 . 3.— F. C. Movers, Kritische Untersuchungen iiber die bibl.
Chronik, Bonn 1834.— M. Stuart, Critical History and Defence of the O. Test. Canon (con-
cerning especially the Pentateuch, the writings of the prophets, and of Solomon, Esther, and
Chronicles), Andover, U. S., 1845.— Bertheau, Art. " Chronik" in Schenkel's Bihellexicon, vol.
i. p. 528 ff. (also in his critique of Graf's monogr. iu the Jahrb. fiir deutsche Theol. 1866, p.
158 ff.).
Exegetical and critical monographs on particular passages : B. Kennicott, Cvmparatio
capitis undecimi libri 1 Chron. cum. cap. quinto libri 2 Samuelis, in Diss, super ratione textus
Hebraici V. T, ex Angl. Lat. vertit G. A. Teller, Lips. 1756. — Jul. Wellbausen, De gentibus
et familiis Judieis, qua 1 Chron. ii.-iv. enumerantnr, Gbttingen 1870. — Seb. Schmid, De
Uteris Elix ad Joramnm, Argentor. 1717 (on 2 Chron. xxi. 12-15). — C. P. Caspari, Der
gyrisch-ephraimitische Krieg unter Jotham und Ahas, Christiania 1849 (especially on 2 Chron.
xxvii., xxviii.). — K. H. Graf, Die Gefangenschafl und Bekehrung Manasse's 2 Chron. xxxiii.,
Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1859, part iii. p. 467 ff. — Against him: E. Gerlach, Die Gefangenschafl
and Bekehrung Manasse's ebendas., 1861, part iii. p. 503 ff., and L. Reinke, Die Geschichte des
Kb'nigs Manasse und die darin liegende angebliche Schwierigkeit (in vol. viii. of his Beitr&ge zur
Erklarung des A. T, 1872, p. 115 ff.). — Comp. also Eberh. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und
das Alte Test., Giessen 1872, pp. 238-243 ; which excellent work, like the papers on this sub-
ject by the same author in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenland. Gesellschaft, and in the
Theol. Stud. u. Krit. (1869, 70, 71), contains rich monographic contributions to the exposition
as well of the other historical books of the Old Testament as especially of Chronicles.
THE BOOKS OF CHEONICLES.
FIRST BOOK.
§ 1. GENEALOGICAL TABLES OR PEDIGREES, WITH SHORT HISTORICAL
STATEMENTS INTERSPERSED.— Ch. i.-ix.
n Genealogies of the Patriarchs from Adam to Isaac's Sons Israel and Edom, with
the Posterity of the Latter till the Times of the Kings. <"!h i
1-3 Adam, Sheth, Enosh. Kenan, Mahalalel, Jered. Henoch, Methushelah,
4, 5 Lamech. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The sons of Japheth : Gomer,
6 and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And
7 the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, and Riphath,1 and Togarmah. And the sons of
8 Javan: Elisha, and Tarshishah, Kittim, and Bodanim.2 The sons of Ham:
9 Cush and Mizraim, Put and Kanaan. And the sons of Kush : Seba, and
Havilah, and Sabta, and Rama, and Sabtecha. And the sons of Rama : Sheba
10 and Dedan. And Kush begat Nimrod; he began to be a hero on the earth.
11 And Mizraim begat the Ludim,3 and the Anamim, and the Lehabim, and the
12 Naphtuhim. And the Pathrusim, and the Kasluhim, of whom came the
13 Pelishtim, and the Kaphtorim. And Kanaan begat Zidon, his first-born, and
14, 15 Heth. And the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgashite. And the
16 Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite. And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite,
17 and the Hamathite. The sons of Shem: Elam, and Asshur, and Arpakshad,
18 and Lud, and Aram, and Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech.4 And
19 Arpakshad begat Shelah, and Shelah begat Heber. And to Heber were
born two sons; the name of the one was Peleg [division]; for in his days was
20 the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan. And Joktan begat
21 Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazannaveth, and Jerah. And Hadoram, and
22, 23 Uzal, and Diklah. And Ebal, and Abimael, and Sheba. And Ophir, and
Havilah, and Jobab. All these are sons of Joktan.
24—27 Shem, Arpakshad, Shelah. Eber, Peleg, Reu. Serug, Nahor, Terah. Abram;
28,29 that is, Abraham. The sons of Abraham : Isaac and Ishmael. These are their
generations : Ishmael's first-born was Nebaioth ; then Kedar, and Adbeel, and
30, 31 Mibsam. Mishma, and Dumah, Massa, Hadad, and Tema. Jetur, Naphish,
32 and Kedemah : these are sons of Ishmael. And the sons of Keturah, Abra-
ham's concubine: she bare Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian,
33 and Ishbak, and Shuah ; and Jokshan's sons : Sheba and Dedan. And the
sons of Midian : Ephah, and Epher, and Henoch, and Abida, and Eldaah : all
34 these are the sons of Keturah. And Abraham begat Isaac ; the sons of Isaac :
35 Esau and Israel. The sons of Esau : Eliphaz, Reuel, and Jeush, and Jalam,
36 and Korah. The sons of Eliphaz; Teman, and Omar, Zephi, and Gatam,
37 Kenaz, and Timnah, and Amalek. The sons of Reuel; Nahath, Zerah,
38 Shammah, and Mizzah. And the sons of Seir : Lotan, and Shobal, and
31
32 I. CHRONICLES.
39 Zibon, and Anah, and Dishan, and Ezer, and Dishan. And the sons of
40 Lotan: Hori and Homam; and Lotan's sister was Timnah. The sons .or
Shobal: Aljan,5 and Manahath, and Ebal, Shephi,« and Onam ; und the sons
41 of Zibon: Ajah and Anah. The sons of Anah : Dishon ; and the sons of
42 Dishon : Hamran,7 and Eshban, and Ithran, and Keran The sons ot izer .
Bilhan, and Zaavan, and Jaakan ; the sons of Dishan : Uz and Aran
43 And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before the sons ot
Israel had kings : Bela, son of Beor ; and the name of his city was Dinhabak
44 45 And Bela died, and Jobab, son of Zera of Bozrah, reigned in his stead. And
Jobab died, and Husham, of the land of the Temanites, reigned in his stead
46 And Husham died, and Hadad, son of Bedad, who smote Midian in the land
47 of Moab, reigned in his stead; and the name of his city was Ajutn And
48 Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead And bamlali
49 died, and Shaul of Kehoboth by the river reigned in his stead And bnaul
50 died, and Baal-hanan, son of Hakbor, reigned in his stead. And Baal-hanan
died, and Hadad" reigned in his stead; and the name of his city was Fam;
and the name of his wife was Mehetabel, daughter of Matred, daughter ot
51 Mezahab. And Hadad died; and the dukes of Edom were: the duke of
52 Timnah, duke of Aljah,10 duke of Jetheth. Duke of Ohohbamah duke of
53 Elah, duke of Pinon. Duke of Kenaz, duke of Teman, duke of Mibzar.
54 Duke of Magdiel, duke of Hiram: these are the dukes of Edom.
■ MEH is certainly an error of the pen for nan, Gen. *. 3, which is found here in many mss. and editions, as well
as in the Sept. and the Vulg.
2 D'jnh appears to be an error of the pen or an arbitrary amendment for O'lTIi Gen. x. 4, which many MBS. and
older editions present here also. But comp. the exposition.
« So (DT&) the Keri in our passage, which, however, may rest on a confirmation with Gen. x. 13. The Kethib has
D'Hli?, a long plural form, which is to D'H:£ as in English Lydian would be to Lydan, or as in Hebrew D^B'B.
Vm ix 12, to DT'^lB) 2 Chron. xxl. 6.
* On 7|K"D Instead of B>D, Gen. x. 23, see the Commentary.
s Instead of Aljan (^hv) many Ms8- have AlTan (p?l0i ln accordance with Gen. xxxvi. 28.
« For iQff some M93. have ifiK», as in Gen. xxxvi. 23. So in ver. 36, where the name 1B¥ is in a number of Ms*,
changed into 1BV, as ln Gen. xxxvi. 11.
' For pDn a considerable number of ks». have plDIl, as In Gen. xxxvi. 26.
» For the Kethib rll'JJ the Keri has !V)Vt »» ln Gen- xxxvi. 36-
» For Tin some mss. read Tin, which is the usual reading in Gen. xxxvi. 39, while there also several Mas. present
Tin. Hadad's city 1J?B, which, in the same parallel, is }JJBi some good codices here also change into ^3-
"> For n vJJ the Keri gives DvVi according to Gen. xxxvi. 40.
EXEOETICAl.
Peeliminaky Remark. — The whole of these
patriarchal forefathers of the house of David down
to Israel and Edom, sons of Isaac, appear to be
divided into two nearly equal parts, to the second
of which is added an appendix on the descend-
ants of Edom till the times of David. The first
part, vers. 1-23, enumerates the 10 antediluvian
patriarchs from Adam to Noah, the 3 sons of
Noah, and the 70 nations descending from them
(on this number 70, see the Remark under ver.
23). In the second part, vers. 24-42, are given the
10 generations from Shemto Abraham, the sons of
Abraham by Hagar, Keturah, and Sarah, and the
stocks derived from them, which again amount to
70 (see under ver. 42). The appendix, vers. 43-54,
mentions the kings of the Edomites before David,
that are also given in Gen. xxxvi., as well as the
11 there named dukes of Edom. In all these
genealogical and ethnological statements the
author adheres closely to the matter, and where
he does not merely abbreviate, as several times in
the second part, and partly also in the appendix,
even to the words of Genesis, of which ch. v.
and x. (the table of nations) serve him till ver.
23, and ch. ii., xxv., xxxvi. till the end as
sources and models. He reports in the briefest
manner concerning the patriarchs before Noah,
and concerning Noah himself, and his sons (vers.
CHAP. I. 1-23.
33
1-4), of whom he merely gives the names, 13 in
number, without even remarking that the first
10 of these names denote successive generations
and the last 3 brothers. He might certainly
presuppose in his readers sufficient knowledge of
the relations of these holy and venerable names
from the earliest foretime. He knew that to
them as well as to himself belonged " the
faculty to perceive in all these names the indica-
tions and foundations of a rich ancient history "
(Berth.). And it was scarcely otherwise with
the names of the following series, reaching further
into the more known history, which he also brings
together in a brief and bare report. Even where
we are unable to perceive the historical import-
ance of the prominent names, and the grounds
on which they must have been of interest to
every pious Israelite, the fact of such importance
is to be presumed in every case, and for every
single name. Comp. Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes
Israel, 2d edit. i. 479: "These dry names from
a hoary antiquity, when we know how to awaken
them from their sleep, do not remain so dead and
stiff, but announce and revive the most impor-
tant traditions of the ancient nations and families,
like the petrifactions and mountain strata of the
earth, which, rightly questioned, tell the history
of long vanished ages. "'
§ I. The Patriarchs before Noah, the three Sons
of Noah, and the (70) Nations descending
from them : vers. 1-23.
1. From Adam to Noah's Sons: vers. 1-4. — On
the stringing together of the bare names, without
any explanation, see Preliminary Eemark. The
names are all taken from Gen. v. : the rich con-
tents of this oldest genealogy of primeval history
is here reduced to the shortest possible form of an
abstract. For the conjectural etymology of the
several names {A dam = man ; Sheth = substi-
tute; Enosh==weak, frail man; Kenan = gain
or gainful, etc.), gee vol. i. p. 121 f. of the Bibel-
werk. — The older of the names of the three sons
of Noah is Shem, Ham, and Japheth ; as always
in Genesis also, though Ham (Gen. ix. 24) was the
youngest of the three. Comp. our Introductory
Remarks on the prophet I aniel (Bibelwerk, part
xiii. p. 11), where it is made probable that this
order, like that of the names Noah, Daniel, and
Joab (in Ezekiel), depends on euphonic principles
(so Delitzseh, Komm. iiber die Genes., 4th edit.
1872, p. 233)
2. From Noah's Sons to Abraham; the Table of
Nations: vers. 5-23. — This abstract from the
Mosaic table of nations Gen. x. has abridged
this larger genealogical ethnographic account to
the present narrow limits, chiefly by omitting the
opening and closing notes, and passing ovi-t the
remarks on the kingdom of Nimrod at Babel, and
the spread of the Snemites and Hamites in their
countries (vers, 5, 9-12, 18-20). Here, again,
there is that abbreviating and condensing process
which is characteristic of the author. For the
ethnological and geographical import of the
1 Comp. also Welihaosen, De gmiibus elfam. Judms, etc.,
p. 4, where, with respect to the genealogical lists in the
beginning of Chronicles, it is weii remarked- Quo Jit. ut
zotmeterii quasi speciem nobis pi sebeant hxc capita cipporum
vleni: fait setas, cui breves svffecere tiluli a! resuscitandam
sepullorum memorutm; — interjectU siecuHs, nedum millenniis,
leguntur titali, sed qho referantttr, quid sibi velnt, nescitur.
several names, comp. the commentary on Genesis
by the editor (vol. i. p. 171 of the Bibelwerk),
and the monographs on the table of nations there
cited.
a. The Japh'ethites: vers. 5-7. — The names of
the descendants of Japheth, 14 in number (7 sons
and 7 grandsons), open the series in Gen. x. of
stems and nations to be enumerated, perhaps
because they represented the strongest and most
widely-spread body (Japheth = ' ' enlarging, " Gen.
ix. 27), scarcely because he passed for the first-
born of Noah ; for Shem, who is always placed
before Japheth, even when only the two are named
together, is to be regarded as such ; see especially
the decisive passages, Gen. ix. 23, 26 (against
Starke, Bertheau, etc.). [These texts are not
decisive ; and Shem was born in the 503d year
of Noah, Gen. xi. 11, and therefore two years at
least after Japheth, Gen. v. 32. -J. G. M.]— The
view recently again maintained with ingenuity
and learning by J. G. Miiller (Die Semiten in
ihrem Verhixltniss zu Ohamiten und Japhetitent
Gotha 1872), that the so-called Shemites are
nothing but Japhethites or Indogermans Hami-
tized in language, is in any case at variance with
the Biblical genealogy of the sons of Noah,
whether Shem or Japheth be the first-born. — Ver.
6. Biphath. This form, rejected by the Masoretes
in favour of the probably erroneous (resting on an
old clerical error) JIS'"!! has not only the weight
of so old witnesses as the Sept. and Vulg. for it
(see the Crit. Note on ver. 6), but also the cir-
cumstance that plausible ethnographic explana-
tions can be adduced for Riphath, but not for
Diphath ; comp. the name 'PtQaTuTot = Ytatpxccybv
in Joseph. Antiq. i. 6, and the S?v 'Yiirmn, on tl.
ground of which Knobel has attempted to show
in Riphath the ancestor of the Kelts (against
which the Paphlagonian cities Tibia and Tobata
[Bochart, Geogr. Sacra, p. 198 seq.], produced
by the ancients in defence of the reading riS^t
cannot, from their smallness and insignificance,
be taken into account). — Ver. 7. Tarshishah
(n£"BHn), a later form for ty'iKHn, which is
usual in Gen. (x. 4) and elsewhere in the 0. T.
(also 2 Chron. ix. 21, xx. 36), the ah of motion
having in this form melted into one word with
the name itself. "With this are to be compared
the modern Greek names, obtained by the wearing
away of the proposition ils and the article, Stali-
mene = Lemnos, Stambul = (Konstantino)polis,
Satines = Athena;, Stanko=Kos," etc. (Berth.).
— Eodanim, D'JIil ', many transcribers and older
editors wish to change this into the Qiyyn of Gen.
x. 4, although even there some old authorities
(Sam., Sept., Jerome, Qucest. in Gen.) read Qij"Ti"l.
The decision is difficult, because, on the one hand,
Knobel's reference of Dodanim to the Dardani is
verbally doubtful; on the other hand, the Rhodians
( = Rodanim) appear too unimportant a part of
the Hellenic race to be put on the same footing
with jEolians ( = Elishah), Etruscans ( = Tarshish),
and Cyprians or Karians (= Kittim). And yet
the placing of Kittim and Rodanim together, and
the consideration that the sea trade of the Rho-
dians might have become very important for
such oriental nations as the Phoenicians and the
Hebrews, appear to speak more for the reading
of our book than for the original (comp. Berth.).
C
B4
I. CHRONICLES.
And if Dodanim were to pass for the original
.orm, and yet the application to the Dardani be
untenable, the reference to Dodona would be
internally still less probable than that to the
Khodians.
6. The Hamites: vers. 8-16. —Of these are
named 4 sons, 24 grandsons, and 2 great-grand-
sons, being 30 descendants in all Nimrod, ver.
10, does not count among the grandsons, as he
appears only as a famous individual (hero), not
as a head or founder of a people (patriarch). His
introduction, therefore, is different from that of
those previously named, not by 1335 (see vers. 5-9;
and comp. Gen. a. 2-7), but by -fo, as Gen. x. 8,
which verse is literally transcribed by the Chro-
nist. By the formula : "he began to be a hero on
the earth," the nature and import of Nimrod
are briefly and pithily expressed, so that a re-
petition of the further statements of Genesis con-
cerning him (x. 9-12) is not necessary. Comp.
as a parallel from the New Testament: 2t «■«■) ■ra.fi-
%mk±\> kiitov (or 0 xai •Jta.frthavi abrov), with which
the evangelists are wont to characterize Judas
Iscariot. — On D""TO, ver. 11, see Critical Note.
c. The Shemites, particularly the non-Hebrews:
vers. 17-23. — Of them are named in all 23 mem-
bers, namely (as the parallel passage Gen. x. 23
more exactly shows), 5 sons, 5 grandsons, and 16
other descendants. That in ver. 17 the names
Uz, Hul, Gether, Meshech, which properly denote
grandsons of Shem by Aram, are appended at
once to the 5 sons of Shem (so that they appear
to be his sons, and thus the number of his sons
would be 9, and that of his grandsons only 1),
is a circumstance sufficiently explained, as the
similar case in ver. 4 of Noah's sons : the author
presumed the relation of the 4 as sons to Aram
to be sufficiently known, and therefore thought it
unnecessary to repeat the words Q1J{ <ja} before
Wy from Gen. x. 23. Less probable is the sup-
position that the words in question fell out by
a mistake of the copyist, or that the Chronist,
deviating from the Pentateuch, really took the
nations Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech to be sons,
not grandsons, of Shem (as Knobel, Volhertafel, p.
252). — Moreover, almost all manuscripts give the
last name in ver. 17 7|Kit2 ; only a few conform to
the reading in Genesis (ci2), i°r which also the
Sept. there presents M»^o^;='at>'D; and so might
the Chronist have read in the text of Genesis. It is
also in favour of Meshech being the original name,
that Mash as a national name is quite unknown,
while Meshech occurs as the name of a Shemite or
Arabic tribe along with Kedar in Ps. cxx. 5. —
Ver. 22. Ebal, fay, is called in the parallel
G-en. x. 28 rather Obal, 73^5? ; yet the Sept. seems
to have read ^QiJJ, for it gives the name as EiaA.
Comp. the similar but reverse case of Homam
( = Hemam) under ver. 39. — The 14 descendants
of Japheth, 30 of Ham, and 26 of Shem, amount
to 70 nations descended from Noah. This num-
ber the author intended to bring out ; for with
him, or before him, other Jewish expositors
might have discovered the symbolic number 70
in the Mosaic table of nations (it may, in fact, be
gathered from it ; comp. J. Fiirst, Gesch. der bibl.
Liter, und des judisch-hellenischen Schriftthum*.
i. p. 119) ; and this number of the nations of the
globe, occasionally enlarged to 72, plays other-
wise an important part in the Jewish circle of
thought. This is shown by its frequent mention
in the Talmud, and its occurrence in the Gnostic
writings and the Pseudo-Clementine (Recogn. ii.
42). To this belong also such biblical passages
as Num. xi. 16 and Luke x. 1 ff . ; for the 70
elders appointed by Moses in the wilderness (with
the 70 members of the Jewish Sanhe irin on this
model), as well as the 70 disciples chosen by
Jesus, appear to be due to a symbolic reference
to the 70 nations of the globe (comp. Godet,
Commentaire sur Vtvangile de Luc, 1870, ii. p.
21). And there is actually a deeper sense in the
view, that the total number of the nations of the
earth is = the sacred ideal number 70 (7 x 10, the
humanly complete, elevated and multiplied by
the power of the Divine Spirit ; comp. my Theol.
naturalis, i. p. 716). And why should we not
have as good a right, in the popular phraseology
of Hebrew antiquity, to speak of the "70 nations
of the world," as of the 4 winds, the 4 quarters of
heaven, the 12 signs of the zodiac, without utter-
ing anything untrue or against nature, though
such expressions may have no exact scientific
basis? There seems then to be no reason to
hesitate, from a dogmatic-apologetic point of view,
to acknowledge that the number 70 was intended
by the author to apply to the descendants of
Noah. The only thing that can be said against
it is, the absence of an express intimation, such
as Matthew gives at the close of his genealogy of
Jesus, in the form of a recapitulation of the several
groups of numbers (i. 17). Yet the pedigree by
Luke (iii. 23-38) wants also such a recapitula-
tion, though its symbolic construction out of
77 = 7 x 11 members is no less certain than that
of Matthew. If Keil objects to our view, which
is that of almost all recent expositors, that the
number 70 is only obtained by making, "in the
sons of Shem, the personal names Arpakshad,
Shelah, Heber, Peleg, and Joktan to be names of
nations, contrary to the view of Genesis, in which
the five names denote persons, the ancestors of
the nations descending from Heber through Peleg
and Joktan," this refutes nothing. For the num-
ber 70 is obtained throughout, and not merely in
the case of Arpakshad, etc., by the addition of all
names, those of the patriarchs, who only became
nations in their sons, as well as these sons them-
selves, and their descendants. In other words, it
is quite reasonable, and corresponds entirely with
the spirit and method of the genealogizing ethno-
graphy of the Hebrews, to regard all higher or
lower members of old pedigrees as in abstracto
equivalent factors and representatives of definite
co - ordinate races in the subsequent history,
though this view may be in concrete impractic-
able. Comp., moreover, the evangelical - ethical
principles under ch. ix.
§ II. The. Patriarchs from Shem to Abraham,
and the Descendants of the latter through
Ishmael, Keturah, Edom (70 stems in all) :
vers. 24-42.
1. From Shem to Abraham : vers. 24-27.— The
10 members of this line are exactly coincident
with Gen xi. 10-32, though with the omission of
CHAP. I. 26-37.
35
all historical details. And the Chronist follows
the genealogical account of the Masoretic text,
which represents Abraham himself as the tenth
of the line, not that of the Sept. , which inserts a
Kenan (K*i'»S») between Arpakshad and Shelah,
thus following a tradition that regarded Terah,
the father of Abraham, as the tenth from Shem.
Bertheau (in the annual report of the " Deutsche
Morgenl. Gesellschaft, " 1845-46) has attempted
to make it probable that this tradition was the
older, and that the name pip stood originally in
the text of Genesis. — Ver. 27. Abram, perhaps
for the sake of brevity, and to avoid all needless
accumulation of names, afterwards (from Gen.
xvii. 5) Abraham, in which the author, in his
brief manner, notices the change of name, is
alone named as a son of Terah, Nahor and Haran
and their posterity being omitted.
2. Abraham's Sons and their Descendants : vers.
28-34.— They fall, like those of Noah and Terah,
into three stocks or branches under Ishmael,
Keturah, and Isaac. The Chronist places the
former groups first, because, like the genealogists
in the primeval history, he wished first to enu-
merate the remote stocks, and then to take up
the people of God. The same process from with-
out to within placed the genealogy of the
Japhethites and Hamites before the Shemites,
and determines, further, that of Isaac's posterity
the Edomite branch is first treated, and then the
Israelite.
a. Ishmaeland his Twelve Sons : vers. 29-31. —
The twelve names agree exactly with the list in
Gen. xxv la-16, with respect to the order as
well as the words. And the introductory HJK
nil^in, ver. 29, the predicate "1133, "the first-
born" before Ishmael (comp. Gen. xxv. 13), and
the closing formula, " These are the sons of Ish-
mael " (ver. 31 ; comp. Gen. xxv. 16), show how
closely the author adheres to the Mosaic record.
The designation of Ishmael as the " first-born "
is only to be explained by this faithful adherence
to the original, not by the wish of the author to
justify his placing the Ishmaelites before the
descendants of Israel (as Bertheau seems to
think) ; for this position needed no justification,
because it necessarily followed from the genea-
logical method of our author (see on ver. 28).
[In our author's version of ver. 29, "the first-
born " is made to refer to Nebaioth, and not to
Ishmael, as above. This seems to be correct. —
3. G. M.]
b. The Descendants of Keturah: vers. 32, 33. —
The six sons and seven grandsons of Abraham by
Keturah are not given literally as in Gen. xxv.
1-4. On the contrary, the Chronist has left out
three great-grandsons there named— Asshurim,
Letushim, and Leummim, descendants of Dedan
— whether intentionally, on account of the plural
form of the names, or because he did not find
them in his copy of Genesis, must remain un-
determined. That Medan and Midian, ver. 32,
are only different pronunciations of the same
name (comp. Gen. xxxvii. 28, 36), the number of
the sons of Keturah was originally and properly
five, and the total number of her descendants
only twelve, is an arbitrary conjecture of Ber-
theau, while pushing too far the endeavour to
tind certain symbolic numbers everywhere.
c. The Two Sons of Isaac, Esau, and Israel,
and the Descendants of the former : vers. 34-42.
— And Abraham begat Isaac. This notice, lead-
ing back to the statement in ver. 28, appears
occasioned by Gen. xxv. 19, where the same
words (only with T^in i°r Wl) occur imme-
diately after the enumeration of the sons of
Keturah. This reference to Abraham was not in
itself necessary here ; but comp. also the refer-
ence to Shem above in ver. 24. — Ver. 25. Esau's
sons, enumerated exactly after Gen. xxxvi. 4, 5
(though without naming their mothers, the
three wives of Esau), w in general the author
henceforth reports very closely from Gen. xxxvi.,
following which also he annexes the Seirites or
aborigines of Idumsea to the proper Edomites, and
treats both as belonging to one and the same
family of nations. — Ver. 36. Sons of Miphaz.
These, five in number, are given exactly as in
Gen. xxxvi. 11 ; for the name of the third, Zephi,
is only a by-form of Zepho, as in ver. 40 a
Shephi appears in place of the Shepho, Gen.
xxxvi. 23 ; comp. the Crit. Remark. But if the
names Timnah and Amalek are annexed, ap-
parently as sons of Eliphaz, this is piobably a
similar breviloquence to that in vers, i and 1 7 ;
the author presumes it sufficiently kiuwn to his
readers, that Timnah, Amalek's mother, wa3 not
a son, but rather a concubine of Eliphaz (another
wife besides Adah, the mother of those five sons
first named) ; comp. Gen. xxxvi. 12. So have the
Sept. (in the cod. Alex.) and numerous older
Jewish and Christian expositors solved the diffi-
culty, and of the moderns, J. H. Miehaelis,
Starke, Keil, etc. ; whereas Berthc.au, having re-
gard to vers. 39 and 51, where actually a separate
stem and then a stem-prince Timnah are counted,
prefers to assume that "the Chronist, interpreting
the genealogical language, and perceiving in the
family names the stem-relations that lie at their
root, has explained the statements of Genesis
concerning Timnah, so that by them the con-
nection of two stems Timnah and Amalek with
the other stems of Eliphaz shall be indicated, and
they are accordingly counted in the same line
with these stems as sons of Eliphaz." This
assumption seems to us too artificial, and ascribes
to the Chronist a higher degree of bold indepen-
dence and wilfulness in his operations than is
admissible or consistent with his evident piety
and conscientiousness in recording the facts of
primeval history that were handed down to him.
— Ver. 37. Sons of Seuel. These are entered
four in number, exactly as in Gen. xxxvi. 13.
There are thus in all 10 grandsons (6 sons of
Eliphaz and 4 cf Eeuel) who are assigned by our
author to Esau, and who, with the three sons of
Jeush, Jalam, and Korah (sons of Oholibamah),
form the 13 family or stem chiefs (ipi\*pz«, Sept.
Gen. xxxvi. 15) of the Edomites. Against Ber-
theau, who would here make out a 12 from the
13 families, by reducing Amalek, ver. 36, to a
secondary place, comp. Keil, p. 36: "Neither
Chronicles nor Genesis knows 12 tribes of Edom,
but both books give 13 grandsons (rather de-
scendants) of Esau ; and these 13 grandsons
are, by the report of Genesis, the 13 phylarchs
of Edom which are distributed among the 3
wives of Esau, so that the 13 families may be
reduced to 3 stems. And in Genesis, Amalek is
not placed in a looser connection with the re-
36
I. CHRONICLES.
maining tribes, Tiut on tlie contrary, is not only,
ver. 12, counted with the sons of Adah, perhaps
because Timnah stood to Adah, the wife of Esau,
in the same relation as Hagar to Sarah, but also
in ver. 16 is reckoned to the dukes of the sons of
Elipha*. Thus Genesis counts not 5, but 6 stems
of Eliphaz ; and Chronicles has not fully effaced the
rnmber 12, as Bertheau further asserts, but the
13 sons and grandsons of Esau, who became
phylarehs, are fully entered, and only their
designation as ik>j> 133 iQ^K left out, because
nunecessary for the genealogy of the descendants
of Esau."— Vers. 38-42. The 7 sons of Seir and
their descendants, or the (mingled since Esau's
invasion with his descendants) Seirite or Horite
aborigines of Idumsea according to their tribes.
These aborigines of the mountains of Edom,
though not of Abrahamic descent, yet, from their
gradually formed connection and intermingling
with the descendants of Esau, are so reckoned as
if they belonged to the Edomite family of nations.
And this occurs not only here in Chronicles,
where they are introduced as T'yb' 'JS. but also
in Gen. xxx. 20-30, where they are called i-)h,
" dwellers in caves, Troglodytes." Comp. also on
these Horites, our exp. of the book of Job, vol.
i. of the Bibelw. p. 238. — The names of the seven
sons Df Seir, that is, the seven Seirite chiefs, agree
exactly with Genesis ; and likewise their descen-
dants, in number 18 men and 1 woman, Timnah,
ver. 39. Only Oholibamah, a second Seiritess
named in Gen. xxxvi. 25, has been passed over
by the Chronist, according to his wont in general
to reckon only male members in his genealogical
lists. On the deviations of some forms from the
text of Genesis, as Homam, ver. 39, for Hemam ;
Aljan, ver. 40, for Alwan, etc., see Crit. Note. —
The total names enumerated from Abraham
amount to about 70, whether the two Timnahs,
the mother of Amalek, ver. 36, and the sister of
Lotan, ver. 39, or the Edomite and the Seirite
Timnah be included, in which case there are
exactly 70, or both or one of them be excluded
from the number, and so then be only 08 or 69. Ber-
theau (whom Kamphausen, in Bunsen's Bibelw. ,
follows), counting in the former way, finds 12
descendants of Esau, 13 of Keturah, 2 of Isaac,
16 of Esau, and 27 of Seir, and so obtains the
number 70 ; Keil, in the latter way, regards the
Seirite Timnah as only mentioned by the way,
and therefore excluded, and consequently reckons
only 26 descendants of Seir, and in all, only 69
deseenlants of Abraham. Though the latter be
right in many of his objections to Bertheau's
mode of reckoning (for instance, its exclusion of
Ishmael, and inclusion of Esau and Israel), yet
he certainly goes too far when he utterly denies
the design of the Chronist t ■> foJow up his list of
70 descendants of Noah wit . the same number of
those of Abraham. This design, though not
carried out with mathematical exactness, and
therefore not expressly mentioned here (any more
than in ver. 5 ff. ), appears in fact to have had a dis-
tinct influence on the selection and arrangement
of his genealogical lists. The incidental agreement
of the number in vers. 29-42 with that in vers. 5-
23 shows this, just as the decade of the patriarchs
between Noah and Abraham, in its agreement with
that of the patriarchs before Noah (comp. vers.
24-27 with vers. 1-4), points to design.
Appendix. — TheEdomite Kings andChiefs till the
beginning of Kingdom of Israel : vers. 43-54.
1. The Kings: vers. 43-51 a.— A nearly literal
repetition from Gen. xxxvi. 31-39 ; only the words
D'lX3 'ite'l (Ter- 43) before J^>3, and in ver. 51
after pn bv2> the words "li33JT|3 are left out,
which, however, many mss. here also supply. On
the variants in Ajuth, ver. 46, and in Hadad and
Pai, ver. 50, see Crit. Notes.— Ver. 51. And Ha-
dad died. This statement (Tin nm) is want-
ing in the parallel texts of Genesis, where, after
entering Hadad (or rather Hadar) as the last
king, the formula T\V2& r&NI serves to intro-
duce the then following list of the phylarehs and
their seats. By the sentence ' ' and Hadad died, "
along with the following, "and there were"
(iTUl), this list of phylarehs is here brought
into a far closer connection with the foregoing
register of kings than in Genesis, — into a connec-
tion, indeed, which at first sight looks as if the
Chronist intended to represent the dukes as suc-
cessors of the kingdom terminated by Hadad's
death, and so report a transition from the
monarchic to the aristocratic form of government
in Edom. This supposition, however, which
Bertheau, Kamph., and others defend, is not
absolutely necessary ; the "] eonsec. in ^insl "may
express merely the order of thought ; that is,
may connect the mention of the dukes only in
thought with the enumeration of the kings, or
intimate that besides the kings there were also
dukes, who could govern the nation and country"
(Keil). The latter supposition is the more pro-
bable, as the following list is owing to a statistical
and chronographic rather than a genealogical
tendency, as will presently be shown.
2. The Dukes : vers. 51-54. — This list agrees in
the order and form of the 11 names given exactly
(on the variant Aljah for Alwah, ver. 51, see
Crit. Note) with Gen. xxxvi. 40-43. Yet it has
received from the Chronist another superscription
and subscription, of which the former runs thus :
"and there were the dukes of Edom" ('SIJX
Dnx instead of )\yy 'a, Gen. xxxvi. 40, the
name of the people and land taking the place of
the n. propr. of the patriarch), and the latter:
"these are the dukes of Edom " (for which that of
Genesis is more circumstantial : "These are the
dukes of Edom according to their habitations in
the land of their possessions: this is Esau, the
father of Edom"). And the list treats not so
much of the enumeration of certain persons as of
that of the seats of certain (perhaps hereditary)
dukes of the nation or phylarehs, according to
which they are briefly named, "the duke of Tim-
nah," etc. The list has thus a geographical, not
a genealogical import ; it is a list of neighbouring
principalities of Edom, not of Edomite princes.
The number eleven of these principalities forma
an approximative parallel with the number twelve
of the tribes of Israel ; it agrees also nearly with
the number of the descendants of Esau above
named (ver. 36 ff. ) ; but it could only by violent
means and arbitrary hypotheses be made to agreo
with this number, or reduced to the number twelve
(comp. the remarks against Berth, on ver. 371.
CHAP. II. 1-55. 87
b. The Sons of Israel, and the Generations of Judah down to David, with David's
Descendants to Elioenai and his Seven Sons. — Ch. ii.-iv. 23.
1. The Twelve Sons of Israel and the Descendants of Judah : ch. ii. 1-41 (with an Appendix
relating chiefly to the Posterity of Caleb: vers. 42-55).
f!ir. II. 1. These are the sons of Israel : Reuben, Simeon (Shimon), Levi, and Judah,
2 Issachar, and Zebulun. Dan, Joseph and Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and
3 Assher. The sons of Judah: Er, and Onan, and Shelah ; three were born to
him of the daughter of Shuah, the Canaanitess ; but Er, the first-born of
4 Judah, was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and He slew him. And Thamar his
daughter-in-law bare bim Perez and Zerah : all the sons of Judah were five.
5, 6 The sons of Perez : Hezron and Hamul. And the sons of Zerah : Zimri, and
7 Ethan, and Heman, Calcol, and Dara :] five of them in all. And the sons
of Carmi : Achar, the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the accursed
8 thing. And the sons of Ethan : Azariah.
9 And the sons of Hezron, that were born to him : Jerahmeel, and Earn, and
10 Celubai. And Earn begat Amminadab ; and Amminadab begat Nahshon,
1 1 prince of the sons of Judah. And Nahshon begat Salma, and Salma begat
12, 13 Boaz. And Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse. And Jesse begat his
14 first-born Eliab, and Abinadab the second, and Shima the third. Nathanael
15, 16 the fourth, Eaddai the fifth. Ozem the sixth, David the seventh. And their
sisters, Zeruiah and Abigail : and the sons of Zeruiah : Abishai, and Joab, and
1 7 Asahel, three. And Abigail bare Amasa ; and the father of Amasa was Jether
the Ishmaelite.
18 And Caleb, son of Hezron, begat with Azubah his wife,2 and with Jerioth ;
1 9 and these are her sons : Jesher, and Shobab, and Ardon. And Azubah died ;
20 and Caleb took to him Ephrath, and she bare him Hur. And Hur begat
21 Uri, and Uri begat Bezalel. And afterwards Hezron went in to the daughter
of Machir, father of Gilead ; and he took her when he was sixty years old,
22 and she bare him Segub. And Segub begat Jair, who had twenty and three
23 cities in the land of Gilead. And Geshur and Aram took the towns of Jair
from them, with Kenath and her daughters, sixty cities. All these are sons
24 of Jair, the father of Gilead. And after the death of Hezron, in Caleb-
ephrathah, Abiah, Hezron 's wife, bare him Ashur (Ashchur), father of Tekoah.
25 And the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, were Ram, the first-
26 born, and Bunah, and Oren, and Azem of Ahijah. And Jarahmeel had another
27 wife, and her name was Atarah ; she was the mother of Onam. And the
sons of Earn, the first-born of Jerahmeel, were Maaz, and Jamin, and Eker.
28 And the sons of Onam were Shammai and Jada ; and the sons of Shammai :
29 Nadab and Abishur. And the name of Abishur's wife was Abihail,8 and she
30 bare him Ahban and Molid. And the sons of Nadab : Seled and Appaim ;
31 and Seled died childless. And the sons of Appaim : Ishi ; and the sons of
32 Ishi : Sheshan ; and the sons of Sheshan : Ahlai. And the sons of Jada,
33 brother of Shammai : Jether and Jonathan ; and Jether died childless. And
the sons of Jonathan : Peleth and Zaza. These were the sons of Jerahmeel.
34 And Sheshan had no sons, but only daughters. And Sheshan had an
35 Egyptian servant, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to
36 Jarha his servant to wife ; and she bare him Attai. And Attai begat Nathan,
37 and Nathan begat Zabad. And Zabad begat Ephlal, and Ephlal begat Obed.
38, 39 And Obed begat Jehu, and Jehu begat Azariah. And Azariah begat Helez,
40 and Helez begat Elasah. And Elasah begat Sismai, and Sismai begat Shal-
41 lum. And Shallum begat Jekamiah, and Jekamiah begat Elishama.
Appendix: Three Series of Descendants of Caleb: vers. 42-55.
42 And the sons of Caleb, brother of Jerahmeel, were Mesha, his first-born ;
he was the father of Ziph ; and the sons of Mareshah, the father of Hebron.4
3*
I. CHRONICLES.
43, 44 And the sons of Hebron : Korah, and Tappuah, and Eekem, and Shema. And
45 Shema begat Eaham, father of Jorkeam ;5 and Eekem begat Shammai. And
the son of Shammai was Maon ; and Maon was father of Bethzur.
46 And Ephah, Caleb's concubine, bare Haran, and Moza, and Gazez ; and
47 Haran begat Gazez. And the sons of Jehdai : Eegem, and Jotham, and Geshan,
48 and Pelet, and Ephah, and Shaaph. Caleb's concubine Maacha bare6 Sheber
49 and Tirhanah. And she bare Shaaph the father of Madmannah. Sheva,
father of Machbenah, and father of Gibeah ; and Caleb's daughter was Achsah.
50 These were the sons of Caleb the sonr of Hur, first-born of Ephrathah :
51 Shobal, father of Kiriath-jearim. Salma, father of Bethlehem, Hareph, father
52 of Bethgader. And Shobal, father of Kiriath-jearim, had sons : Haroeh,
53 and the half of Menuhoth.8 And the families of Kiriath-jearim were the
Ithrite, and the Puthite, and the Shumathite, and the Mishraite. From
54 these came the Zorathiteand the Eshtaolite. The sons of Salma: Bethlehem,
and the Netophathite, Ataroth of the house of Joab, and half of the Mena-
55 hathite, the Zorite. And the families of the scribes dwelling at Jabez were
the Tirathites, Shimathites, Suchathites : these are the Kenites that came
from Hammath, father of the house of Eechab.
1 For )m many mss., as well as the Syr. and the Chald., give jmT, as in 1 Kings v. 11.
* ntyX (for which ifl^'K was to be expected) is wanting in two mss.. according to de Rossi, Yar. Lect. — The Peah,
and Vulg. appear to have read I"IK 1WK for JltO nt5>K.
* In lead of ^,-p^ a number of mss. and printed editions have ^pp3K' 'rlle 8ame vacillation is also found in
2 Chron. xi. 18, in the like-named wife of Rehoboam.
* Instead of flBHD might possibly (after the proposal of Keil) be read Jf^D, and Instead of )1"13n "OK rathel
the nam. composit. |i"QrT*3N. Comp. the Exeg. Expl.
' For DJ?pT the Sept. exhibits 'UxXit; and so for the following Dpi.
* Instead of the unexpected masc. *P% some mss. present the fern. rn?*1.
' Instead of "RrVIJjl, the Sept. appears to have read "WV'JSi which is perhaps the original form. Comp. Exeg. Expl
• On the probably corrupt words DirUDH ""VPI ilNin, see Exeg.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — The author here be-
gins to enroll his detailed genealogies of the tribes
of Israel, extending to the end of oh. viii. After
premising a list of the 12 sons of Jacob as the
general basis of the whole, vers. 1, 2, he begins
with the enumeration of the generations and
families of the tribe of Judah, which he then pur-
sues in ch. iii. and iv. 1-23, and completes in
several parts. No order, regulated by definite
historical, geographical, or any systematic prin-
ciples, lies at the base of this enumeration; he
seems rather to have combined into a whole, as
far as possible, the more or less fragmentary
genealogies of certain brai ehes and families of
the house of Judah as they came down to him
from antiquity ; but this whole is very defective
in the unity and homogeneity of its several parts.
For if the five immediate descendants of Judah,
that four.ded the tribe of Judah by a numerous
posterity, his three sons Shelah, Perez, and Zerah,
and his two grandsons Hezron an 1 Hamul, only
Zerah (ii. 6-8), Hezron (ii. 9 -iii.), and Shelah
(iv. 21-23) have their genealogies given with any
fulness ; Hamul is entirely passed over, and Perez
is only followed out in the line of Hezron. This
line (under which the Chronist sums up all that
was known of the descendants of Caleb and of the
Jephunnite Calebites) is treated with special care
and fulness : to it belongs the whole series of the
descendants of David till the times after the
captivity (ch. iii.), and at least the more con-
siderable part of the genealogical fragments in
ch. iv. 1-23, which serve as a supplement to ch.
ii. 9-55, and of which it is often doubtful which
of the members previously named they continue
or supplement.
1. The Twelve Sons of Israel: vers. 1, 2. — These
are given in an order deviating from Gen. xxxv.
23 ff., so that the 6 sons of Leah stand first, then
the son of Rachel's maid, Dan ; after that the 2
sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin ; and lastly,
the 3 remaining sons of the maids (Naphtali, Bil-
hah's son ; Gad and Asher, Zilpah's sons). This
separation of Dan from his full brother Naphtali
is surprising, and can hardly be satisfactorily ex-
plained. For if we suppose that Rachel (see Gen.
xxx. 3 ff.) regarded Dan, born of her maid Bilhah,
as in a sense her own son, and so he is named
before Joseph and Benjamin, yet still it is a
question, why not also Naphtali, who was likewise
born before her own sons. The procedure of the
Chronist in regard to Dan is in several respects enig-
matical ; comp. on ch. vii. 12. [It is probable that
Naphtali was born about the same time with Gad,
and is therefore classified with him. — J. G M.]
2. The Descendants of Judah: vers. 3-41.
a. The 5 sons of Judah, tht» 2 sons of Perez, and
the descendants of Zerah : vers. 3-8.— Vers 3 i
The sons of Judah, etc. The five sons of Judah'
three legitimate, born of the daughter of Shuah
CHAP. II. 3-8.
35
the Canaanite, Er, Onan, and Shelnh, and two
born in incest of Tauiar, his daughter-in-law,
Perez and Zerah, are given in accordance with
Gen. xxxviii., and in the same order (comp. also
Gen. xlvi. 12). The author recalls this his source
by taking over word for word the remark on Er
in Gen. xxxviii. 7: "But Er the first-born of
Judah was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and He
slew him." — Ver. 5. The sons of Perez, etc.
(Hezron, perhaps the "blooming, fair;" Hamul,
the "lorgiven," or the "tender, weak;" comp.
Bib-i'iw. i. p. 432). These occur in two registers
of iie Pentateuch, the list of the children of
Israsl who went down to Egypt with Jacob,
Gen. xlvi. 12, and in that of the families of
Judah in the Mosaic age, Num. xxvi. 21. — Vers.
6-8. And the sons of Zerah. Five such are
named : Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara.
On the first of these names, which might possibly
be wrongly written (noT f°r i"i3j, Josh. vii. 1),
see under ver. 7. The four following names,
especially if we read for the last, Darda, with a
great number of old witnesses (see Crit. Note),
agree surprisingly with the four men compared
with Solomon in 1 Kings v. 11 : Ethan the Ez-
rahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the
the sons of Mahol. The assumption of an iden-
tity of tl ese four wise men with the four younger
sons of Zerah is very natural ; it has been already
asserted by Grotius, Clericus, Lightfoot (Chronol.
V. T. p. 24), Hiller (Onom. Sacr.), and others,
and recently by Movers (p. 237) and Bertheau,
who insisted on the circumstance, that in 1
Kings v. 11 contemporaries of Solomon were
not intended (no more than in Ezra xiv. 14,
xviii. 20, contemporaries of Daniel) ; further, on
the probable identity of Zerah with Ezrah the
•lather of Ethan mentioned in 1 Kings v. 11
(mt = rprx) ; and lastly, on the statement of the
Rabbinical book Seder Olara, which says (p. 52,
ed. Meyer) of the sons of Zerah named in our
passage: "These were prophets who prophesied
in Egypt," and thus appears to confirm expressly
their being of the class of Hakamim. But the
argument raised of late, especially by Hengsten-
berg (Beitruge zur Bint. ii. 61 f., and on Ps.
lxxxviii.), Keil (Apol. Vers. p. 164 ff. ; comp.
Comment, p. 39 ff.), as well as Bahr (on 1 Kings
v. 1], Bibeho. vii. p. 30), against the identity of
these persons, seems to be more weighty and de-
cisive. For, 1. The valiant "Darda" for "Dara"
in our passage, however old, appears clearly to
have arisen from the endeavour to harmonize ;
2. To this endeavour the notice in the Seder
Otam owes its origin ; 3. That at least near
contemporaries of Solomon are named in 1 Kings
v. follows from the manifest and undeniable
identity of Ethan the Ezrahite with the so-named
composer of Ps. lxxxix., and from the very pro-
bable identity of Heman with " Heman the
Ezrahite," the composer of Ps. lxxxviii. ; 4. If
the Ethan and Heman of 1 Kings v. 11 be iden-
tical with the composers of these Psalms, they
are also probably to be regarded as Levites of the
family of the sons of Korah (see the superscr. of
these Psalms), who are in 1 Chron. xv., xvii , and
xix. called masters of song, and belong not to
the family of Judah, and might at the most have
found admission into it as adoptive sons of Zerah
(Hengstenberg, Beitrage zur Einl. ins A. T. ii.
71), — an assumption, however, which is too arti-
ficial ; 5. The express designation of Calcol and
Darda in Kings as "sons of Mahol" makes it
difficult to assume their identity witli the sons or
Zerah, as the latter must be regarded not as im-
mediate sons, but later descendants of Zerah ;
6. Of the pre-eminent wisdom of the sons of
Zerah, neither the canonical Old Testament nor
the apocryphal literature has anything to report ;
even such passages as Jer. xlix. 7, Baruch iii. 22 if.
are silent on the subject. The assumption of the
identity of these with the names in 1 Kings r.
can only be maintained on the presupposition
that i^ in our passage means not strictly sons,
but later descendants of Zerah (so recently Keil,
in Comment, p. 41). But this expedient has its
difficulty, and by no means suffices to destroy the
force of most of the arguments here adduced
against the identity. We must therefore take
the surprising coincidence of the names to be
accidental, or assume with Movers (Ghron. p.
237) that we have in the present passage the
peculiar genealogical combination of a later author.
For the conjecture of Ewald, that Heman and
Ethan, "the two great singers of the tribe of
Judah, were taken by the Levitical music schools
into their company and family, and therefore
were afterwards (in the superscriptions of Ps.
lxxxviii. and lxxxix.) reckoned to the tribe of
Levi"^ (Gesch. d. V. Isr. iii. 1, p. 84), is no less
artificial than that of Hengstenberg. [But of
these considerations, Nos. 1 and 2 contain a mere
subjective assumption. No. 3 assumes, without
necessity, that the Ethan of 1 Kings v. and the
composer of Ps. lxxxix. are one, since two Ethans
may descend from the one patriarch. No. 4
assumes that the composers of Ps. lxxxviii. and
lxxxix. were Levites, whereas the epithet Ezrahite
appears to be added expressly to distinguish them
from the Levites of those names. No. 5 assumes
that Mahol is a proper name, which remains to
be proved. No. 6 assumes that the wisdom of
Zerah's sons is not probable, because it is not
elsewhere mentioned. This argument of itself
has little if any weight. On the other hand, one
motive to insert these sons of Zerah in the list
was probably their occurrence in 1 Kings v. , and
the Chronist, according to his wont, is silent on
their wisdom, for the sake of brevity, as it was
elsewhere recorded. — J. G. M.] — Ver. 7. And
the sons of Carmi : Achar; that is, Achar was
descended from Carmi. Comp. the oft-recurring
use of the plural 133, where only one descendant
is named (vers. 8, 30, 31, 42, and Gen. xlvi. 23).
By Achar, as the addition, " the troubler of
Israel" (T3J/, properly "the troubled"), shows,
is meant the Achan of the book of Joshua
(vii. 1 ft'., xxii 20;, whose name must have been
known to the author of this book in the by-form
Achar, as he puts the valley of Achor in etymo-
logical connection with it (vii. 26, xv. 7). The
link that connects Carmi, the father or ancestor
of this Achar, with Zerah is wanting ; but from
Josh. vii. 1, where he is called a son of Zabdi, the
son of Zerah, it is highly probable that he springs
from Zimri, the first named of the sons of Zerah,
whether Zimri in our passage be an error of the
pen for Zabdi, or the reverse, or Zabdi be a son
of Zimri, and thus several links of the series from
Zerah to Achar have been omitted. On Carmi,
comp. also ch. iv. 1 and Num. xxvi. 6, where a
family of Eeuben bears the name. — Ver. 8. And
10
I. CHRONICLES.
the sons of Ethan : Azariah. This Ethanite
Azariah is not otherwise known : no probable
reason can be assumed why he only of the sons
of Ethan is mentioned.
b. The Descendants of Hezron : vers. 9-41. — «.
His three sous, ver. S. — And the sons of Hezron
that were born to him. The passive Ipij stands
"for the indefinite active, so that the following
accusatives with J-|K depend on the virtual notion
of the active 'one bare him;' comp. Gen. iv.
18, xxi. 5, xlvi. 20, and the sing, -jpfa in a
similar position, 1 Chron. iii. 4, xxvi. 6" (Berth.).
The name Ram is, in the New Testament genea-
logies of Jesus, Matt. i. 3, 4, Luke iii. 33, Aram ;
comp. q-|, Job xxxii. 2, with rj"IK, Gen. xx"- 21-
The name '31^3 is undoubtedly a by-form of 373,
ver. 18, or, as this name is written in iv. 11, of
3v3 : it is an adject, gentil., that stands to its
stem 3i?3, as >3is> 1 Chron. vi. 11, to fpv, vi.
20 (Ewald, Lehrb. § 164, c), or as in Greek
Havx*''i (the n. pr. of the well-known Persian
sectary) to Mav«;. Accordingly, the celebrated
forefather of Bezaleel had of old three names —
Caleb, Celub, the Celuban. Comp. underneath
on ver. 18 tf. and on ver. 40. The three here
named, Jerahmeel, Ram, and Celubai, appear to
have been actual sons or immediate descendants
of Hezron, whereas the sons of Hezron afterwards
appended, — Segub, ver. 21, and Ashur, ver. 24, —
as they are co-ordinated with his later descen-
dants, may possibly be sons in a wider sense.
At all events, they did not belong to the aforesaid
founders of the three celebrated lines of Hezron-
ites, which are analyzed in the following passage,
though in an order different from the present
enumeration, the family of Ram being placed
first, and that of Jerahmeel transferred to the
end (comp. on ver. 18).
/3. The family of Ram, as first of the three
Hezronite lines. His precedence is explained by
the circumstance that the house of David sprang
from him. The posterity of Ram is therefore
carried down to David in seven members. The
six members to Jesse, the father of David, are
found also in the book of Ruth iv. 19-21 ; comp.
the genealogies in Matt. i. and Luke iii. — Ver.
10. Nahshon, prince of the sons ofJudah. This
distinguishing epithet, which is wanting in Ruth,
points to Num. i. 7, ii. 3, vii. 12, where Nahshon
is named as the prince of Judah at the exodus.
As this date, according to the most probable in-
terpretation of the number 430, Exod. xii. 40, is
to be placed fully four centuries after the time of
Judah, several members must have fallen out
between Hezron, the grandson of Judah, and
Nahshon, as well as between Nahshon and Jesse,
as the series Salma, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse is not
sufficient to fill up the interval of 400 years be-
tween Moses and David. [If the 430 years count
from the call of Abraham, which has not yet been
disproved, the exodus was only 210 years after
the descent of Judah into Egypt, instead of four
centuries. — J. G. M.] — Ver. 11. Salma. Instead
3f NOPty. the book of Ruth has, iv. 20, nn^K',
hut in the following verse tiD'JK', which has
passed into the New Testament (Luke iii. 32,
2«J»^v, and so Matt. i. 4, 5, where Luther has
Salma).— Vers. 13-15. The seven sons of Jesse.
According to ] Sam. xvii. 12 (comp. ch. xvi. 6 ff.),
Jesse had 8 sons,— a difference which is most
easily explained by the supposition that one of
the eight died without posterity, and therefore
was not included by later genealogists. — His
first-born Eliab. So is the eldest called in the
books of Samuel; on the contrary, in 1 Chron.
xxvii. 18 the form Elihu appears to have come
into the place of Eliab. The Peshito has in our
passage 8 instead of 7 sons of Jesse, of whom if.
calls the seventh Elihu, the eighth David ; the
first 6 agree with the Masoretic text. — And Shima
the third. The name KJJDE>> occurring thus in
1 Chron. xx. 7, is in 2 Sam. xiii. 3 and xxi. 22
in the Keri nj?DE> ! °° the contrary, in the
Kethib of the latter passage '•JflOK'. an(i in Samuel
(xvi. 6, xvii. 13) twice TVB'Z'- The latter ia
merely an abbreviated form of nj?DC". — The
names of the next three brothers occur nowhere
else. — Vers. 16, 17. And their sisters, Zeruiah
and Abigail. Both sisters obtained great celebrity
through their heroic sons, — Zeruiah, as the mother
of Abishai, Joab, and Asahel (1 Sam. xxvi. 6,
2 Sam. ii. 18, iii. 39, vi. 16, etc.), who are always
named after their mother, never after their less
celebrated father ; Abigail, as mother of the com-
mander Amasa, who was involved in Absalom's
rebellion (2 Sam. xvii. 25, xix. 14, xx. 10), whom
she bare to Jether the Ishmaelite. This -|]"|» is
called 2 Sam. xvii. 25 $OJV> with the epithet
vjnt!»n> for which, according at least to our
passage, the correct form is i7JJDi}"n ; for the
Israelitish descent of the man would have needed
no distinct notice. Abigail herself appears, be-
sides, according to 2 Sam. xvii. 25, as a daughter
of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, and therefore
not a full, but only a half sister of David.
y. The family of Caleb, as second of the three
Hezronite lines: vers. 18-24. — The question, how
this first list of his descendants is related to the
second in vers. 42-49, Wellhausen (p. 13 seq.)
has endeavoured to answer by regarding the
Caleb in ver. 42 as corresponding to the Celubai
in ver. 9, designating the order in which the
special genealogies of the three Hezronite lines
occurred, by the names Ram (ver. 10 ff. ), Jerah-
meel (ver. 25 tf.), and Caleb (ver. 42 ff.), and con-
sidering the genealogy of Caleb (vers. 18-24) as
a later insertion, whereby the Chronist has dis-
figured the original and normal development of
his genealogy of the Hezronites. He holds that,
indeed, this insertion itself is again a conglo-
merate of genealogical fragments of various origin,
as appears most clearly from the reference of vers.
21-23 to Hezron himself, the father of Caleb. '
Indeed, even vers. 10-17 are probably an inter-
polation, whereby the Chronist has endeavoured
to extend the pedigree of thr Hezronites originally
beginning with Jerahmeel ("the first-born of Hez-
1 ". . . Qux ver. 18 sgq. Irgunlur, ex variu /ontitms
havxta a Chromcographo rlemtmi ei Ohesronxorum catalogo
mterposita writ, qui quasi ftmdammtum est totius sfuclurm
htvus genealogist" (l.c. p. 13).— Comp. p !(!:"... fur-ago
sunt omnia (vers. 18-24), ex metis congata fragmenta" '
CHAP. II. 18-24.
41
ron," ver. 25), on the basis of the book of Ruth,
the Ram of which (Ruth iv. 19) appears to him
as a son of Hezron and a brother of Jerahmeel
and Caleb, whereas he is in truth, according to
rfi. 25, a son of Jerahmeel and grandson of Hezron.
Accordingly, the old genealogical table before the
Chronist had only two lines of Hezronites (Jerah-
meelites and Calebites), and his supplementing
action had extended this register, so that he first
added a Ram son of Hezron, with his posterity
(vers. 10-17), different from Ram son of Jerahmeel,
and then a second Caleb (vers. 18-24), with many
other descendants than those of the younger
brother Jerahmeel, ver. 42 ff. It cannot be denied
that many reasons appear to recommend this bold
hypothesis. It explains in a satisfactory way the
circumstance that the first-born Jerahmeel, whose
gi-nealogy we should expect first, appears after
those of his two younger brothers, and also the
surprising duplication of the names Ram and
Caleb. But the hypothesis comes short of abso-
lute certainty in many points which require to be
adduced for confirmation. And especially it still
remains doubtful which of the different old tradi-
tions concerning the descendants of the old prince
of Judah, Caleb the companion of Joshua, whether
that in ver. 18 ff., or that in ver. 42 ff., or that
in iv. 11, 15 ff., is to be pronounced the oldest
und most trustworthy, and whether we are en-
titled to reject for one of them all the others at
once as totally untrustworthy, and containing no
element of h;storical truth. If it were to be
assumed that originally there were two persons
of this name, a Caleb son of Hezron (ii., iv. 11 ff.)
and a Caleb son of Jephunneh (iv. 15 ff. ), this
duplication would warn us to be so much the
more cautious in the reception or rejection of this
or that one of the various traditions that are
attached to these honourable names : the still
greater complexity of the collective genealogies
of Caleb would all the more favour the conjecture
that each of the series referred to him must be
accounted in the one or the other way as authentic,
as containing in itself elements of the genuine
posterity of Caleb. — Ver. 18. Begat with Azubah
his wife. J"IN Tvin, either "begat with" (as else-
where )o "V?in> ch. viii. 8, 9) or "caused to bring
forth" (comp. Isa. lxvi. 9). The following words,
nijPT'VIKl PIE'S, appear to be corrupt. If we
translate (with D. Kimchi, Piscat., Osiand., and
others), ' ' with Azubah, a wife, and with Jerioth, "
two things are strange : the indefinite designa-
tion of Azubah as a wife, n$K (for which we
should expect "his wife," iriE'N), an<i the cir-
cumstance that of the second wife no son is named.
If we regard (with Hiller, J. D. Mich.) ]-|Nl ^
explicative, with Azubah a wife, that is, Jerioth,
we establish a mode of expression which is without
a parallel in our book. It is impossible to render
"And Caleb begat Azubah and Jerioth" (B.
Striegel). We must either hold nK>N> which is,
moreover, wanting in two mss. (see Crit. Note),
with Berth, and Kamph., as a marginal note that
has crept into the text, designed to prevent the
translation " begat Azubah, " or adopt the reading
of the Pesh. and the Vulg., nK intJ>N> which
(rives the sense, "begat with Azubah his wife
Jerioth, and these are her (Jerioth's) sons. " The
latter appears the most satisfactory (comp. Keil).
The names of her three sons occur nowhere else
in the Old Testament. — Ver. 19. And Azubah
died, and Caleb took to him Ephrath, namely, to
wife. To this second wife of Caleb, whose name
in ver. 50 (comp. iv. 4) is Eplirathah, belongs
Hur, who is also mentioned Exod. xxxi. 2 as the
grandfather of Bezalel. By this we are scarcrly
to understand that Ephrathah was properly a
local name equivalent to Bethlehem (Gen . xxxvi.
16, 19 ; Micah v. 1), so that Hur would be desig
nated a descendant of Caleb, born at Bethlehem,
or originating thence (an assumption to which
Bertheau seems inclined). — On ver. 20, comp.
Exod. xxxi. 2, xxxv. 30. — Ver. 21. Afterwards
Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir.
"Afterwards," "irtNl, that is, after the birth of
those three sons mentioned ver. 9, whose mother
is not named. The whole notice, extending to
ver. 24, of Hezron's descendants, bora in his old
age of the daughter of Machir the Gileadite, and
of a son Ashur, born after his death of a third
wife Abiah (ver. 24), is undoubtedly surprising,
and unsuitable to the present place : the series of
Hezron's sons and their descendants is thereby
violently interrupted, and the above-mentioned
interpolation theory of Wellhausen has in this
case a very strong support. If we hold the pre-
sent order to be original, we must assume, with
Keil, that the here mentioned descendants of
Hezron " were somehow more closely connected
with the family of Caleb than with that of either
Ram or Jerahmeel." On Machir the first-born of
Manasseh, to whom Moses gave the land of Gilead,
comp. Gen. 1. 23 ; Num. xxxii. 40 ; Deut. iii. 15.
As he is here and ver. 23 called "father of Gilead,'
so is it said Num. xxvi. 29 that he begat Gilead.
Comp. Num. xxvii. 1, from which it follows that,
by this paternal relation of Machir to Gilead, more
must be meant than the bare notion of a descent
of the lsraelitish population of Gilead from Ma-
chir, and that there must have been a definite
person, Gilead, son of Machir and grandfather of
Zelophehad. By the designation father of Gilead,
the present Machir is distinguished from later
persons of the same name ; comp. 2 Sam. ix. 4,
xvii. 27. — Ver. 22. And Segub begat Jair. This
Jair, the grandson of Hezron through Segub, be-
longed on the mother's side to the tribe of Ma-
nasseh, and occurs therefore elsewhere, as Num.
xxxii. 41, Deut. iii. 14, as a Manassite. His
family, after the conquest of Og king of Bashan
under Moses, received the territory of Argob, and
gave to the conquered cities which Moses handed
over to him the name Hawoth-Jair (TH* Din),
"tent-villages of Jair," or "life of Jair" (comp.
Num. xxxii. 41; Deut. iii. 14; Josh. xiii. 30;
1 Kings iv. 13), with which designation the
name "Judah on Jordan," Josh. xix. 34 (that
is, the colony of Jews in Gilead east of the
Jordan), is most probably identical ; comp. v.
Raumer, Palmst. 4th edit. p. 233 ; Hengstenb.
Gesch. des Rekhs Gottes im A. T. ii. p. 258 :
Hoffm. Blicke in die friiheste Gesch . des geloblen
Landes, i. (1870) p. 114.— Ver. 23. And Geshur
and Aram, the Geshurites and Aramseans, which
is scarcely a hendiadys for "the Aramaeans of
Geshur," but rather points to an alliance of the
Geshurites with the neighbouring Aramsans.
For Geshur (2 Sam. iii. 3, xiii. 37, xv. 8) wa= a
(2
I. CHRONICLES.
region in Aram or Syria, lying on the north-west
border of Bashan near Hermon and the eastern
bank of the Jordan, that in David's time (comp.
on eh. iii. 2) had a king of its own, and formed
at that time an independent kingdom, not sub-
ject to Israel, — in the opinion of Hitzig (Gesch. d.
Volks Israel, i. p. 28 if.), an Amorite kingdom of
Arian (?) origin, though Moses in the distribution
of the country had assigned it to Manasseh (Josh,
xiii. 13; comp. xii. 5). — With Keitath and her
daughters, sixty cities. So should the "ui JIJpVIK
be most probably taken, as a farther district,
besides the villages of Jair, which the Geshurites
and Aramaeans took, and not as an explanatory
apposition to these (comp. Berth.). For the
preceding statement, that the villages of Jair
amounted to twenty-three (ver. 22), is much too
definite to allow it to be supposed that the now
named sixty daughter towns of Kenath form an
inexact repetition of the same designation. Much
rather the difference of the two districts: " the
villages of Jair" and the "daughters of Kenath,"
appears in the clearest manner from Num. xxxii.
41, 42, according to which, of the two Manassites
Jair and Nobah, the former conquered the " Hav-
voth Jair," the latter the " Benoth Kenath."
Only in their sum total were these places sixty in
nnmber, and only to this sum total does the pre-
sent -pjj QV'c> apply. "Whether, therefore, the
group of towns designated by " Kenath " (now
Kanwat, on the western slope of Jebel Hauran)
and her daughters numbered exactly thirty-seven
towns (as Keil thinks), remains uncertain ; and
the number sixty may very probably be a round
number (comp. also Deut. iii. 12-14 ; Josh. xiii.
30). On the time when the Geshurites and Ara-
mceans took the sixty towns, nothing can be ascer-
tained from our passage. Certain it is that the
later Judge of Israel, Jair (Judg. x. 4), possessed
again at least thirty of these towns under the
name of Havvoth-Jair, which must have survived
to still later times. All these are sons of Jair,
not the sixty towns, but the afore-mentioned
Segub and Jair and their descendants and corre-
latives. It may be conjectured that the genea-
logical source used by the Chronist was originally
more full, so that njX 73 referred not merely to
these two names. — Ver. 24. And after the death
of Hezron in Caleb-ephratliah. This place, which
does not elsewhere occur, might possibly be the
same as Ephrathah or Bethlehem-ephrathah (see
on ver. 19) ; the name of Caleb's second wife
Ephrath might be somehow connected with this
her place of abode and death. "In 1 Sam. xxx.
14 a part of the south of Judah is called ' Negeb
Caleb, ' because it belonged to the family of Caleb ;
in analogy with which the town or place, in which
Caleb and his wife Ephrath dwelt, might be called
' Caleb of Ephrathah, ' if Ephrath had brought it
as a dowry to him, as in Josh. xv. 18 f. " (Keil).
Or from the Negeb Caleb, as the southern part of
Caleb's territory, 1 Sam. xxx. 14, "possibly the
northern part might be distinguished by the more
definite name 'Caleb of Ephrathah,' that is, of
Bethlehem" (Berth.). None of these interpreta-
tions of this obscure phrase is perfectly satisfac-
tory ; and there is therefore much plausibility in
the emendation of Wellhausen, founded on a
various reading presented by the Sept. (*xii
X«xs/! tls "EftM«« = nn~lBN 3^3 S3), "'And aftei
Hezron's death Caleb went to Ephrath, the wife
of his father Hezron. " Here for 3 is read K3 ;
for new, na>8 ; and for rV3K, V3X— a change
which is certainly somewhat radical ; but the
resulting sense is not improbable (comp. Gen.
x\xv. 22). As the text stands, here is a third
wife of Hezron, called Abiah (comp. vers. 9 and
21), who bears to him "Ashur, father of Tekoa"
(comp. iv. 5-7), as a. fit postumus after his death.
This Ashur (whom Wellhausen is disposed to
change into an ~nrrEJ',K, and to identify with
Hur, Caleb's son by Ephrath, ver. 19) is called
father of Tekoa, as lord and chieftain of the
town Tekoa, the home of the prophet Amos,
two hours south of Bethlehem (comp. Josh. xv.
59), where this place still exists under the name
Tekua (comp. Robinson's Pal. ii. p. 406).
S. The family of Jerahmeel, the third line of
Hezron : vers. 25-41. — Of Jerahmeel (he whom
God pities, whom He loves = h'»<piXcs) the first-
born of Hezron : ver. 9. As there was a negeb
Caleb (ver. 24) and a negeb of the Kenites, so
there was a negeb of the Jerahmeelites, 1 Sam.
xxvii. 10 ; comp. xxx. 29. This is a proof of the
strength and power of this line springing from
the oldest Hezronites. — Ram the first-burn.
Wellhausen, perhaps without ground, takes this
Ram to be originally identical with the Ram of
ver. 10, the founder of the Ramite family, from
which David sprang ; comp. on iv. 21. — And
Bunah, and Oren, and Ozem of A/iijah. The
last of these names, rPClK, should not apparently
designate a fifth son of Jerahmeel, because in that
case the 1 should not be wanting. It appears
rather to be the name of the mother of the four
sons, and a o before riTIN appears to have
fallen out before the a of the foregoing QSX1
(comp. viii. 9). This conjecture, thrown out by
Jun., Tremcll , Clericus, J. H. Mich., J. Lange,
and approved by all the moderns, appears the
more probable, as in the following verse mention
is made of a second wife of Jerahmeel, and the
Syr. and the Sept. in our verse have reckoned
only four sons, the latter rendering nsnx by
iSsx^os ecliTsiJ. — Ver. 26. Atarah ; she was the
mother of Onam, whose family is traced out
vers. 28-33. The name mtOV appears to signify
"crown," a name not unsuitable for a female,
Prov. xxxi. 10. Yet it might signify "wall,
fort," as the sing, of ni"lDy> the city (comp. Num.
xxxii. 3, 34 f. ; Josh. xvi. 5, 7, xviii. 13 ; and Well-
hausen, p. 25).— Vers. 28-30. Onam's family
continues itself in pairs of sons to Abishur and
Nadab, his grandsons, and to their sons. On the
name "Abihail," comp. Crit. Note.— Ver. 31.
And the sons of Sheshan (descendants ; see on ver.
7), Ahlai. This Ahlai must have been a daughter,
not a son, of Sheshan, great-grandson of Nadab,
ver. 29 ; for (ver. 34) Sheshan had no sons, but
only daughters : Ahlai was therefore his heiress ;
but whether the same daughter who (ver. 35)
married the Egyptian Jarha must remain uncer-
tain. The remark of Hiller (Onom. S. p. 736),
therefore, on Sheshan : Quicquid habitit liberorum,
s. nepotum, sitstulit ex unica filia Achlai, is nol
CHAP. II. 42-45.
43
ouite correct. — Ver. 33. These were the sons of
Jerahmeel. This subscription (going back to ver.
25) includes 23 descendants of Jerahmeel. It de-
serves notice, that 23 descendants of Jerahmeel,
with the preceding descendants of Judah (from
ver. 3), make up the sum of 70 members of the
house of Judah, namely, sons of Judah, 5 ; of
Perez, 2 ; of Zerah, 5 ; Carmi, Aehar, and
Azariah, 3 ; Earn and his descendants (including
the 2 daughters of Jesse, and Jether father of
Amasa), 21 ; Caleb and his descendants, 10 ; and
Jerahmeel and his descendants, 24. This new
number 70 of the ancestors of the Jews, made
out by Bertheau, loses weight and certainty, be-
cause it includes several females, against all
genealogical rule reckons the father and mother
of Amasa as two members, and excludes the 13
descendants of Sheshan, which sprang from the
Egyptian servant Jarha (vers. 34-41), treating
them as a mere offshoot (comp. Keil, p. 46). And
would not the Chronist, if he had actually
wished to represent the posterity of Judah, after
the manner of that of his father Israel, Gen.
xlvi. 26 f., as 70 souls, have overturned this
reckoning again by his later additions, and
especially the supplements given in iv. 1-23, and
altogether effaced the impression made thereby ?
Wellhausen's interpolation theory, even if only
approximately tree, by no means agrees with this
assumption of a tendency in the writer to sym-
bolic numbers in his enumerations in vers. 3-33.
— Vers. 34-41. The family of Jarha, the Egyptian
servant. This Jarha occurs nowhere else ; he
may have served Sheshan during the sojourn of
Israel in Egypt ; for the latter branched off from
Judah in the ninth generation, and belonged thus
to the time before Moses. Most of the old ex-
positors, perhaps rightly, presume that Jarha, only
after he was made a free man and a proselyte by
Sheshan (comp. Ex. xxii. 20, xxiii. 9), married his
•daughter ; comp. the law concerning intermar-
riage between Israelites and Egyptians, Deut.
xxiii. 8 ; also David's Egyptian servant, 1 Sam.
xxx. 13 ff. Of the 13 here named descendants of
Jarha, none occur elsewhere in the history of the
Old Testament. Their names, indeed, recur
several times, some of them, for example, in ch.
iii. , among the descendants of David ; but it is
not in the remotest degree probable that any of
these belong to the list of the descendants of
Jarha.
Appendix to the Genealogy of the House of Judah :
Three Series of Descendants of Caleb, with
Names chiefly of Geographical Import : vers.
42-55.
a. The first series : Mesha's posterity : vers.
42-45. — And the sons of Caleb, brother of Jerah-
meel, This introduction leaves no doubt that the
same Caleb is meant as in ver. 18, and that this
is an appendix to his genealogy already communi-
cated, Mesha his first-born ; he was the father
of Ziph. Though almost all the following names :
Ziph, Mareshah, Hebron, appear to be local
names, yet Mesha (j)E«D) sounds decidedly like
a personal name ; comp. the Moabitish king of
this name, who has recently become celebrated by
his monument of victory (2 Kings iii. 4). As, on
the other hand, Ziph (epf) appears to be the town
adjacent to Hebron which is mentioned Josh.
xv. 55, the same that gave its name to the wilder-
ness of Ziph known to us from the history of
David, 1 Sam. xxiii. 14 ff., xxv. 2, and which
Robinson has recognised (ii. 417 ff.) in certain
ruins on a hill south-east of Hebron, nothing if
more natural than to perceive in Mesha the father
of Ziph a lord or chieftain, or even the founder,
of the town of Ziph (comp. on ver. 24). By Ziph
might also be meant the place mentioned Josh,
xv. 24, pretty far from Hebron in the plain
(Shephelah) situated not far from Marash, the
ancient Mareshah (so thinks Keil against Ber-
theau). — A nd the sons of Mareshah the father oj
Hebron. Mareshah is scarcely the name of that
town mentioned Josh. xv. 44 and 2 Chron. xi. 8
along with Ziph, which occurs in the times of the
Maccabees and the Romans under the name of
Marissa, and is preserved in the ruins of Marash
in the Shephelah, half an hour south of Beit-
jibrin (v. Raum. Paloest. 3d edit. p. 192 ; Robin-
son, ii. 693 ; Tobler, Dritte Wanderung, pp. 129,
142). The expression "father of Hebron"
makes the reference to this town very im-
probable ; for at no time is any dependence of
the ancient Hebron (Num. xiii. 23) on that very
remote Mareshah recorded. W e must rather, as
the reading of the Masoretic text now runs, re-
gard Mareshah as the proper name of some old
tribe chief, and hold the Hebron signalized among
his sons as most probably a person or tribe dis-
tinct from the well-known city Hebron (comp. v.
28 and Ex. vi. 18, where plan is likewise a
personal name). So, justly perhaps, Wellhausen
and Keil, who is, moreover, disposed to consider
the text corrupt, and proposes the following
emendation (see Crit. Note): "and the sons of
Mesha were Abi-Hebron." This conjecture is
supported by the analogy of such compounds as
Abidan, Abiezer, Abinadab ; the simple Hebron
in ver. 43 might very well be an abbreviated form
of Abihebron (comp. En-tappuah, Josh. xvii. 7,
with the shorter Tappuah, Josh. xvi. 8). [It is
simpler and easier to regard Hebron as a person,
named, if you will, after a former Hebron. — J.
G. M.] — Ver. 43. And the sons of Hebron:
Korah, and Tappuah, and Rekem, and Shema.
These four names also must rather be names of
persons or tribes than of towns. For Korah and
Shema occur only as personal names ; Rekem
once indeed as the name of a city, Josh, xviii. 27,
but belonging to Benjamin, and several times as
a personal name : in Num. xxxi. 8 as the name
of a Midianite prince ; and 1 Chron. vii. 18 as
the name of a descendant of Manasseh. Only
Tappuah (" apple ") recurs merely as the name of
a city (Josh. xii. 17, xv. 34, xvi. 8 ; comp. xvii.
7), which, however, proves nothing for the case
in point, and by no means establishes a reference
to this or that so-called city. — Ver. 44. And
Shema begat Baham, father of Jorkeam. For
DJ?P"l'i which occurs nowhere else, the Sept.
exhibits 'lixkxv ; whence Bertheau concludes that
it was originally DJTIpS as in Josh. xv. 56. But
thU name ' ' Jokdeam ' the Sept. renders by
'UKinxft, and here it reads twice in succession
'IixXut. It exhibits the same also for Dpi, and
thereby obscures the original relation of the
genealogical data in our passage ; some of the foul
sons of Hebron (ver. 43), first Sliema and then
14
I. CHRONICLES.
the penultimate Rekem, have their genealogy
traced. With Shammai the son of this Rekem
romp, the so named persons above ver. 28 and
below iv. 17, and also the celebrated leader of
the Pharisees of this name, the antagonist of
Hillel in the time of Jesus (Joseph. Antiq. xiv.
9. 4). — Ver. 45. And Maon was father of Beth-
Zur. Both Maon and Bethzur are cities in the
hill country of Judea ; comp. for the former,
which is now called Main, and is pointed out as
a castle in ruins, with cisterns, etc., on a hill in
Carmel south of Hebron, Josh. xv. 55 ; 1 Sam.
xxiii. 24 f., xxv. 2 ; Robinson, ii. 421 ; for the
latter, the site of which is to be sought north of
Hebron, on the road to Jerusalem, Josh. xv. 58 ; 2
Chron. xi. 7 ; v. Raumer, Pal. p. 163. 'Ihere
is no decisive reason for excluding a reference to
these places. Maon the son of Shammai may
be regarded as the founder of the city so called
(comp. Judg. x. 12, where Maon is the name of a
non-lsraelitish tribe, along with Amalek and the
Zidonians) ; Bethzur may then have been founded
as a colony from Maon, a genetic relation, which
is here expressed in a manner not quite usual by
" father of Bethzur " (for above in vers. 24, 42,
and below in vers. 50, 51, it is not descent of a
colony from its mother city, but government of
cities by their princes or lords, that is designated
in this manner).
b. The second series : posterity of Ephah and
Maachah, the two concubines of Caleb : vers.
46-49. — And Ephah, Caleb's concubine. The
name DB^, occurring elsewhere (ver. 47 and i.
33) as a man's name, seems here, where it desig-
nates a secondary wife of Caleb, to point to a
non-lsraelitish origin of its possessor, whether
ehe be regarded as a person or a race. Of the
latter opinion is Wellhausen, p. 12, who takes
this non-lsraelitish gens mingling with the Caleb-
ites to belong to Midian ; and on the contrary, the
second concubine of Caleb, designated as Maachah,
ver. 48, to be a gens belonging to Canaan. Of the
three sons of Ephah, Haran and Gazez are not
otherwise known. The middle name Moza occurs
Josh, xviii. 26 as the name of a city of Benjamin ;
but this can scarcely be connected with the son of
Caleb and Ephah. That Gazez (Sept. r<£ei'i) is
first named as a third son, and then as a grand-
son of Caleb, may be explained in two ways, —
either so that the statement : "and Haran begat
Gazez" (which is omitted in the Sept.), be taken
as a more exact addition to the foregoing mention
of Gazez, or that there were really two descen-
dants of Caleb of the same name, a son and a
grandson (uncle and nephew ; comp. ch. iii. 10).
The former is the more probable assumption.
-Ver. 47. And the sons of Jehdai. It is not
clear how this Jehdai (,'nn'1) is genealogically
connected with the foregoing. Hiller in the
Onom. S. conjectures without ground that he
was one and the same person with Moza, ver. 46 ;
Jehdai might as well be a second concubine of
Caleb. Of the six sons of Jehdai also, of whose
names only some (Jotham; comp. Shaaph, ver.
49) occur elsewhere, we know nothing more. —
Ver. 48. And Caleb's concubine Maachah bare
Slieber and Tirhanah. Though this name noyo
occurs often (comp. iii. 2, vii. 16, viii. 29, xi. 43'
also the nom. genlilic. TIDJftsn, 2 Kings xxv. 23 ;
1 Chron. iv. 19), yet nothing certain can be con-
jectured concerning its present bearer ; that she
was a Canaanitess is a mere conjecture of Well-
hausen. The two sons of Maachah occur nowhere
else. The masc. ify (for which some mss. have
HIP1 ; see Crit. Note) miy arise from the writer
thinking of the father, whom he does not name.
— Ver. 49. And she bare (besides the two already
mentioned) Shaaph, the father of Madmannah.
This city of Judah, mentioned Josh. xv. 31, may
be preserved in the present Miniay or Miniah
south of Gaza. Its "father" Shaaph, clearly
different from him who is so named ver. 47, may
be regarded as its prince or founder (comp. on
ver. 42) : even so Sheva (on which name comp.
2 Sam. xx. 25, Keri) in reference to Machbenah,
and the unnamed father in reference to Gibeah.
Machbenah, belonging no doubt to Judah, is no
further known. Joshua also, xv. 57, names a
Gibeah in the mountains of Judah, whether the
same with the village Jeba mentioned by Robin-
son and Tobler, on a hill in Wady Mussur, re-
mains a question; comp. Reil on Josh. xv. — And
Caleb's daughter was Achsa. This closing notice
puts it beyond doubt that the Caleb hitherto
(from ver. 46) spoken of is the same as Caleb the
son of Jephunneh and father of Achsa (whom he
promised and gave to the conqueror of Debir as a
reward, Josh. xv. Id if. ; Judg. i. 12). This is
Caleb son of Jephunneh. the contemporary of
Moses and Joshua ; and therefore it seems difficult
to identify him at once with the brother of Jerah-
meel and son of Hezron mentioned in vers. 18 and
42 (comp. on ver. 18). For this Hezronite, a great-
grandson of Judah through Perez, appears to have
been older than Moses and Joshua ; but our pas-
sage, as also ch. iv. 15, refers clearly to that con-
temporary of Joshua who is mentioned in the
books of Joshua and Judges. That this younger
Caleb is a descendant of the Hezronite is highly
probable, because in the descendants of one and
the same stock it is easy for the collateral genea-
logies to intermingle, as they have done here
and in iv. 15 ff. (comp. besides, the remarks on
ch. iv. 11, 13, 15). If we assume accordingly two
Calebs, an older, the Hezronite, of whom we read
vers. 9 (under the name Celubai), 18, 42-45, and
then again vers. 50-55, and a younger, whose
genealogy is given in our verses (46-49) and in
ch. iv. 15 ff., we do not go so far as some older
expositors (even Starke), who assume with a
double Caleb a double Achsa, a daughter of the
Hezronite Caleb (supposed to be here mentioned*,
and a daughter of the Jephunnite Caleb (Josh. xv. ;
Judg. i. ). As little do we approve of Movers'
conjecture (Chron. p. 83), that the words, "and
Caleb's daughter was Achsa," are a spurious in-
terpolation of a later hand. But Keil's conjecture,
also, that the expression "daughter" denotes here
"grand -daughter, descendant," that it is tho
Achsah of Josh. xv. 16 that is here spoken of, bnt
as a later descendant of the old Hezronite Caleb,
and not a daughter of the Jephunnite, we cannot
accept, as it obviously does violence to the term
"daughter." Finally, we reject also Bertheau'a
attempt to admit only one Caleb, and to refer the
diversity in the accounts of him here and before
to the inexact manner of the genealogical terms
that^ express also geographical relations ; as well
as Ewald's opinion, that Caleb in vers. 42-49 is
CHAP. II. 50-55.
45
the Caleb of the book of Joshua ; the Caleb in
vers. 9, 18-20, and 50-55, on the contrary, is a
quite different person, whose real name was
Celubai. (On the somewhat different, and at all
events more probable hypothesis of Wellhausen,
see above on ver. 18.)
c. The third series: posterity of Hur, son of
Caleb: ver" 50-55. — As Hur is doubtless the
grandfath«i of Bezaleol mentioned ver. 19, we
have here again a line going back to Caleb the
Hezronite. — These were the sons of Caleb. This
introductory sentence, the generality of which
does not suit the following statement, giving a
genealogy of only one son of Caleb, appears to
indicate that the whole section is taken from an
originally different connection. — The son of Hur,
first-born of Ephrathah (comp. ver. 19) : Shobal.
As, after Shobal in the following verse, Salma and
Hareph are also named as sons of Hur, it appears
more correct to read for "lirrp, with the Sept.,
the plur. "I5)n-,J3- In the Masoretic pointing,
indeed, the names Salma and Hareph follow
Shobal, father of Kiriath-jearim, without close
connection by 1; and "WPp appears in some
measure as a superscription. Whether Shobal be
the same with the brother of Hur and son of
Judah mentioned ch. iv. 1, must remain doubt-
ful. The town of Kiriath-jearim, of which he is
here called the father, that is, founder or chief, is
that old Gibeonite town which is otherwise called
Kiriath-baal or Baalah (comp. Josh. ix. 17, xv.
9, 60), and lay in the north-west corner of Judah,
on the border of Benjamin, probably the present
Kureyet el Enab (wine town), on the road from
Jerusalem to Jaffa (Robinson, ii. 588 ff. ; Keil on
Josh. ix. 17). — Ver. 51. Salma, father of Beth-
lehem. The coincidence of name with the Beth-
lehemite ancestor of David of the house of Earn
mentioned ver. 1 7 is perhaps only accidental ;
comp. on ver. 54. — Hareph, father of Beth-
gader, of the same place, which in Josh. xii. 13
is Geder, and in Josh. xv. 36 Gederah; comp.
ch. xii. 4, xxvii. 28. Kei1 thinks rather of
Gedor (inj), Josh. xv. 58, j. Chron. iv. 4, xii.
7, but with less ground. The name Hareph does
not occur elsewhere, though P]i-in, Neh. vii. 24,
x. 20 (comp. isnnn, I Chron. xii. 5), maybe only
a variation of the same name. — Ver. 52. Haroeh
and the half of Menuhoth. These words, un-
intelligible to the old translators: '¥n nnhil
rtfnjE)i"!, tor which the Sept. gives three proper
names: 'Apaa xal Altri xai ' 'A/tpavM ', and the Vulg.
the unmeaning words : qui videbat dimidium re-
yuietionum, are obviously corrupt. Let us read
after ch. iv. 2, where a- Eeaiah son of Shobal
occurs, for ns'in JVfcO (f°r to regard the former
as a mere by -form of rpsn, as niany old expositors
do, is inadmissible), and for nifOtSn itfn accord-
ing to ver. 54: nmtsn »sni or ,nn_3sri *snv
The text thus amended (according to Bertheau's
conjecture) gives Eeaiah and Hazi-hammanahath,
that is, half of the Manahathite, as sons of Shobal,
two Jewish families, of which the latter may be
part of the inhabitants of the town Manahath,
ch. viii. 6. The situation of this place is deter-
mined by ver. 54, where Zorah is mentioned as a
neighbouring town, to be near the border of
Judah, towards Dan. Eeaiah seems from ch.
iv. 2 not to have continued as a local name, bui
to have been the ancestor of the citizens of Zora ;
so that his former seat is also to be sought in the
north-west of Judah. — Ver. 53. And the families
of Kiriath-jearim were the Ithrite, etc. These
families of Kiriath-jearim are annexed to the
already named sons of Shobal as other sons,
descendants of the same ancestor. The four
families are adduced in the fundamental text as
singulars : the Ithrite, the Puthite, etc. The
three last named occur nowhere else ; on the con-
trary, to the family of the Ithrites, ch. xi. 40
(2 Sam. xxiii. 38), belonged Ira and Gareb, two
of David's heroes. — From these came the Zorathite
and the JUshtaolite. Zorah, the home of Samson
(Judg. xiii. 2, xvi. 31), now Sura, between Jeru-
salem and Jabneh ; Eshtaol, a town on the border
of Judah and Dan, near Zorah (comp. Judg. xvi.
31, xviii. 11), probably the present Dm Eshteijeh.
— Ver. 54. The sons of Salma: Bethlehem (the
family of Bethlehem ; comp. ver. 51) and the Neto-
phathite. The town Netophan must, as follows
from the reference of its inhabitants to Salma, be
sought close by Bethlehem; comp. ch. ix. 16;
2 Sam. xxiii. 28 f.; 2 Kings xxv. 23; Ezra ii. 22;
Neh. vii. 26, whence appears the comparative
celebrity of this town, whose site has not yet been
discovered. — Ataroth of the house of Joab. This
is certainly the name of a town, which is to be
interpreted, not "crowns," but rather "walls,
forts," of the house of Joab; comp. on ver. 26.
The site is as uncertain as that of the following
Hazi-hammanahath (half Manahath); comp. ch.
viii. 6. On the contrary, ijnxn at the close
points certainly to the known border city Zorah
mentioned in the foregoing verse ; for 'jnx i3
only formally different from TlinX, being derived
from the masc. of P1JTIX, which may have been
used along with the feminine as the name of tne
town, although this cannot be proved. The
Zorites of our verse must have formed a second
element of the inhabitants of Zorah, along with
the Zorathites of the previous verse descended
from Shobal. — Ver. 55. And the families of the
scribes dwelling at Jabez. This Jewish town of
Jabez (>*3jr), whose name recurs ch. iv. 9 f. as
that of a descendant of Judah, is quite unknown
in site, but must apparently be sought, like all
the places mentioned from ver. 53, in the north of
Judah, on the borders of Benjamin or Dan. Of
the families of scribes in Jabez, however, three
are mentioned : the Tirathites, Shimathites, and
Suchathites. These three names the Vulg. has
applied appellatively to the functions of these
three classes of learned men, translating: canentes
et resonantes et in tabemaculis comvwrantes. It
is possible that the Jewish doctors consulted by
Jerome in the translation of our book (perhaps
the rabbi from Tiberias, with whom he collated
the text from beginning to end ; comp. Introd.
§ 6, Eem.) had presented an etymological basis
for this interpretation, in seeking to refer — 1.
DTTjnn to njnn, "jubilee song, trumpet sound;"
2. DYIJJDB' to nj?OB>, " report, echo" (or perhaps
to nj?OE>, Aram. XRJ/DB'i traditio legis ; comp.
4(5
I. CHRONICLES.
Wellhausen, p 30) ; 3. D^HDlb to n3ib = H3D,
"hut, "booth:" comp. Lev. xxiii. 34 ff. If the
etymology here were correct, and it commends
itself at all events more than the partly deviating
one which Bertheau (by reference of the first
term to the Chald. Jj-jn, door, and thus making
DTljnn a synonym of OHy'cj', porters) has at-
tempted, the functions assigned to the three
classes of Sopherim, and giving origin to their
names, would belong to divine worship, and re-
semble those of the Levites. And this seems to
agree very well with the closing remark : these
are the Kenites, that came from Hammath, fatter
of the house of Rechab, as a certain connection or
spiritual relationship may he shown, as well of
the Kenites as of the Rechabites, with the Levites,
if we think on the one hand of Jethro, father-in-
law of Moses, the priest of the Midian-Kenites
in the region of Sinai (Ex. ii. 15, iii. 1 ; comp.
Judg. i. 16, iv. 11, 17), and of his influence on
the legislative and religious activity of Moses
(Ex. xviii.); on the other hand, of the priestly
fidelity of the family of the Rechabites, as Jer.
xxxv. (comp. 2 Kings x. 15) describes them, of
their constant "standing before the Lord, "and,
moreover, of the ancient tradition still surviving
among the nominal descendants of the Rechabites
in Yemen, that the house of Rechab descended
from Hobab or Keni (Judg. i. 16), the father-in-
law of Moses (comp. A. Murray, Comment, de
Kiiueli, Hamb. 1718; Nagelsbach on Jer. xxxv.,
vol. xv. p. 254 of Bibelwerk). On a fair ex-
amination of these circumstances, it appears
highly probable that the certainly foreign (1 Sam.
xv. 6) yet highly honoured Kenites, in like
manner as the Gibeonites, ministered of old in
the sanctuary of Israel, and that the Rechabites
of the times of the Kings and a ter the exile
(Neh. iii. 14) were descendants of these old Kenite
temple ministers, who, by adherence to one part
of their ancient wont and use, kept themselves
distinct from the great mass of the people. The
naming of Ham math also, as " father of the
house of Rechab," agrees very well with this
hypothesis ; for if Jonathan the Rechabite that
met with Jehu king of Israel, and was honoured
by him (2 Kings x. 15, 23), was a son of Rechab,
so may Hammath have been father or forefather of
this Rechab, and so ancestor of the whole family.
Though all this rises little above the range of the
hypothetical, and though in particular the ques-
tion remains dark and unanswerable, why this
Kenite family of Sopherim from Jabez is directly
attached to Salma the father of Bethlehem, and
through him to Hur the son of Caleb (whether
on account of some intermarriage having taken
place between a Kenite and an heiress of the
house of Salma ?), yet it is on the whole probable
thai those three names are really designations of
three classes of ministers in the sanctuary, and not
proper names of families, as the Sept. ('Apyxtulp,
2tL/j.a@ist(i, 2uKx^isiju.) held, and a majority of recent
expositors still hold. Besides, Wellhausen's at-
tempt to refer that which is stated, both in our
verse concerning the Kenites or Rechabites of
Jabez, and generally from ver. 50 on concerning
the posterity of Hur and their settlements in the
north of Judah to the time after the exile, and so
ascribe these statements to bias and fancy, and to
admit only the foregoing genealogy, vers. 42-49,
which assigns to the Calebites settlements m the
south of Judah around Hebron, as historically
reliable, that is, referring to the time before the
exile, —this whole attempt (pp. 29-33) falls short
of satisfactory proof. There is no ground for
holding that which is reported of the Calebites
as inhabitants of Kiriath -jearim, Bethlehem,
Netophah, Zorah, etc., to be a collection of later
traditions than the foregoing accounts of Calebit*
families in Tappuah, Maon, Bethzur, etc. Neither
do we know the geographical position of the
several places mentioned in the two sections (vers.
42-49 and 50-55) so well, as to be able to assert
that the former refers only to the south, the
latter only to the north, of Judah. Respecting
Jabez, for example, the seat of the Kenites, it is
by no means determined that it is to be sought
in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem and Kiriath-
jearim (comp. above). In short, it is advisable to
avoid such violent attempts to solve the problem
here presented as the assumption of a genealogy
of Calebites before and after the exile, and to
approve the more cautious remark of Bertheau :
' ' We can easily imagine the motive which led the
Chronist to communicate this verse, though we
are unable completely to perceive its contents."
[The term ''3^3, ver. 9, seems to be, if not a
patronymic, at least a virtual plural, and may
well indicate more than one Caleb. The name
was famous and frequent in the tribe of Judah.
The first of the name appears in vers. 18-24. He
is designated "the son of Hezron," though Ram
is not, evidently to distinguish him from others
of the name. He may have been born 50 or 58
years after Jacob came down to Egypt, as his
father was born shortly before that event. He
has by his wife Azubah three sons, or perhaps
grandsons ; and after her death he marries
Ephrath, and by her has a well-known son Hur,
who was the contemporary of Moses, Ex. xvii.
10. The episode about his father Hezron marry-
ing again when sixty years old, is brought in
partly from the concurrence in the foregoing
paragraph of the two names Caleb and Ephrath,
which are combined in the name of the place
where he died, and partly from the high anti-
quarian interest which it possesses. Hezron was
born before Jacob went down to Egypt, and there-
fore most probably died within 110 years from
that date. He died, not in Egypt, but in Caleb-
Ephrathah. This imptes the presence and power
of Caleb in the region of Hebron as a sheik
giving name to a place in his estate. In this
quarter Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had resided
and acquired some property in land, Gen. xxiii.
Caleb of the line of Judah held possession of
this estate during the early period of Israel's
residence in Egypt, when they were still a free
and honoured people. And there his father died
in a town called after the united names of himself
and his wife. After the Israelites, however, were
reduced to slavery by the Pharaoh that knew not
Joseph, the occupation of this region by the
descendants of Judah was rendered precarious or
entirely interrupted. In this paragraph, then, we
have a most unexpected and interesting glimpse
of what was taking place in the time of the first
Caleb ; and in this view of the passage we see
that it occupies its right place.
A second Caleb is presented to us in vers. 42-
49. He is distinct from the former in everything
CHAP. III.
47
but the name : 1. In the mode in which he is in-
troduced, namely, in an appendix after the three
sons of Hezron have been brought forward in
order ; 2. In Ids sons and wives, which arc all
quite different from those of his namesake ; 3.
In his time, as he is the father of Achsah, and
therefore lived in and after the 40 years of the
wilderness, two or three generations later than
the former Caleb ; 4. In his place, as a careful
examination of the two paragraphs will show ; 5.
In his designation as " the brother of Jerahmeel,"
while the former is called " the son of Hezron ; " for
this phrase cannot mean the son of the Jerahmeel
already mentioned, as this would be a superfluous
addition, and would not square with the time of
this Caleb. Some will conceive that the tenn
" brother " is here used in a wide sense to denote
a kinsman of Jerahmeel, a member of the family.
But it is more simple to consider Jerahmeel here
to be a descendant of the former Jerahmeel, not
otherwise mentioned, just as Celub in ch. iv. 1 1
is said to be a brother of Shuah, who is not pre-
viously mentioned. This appendix is thus in its
right place, as it signalizes an important member
of the Jerahmeelite clan, 1 Sam. xxvii. 10, Caleb
the son of Jephunneh.
A third Caleb comes before ns in a second
appendix : vers. 50-55. He is clearly different
from each of the others, as he is " the son of Hur,
the first-born of Ephrathah," and therefore not a
Jerahmeelite like the second, but the grandson
of the first.
There is nothing to hinder us taking this view
of the whole passage, and it might be supported
at much greater length. It deals fairly with the
author, as it presumes him to observe order, and
endeavours not to import confusion into Lis
narrative by a preconceived theory. We sub-
mit it to the judgment of the reader. — J. G-.
M.]
2. The Descendants of David to Elioenai and his Seren Sons: ch. iii.
Ch. III. 1 . And these were the sons of David, that were born to him in Hebron :
the first-born Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess ; the second Daniel, of
2 Abigail the Carmelitess. The third Absalom,1 the son of Maachah, daughter
3 of Talmai king of Geshur ; the fourth Adonijah, son of Haggith. The fifth
4 Shephatiah of Abital ; the sixth Ithream, by Eglah his wife. Six were born
unto him in Hebron, and he reigned there seven years and six months ; and
5 he reigned thirty and three years in Jerusalem. And these were born to him
in Jerusalem : Shima, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, four, of Bath-
6, 7 shua daughter of Ammiel. And Ibhar, and Elishama,2 and Eliphelet. And
8 Nogah, and Nepheg, and Japhia. And Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine.
9 All the sons of David, except the sons of the concubines, and Tamar their sister.
10 And the son of Solomon : Eehoboam, Abiah his son, Asa his son, Jehosha-
11, 12 phat his son. Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son. Amaziah his
13 son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son. Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son,
14, 15 Manasseh his son. Amon his son, Josiah his son. And the sons of Josiah :
the first-born Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth
16 Shallum. And the sons of Jehoiakim : Jechoniah his son, Zedekiah his son.
17,18 And the sons of Jechoniah the captive : Shealtiel his son. And Malchiram,
19 and Pedaiah, and Shenazzar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah. And the
sons of Pedaiah : Zerubbabel and Shimei ; and the son 3 of Zerubbabel :
20 Meshullam and Hananiah, and Shelomith their sister. And Hashubah, and
21 Ohel, and Berechiah, and Hasadiah, Jushabhesed, five. And the son4 of
Hananiah : Pelatiah and Jesaiah ; the sons 5 of Eephaiah, the sons of Arnan,
22 the sons of Obadiah, the sons of Shechaniah. And the sons of Shechaniah :
Shemaiah ; and the sons of Shemaiah : Hattush, and Igal, and Bariah, and
23 Neariah, and Shaphat, six. And the son of Neariah : Elioenai, and Hezekiah,
24 and Azrikam, three. And the sons of Elioenai : Hodaiah,6 and Eliashib, and
Pelaiah, and Akkub, and Johanan, and Delaiah, and Anani, seven.
1 For DvSJQK? many mss. and roost old prints read DvUQK- Comp. Exeg Ex.pl.
2 VttCvX \ in this first place is perhaps an error of tte transcriber for JPlGJ'vN 1, which appears not only In the two
parallel passages xiv. 5 and 2 Sam. t. 15 (after "irD1^), but also in cod. Vat. of the Sept., as it gives 'EA<r«.
* For J3^ before P33")t some Has., as well as the old translators, read s33^, an unnecessary amendment (comp
Exec- Remark on ii. 7).
* The same variation as in rer 19 (see Note 2).
* For ^32, " sons of," the Sept. reads from this to the end of the verse 133, "his Bon," so that from Hananiah to
Shechaniah it yields a series of seven successive generations. Sc also B. Benjamin in R. Azariah de Rossi in Meor
Aepaiim (comp. Zunz, Gottesdiewtliche Vortr&ge der Juden, p. 31).
* Keri: }m nil (for which, according to the Hebrew law of sounds, we should expect 'liTVlin). The Kelhil
IHMTin cannot be so pronounced, and appears to arise from a confusion of the forms Bodavjahu and Hodi/aJtu.
48
I. CHRONICLES.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — After the family of
Ram, the middle son of Hezron was carried
down, ii. 10-17, only to Jesse the father of
David, and the genealogies of Caleh and Jerah-
meel were interposed, ii. 18-55, the line of Ram-
ites, starting from David, is resumed and traced
from David to the time after the captivity. This
is given in three paragraphs, of which the first
registers all the sons of David except those born
of concubines, vers. 1-9 ; the second, the series
of kings of the house of David from Solomon to
Jechoniah and Zedekiah. vers. 10-16 ; and the
third, the descendants of Jechoniah to the seven
sons of Elioenai, vers. 17-24. The names in the
second of these paragraphs mostly recnr, those in
the third, at least partly, in the genealogy of Jesus
in Matthew (whereas Luke iii. 23 ff. presents a
totally different series of names from David to
Shealtiel, and again from Zerubbabel to Joseph).
1. The Sons of David: vers. 1-9. a. The six
sons born in Hebron : vers. 1-4. — These six senior
sons of David are, with one exception, enumerated
literally as in 2 Sam. iii. 2-5. — Tlie first-born
Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitexs j literally,
" to Ahinoam." The p before QJJJTIN designates
the wife to whom the son belonged. Comp. on this
Ahinoam, 1 Sam. xxv. 43, xxvii. 3, and on Amnon,
who is also called Aminon (2 Sam. xiii. 20), 2 Sam.
xiii. — Thesecund Daniel,qf Abigail theCarmelitesn.
Instead of *jc>, properly "a second," stands in
the parallel 2 Sam. iii. 3 iiDJK'O, "his second,"
with which mK'bn, 1 Chron. v. 12, is to be com-
pared. A more important difference from 2 Sam.
iii. 3 is 2(03, quite another name, which stands
there for p&ssyq. This other designation of the
second son of David may be explained by the
supposition of a real double name, as in Uzziah
Azariah (comp. on 2 Chron. xxvi. 1), Jehoiakhn
Eliakim, Mattaniah Zedekiah (comp. also on ver.
15). The variant AxXeula (perhaps = rcbt) Pr<J-
sented by the Sept. in 2 Sam. iii. 3 may be an
error of transcription for Axnrik (or inversely
" Daniel," a later variation for the original De-
laiah) ; but the name Cilab is still unexplained.
On Abigail, the widow of Nabal the Carmelite
(not to be confounded with Abigail the sister of
David, ii. 16), comp. 1 Sam. xxv. 3 ff. — Ver. 2.
The third Absalom. For Di^KON is also found
Di^riK. 1 Kings xv. 2, 10. The ? before
Di?K'2N might, in another cocnection, serve to
lay emphasis on the name ("the well-known Ab-
salom ; " comp. Isa. xxxii. 1). Here, however
in a mere list of names, it scarcely has this im-
port, hut seems rather to have come into the text
through an oversight, in consequence of the fore-
going 2N^> in in'':?^. Other attempts to ex-
plain this p (which is wanting in some copies ;
see Note) are quite worthless, and deserve to be
noted only as curiosa ; for example, Karachi's pro-
posal to take ? for N?, thereby designating him
as properly not an Absalom, a father's peace, but
a rebel, or Hillei's supposition (Onom. S. p. 733)
that DipK'DX^ is a fuller form for the simpler and
more usual QipB>3S. «tc. On Geshur, comp. above
ii. 23 ; on Adoiiijah, son of Haggith, comp. ]
Kings i. and ii.— Ver. 3. By Eglah his wife,
IFIK'N rbi]lb > quite similar to 2 Sam. iii. 5,
TVI ntJ'K rbiyh- This addition "his wife,"oi
"wife of David," appears to be inserted merely
to make a full-toned conclusion of the series, and
scarcely to distinguish Eglah as the most eminent
wife of David, as some Eabbis and recently
Thenius on 2 Sam. iii. 5 think, who take Eglah
only for another name of Michal, 1 Sam. xviii.
20, or even substitute ~>yo as the original read-
ing for rTOy (so Thenius). — Ver. 4. For the
historical notices in this verse comp. 2 Sam. ii.
11, v. 5. The statement in 2 Sam. ii. 10 (from
which Ishbosheth appears to have reigned only
two years in Mahanaim) conflicts only apparently
with the seven years of the residence of David in
Hebron ; on which see Hengstenb. Gesch. d.
Retches Oottesunter dem A. B. ii. 2, p. 114 f.
b. The thirteen sons of David born in Jeru-
salem : vers. 5-9. These sons of David (of whom
four are by Bathsheba) are again mentioned xiv.
7-11, in the history of David. Less complete is
the list in the parallel passage 2 Sam. v. 14-16,
by the omission of the last two. — Ver. 5. The foul
sons of Bathsheba, or, as she is here called,
Bathxhua. The two names, occurring beside one
another, receive their explanation from the inter
vening form JJIC'VQ : as this, however, is ob
viously weakened from JQB'VB (as JWH3
again is a weakening of JJIcJ-fia), the latter form
appears to be the oldest and most original. Two
other peculiarities of the names contained in our
verse are — 1. KJJBB> as the name of the first of
Bathsheba's four sons, for which stands in xiv. 4
and 2 Sam. v. 14 Jflssjj ; 2. Ammiel (PN'QJJ) as
the name of the father of Bathsheba, for which
in 2 Sam. xi. 3 is the form Eliam (DypS). con-
taining the two elements of the name transposed.
It is uncertain which of these two forms is correct
and original. — Vers. 6-8. Here follow the nine
sons born at Jerusalem of other wives. And Ib-
har, and Elishama, and Eliphelet. As the two
parallel passages xiv. 5 and 2 Sam. v. 1 5 agree in pre
senting after Ibhar an Elishua, JfiltJ"^}*. Elishamp.
in our passage appears clearly an error of transcrip-
tion, especially as this name occurs again in ver. 8.
The following name Eliphelet (bSd'Sk) is found
also in xiv. 5, although in the somewhat abbre-
viated form absbii ; on the contrary, it is wanting
in 2 Sam. v. 15, where only one Eliphelet, the last of
the series, is mentioned. It is uncertain whether
this want be original, and the double position is
the result of some error of the Chronist or his
voucher (as Berth, thinks). That David should
have repeated the same name in the sons of his
CHAP. III. 10-16.
49
different wives is of itself not incredible. — Ver. 7.
And Nogah, and Nepheg, and Japhia. The name
r\ii, omitted by an oversight in 2 Sam. v. 15, is
certainly original, though nothing be known con-
cerning this Nogah, perhaps because he died
early and childless. ' ' The view of Movers, p.
229, that this name was not originally in the text,
and came in by a false writing of the following
3S3, has arisen from an undue preference for the
text of the books of Samuel " (Berth.). — Ver. 8.
And Elishama (comp. on ver. 6), and Eliada,
and Eliphelet, nine. For JJIvK appears xiv. 7
ITTvJJi scarcely correct ; for the other parallel
2 Sam. v. 16 and the Sept. and Syr. versions in
xiv. 7 have jrpta (Sept. cod. Vat. 'EX;*5i — cod.
Alex., indeed, BxkkixSi).— Ver. 9. All the sons of
David, except the sons of the concubines. These
sons of David by concubines or slaves are also
unnamed elsewhere ; but their existence appears
from 2 Sara. v. 13, xii. 11, xv. 16, xvi. 22. — And
Tamar their sister, not the only one, but the
sister known from the history (2 Sam. xiii. 1 ff.).
2. The Kings of the House of David from
Solomon to the Exile : vers. 10-16. — As far as
Josiah, they are enumerated, without naming any
non-reigning descendants, as a simple line of
sovereigns, embracing in it fifteen members (with
the omission of the usurper Athaliah as an idolater
and a foreigner) by the addition of a ^3, "his
son," to each. At variance with this course, four
sons of Josiah are then named, not perhaps in
him, the great reformer, ' ' to introduce a pause in
the long line of David's descendants" (Berth.),
but " because with Josiah the regular succession
ceased" (Keil). — The first-born Johanan, the
second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth
Shallum. To Josiah succeeded, 2 Kings xxiii. 30,
2 Chron. xxxvi. 1, his son Jehoahaz as king.
This Jehoahaz is called in Jer. xxii. 11 properly
Shallum ; he was thus, as the present list shows,
the youngest, or at all events one of the youngest,
among them ; not to be identified with the
first-born Johanan, as many older writers (Seb.
Schmidt, Starke, etc.), and of the moderns, for
example, Hitzig (Begriffder Kritik, etc., p. 182 ff.,
and Ge.sch. d. Folks Isr. p. 246), do. For, 1.
The statement of Jeremiah, that Shallum became
king in his father's stead, is quite positive and
unhesitating. 2. From comparing 2 Kings xxiii.
31, 36, with 2 Chron. xxxvi. 2, 5, it appears that
Jehoahaz was two years younger than Jehoiakim,
and therefore not the first-born. 3. The preferring
of a younger son before an older to the throne is
not surprising, if we consider the analogous case
of Solomon, who, though one of the youngest of
the sons of David (the youngest of the four sons
of Bathsheba), succeeded to the throne. 4. The
double name Jehoahaz Shallum is not more sur-
prising than Jehoahaz Johanan would be; the
mutually exchanging names are in both cases, if
not quite alike in meaning, yet expressive of
similar ideas (JCIXin'1, "whom Jehovah holds,"
and C^tJ', "who is requited (of God)," and so
jjnin''); comp. the numerous cases of double
raming, of which some examples are quoted on
ver. 1, also Simonis Onom. p. 20. The only
inaccuracy that can be imputed to the Chronist
in the present statements is, that he names
Shallum in the last place, and so appears to
favour the opinion that he was the youngest of
the four brothers, whereas Zedekiah was much
younger than he ; indeed, as a comparison of
2 Kings xxiii. 31 with xxiv. 18 shows, at least
13 or 14 years younger (for Shallum was 23 years
old when he ascended the throne, while Zedekiah,
who ascended the throne 11 years later, was then
only 21 years of age). How this inaccuracy in
the order is to be explained, Keil shows very well,
p. 55 f. : "In our genealogy Zedekiah is placed
after Jehoiakim and before Shallum, because, on
the one hand, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah held the
throne a longer time, each for eleven years; on th«
other hand, Zedekiah and Shallum were the sons
of Hamutal (2 Kings xxiii. 31, xxiv. 18), Jehoia-
kim the son of Zebidah (2 Kings xxiii. 36).
With respect to age, they should have succeeded
thus : Johanan, Jehoiakim, Shallum, and Zede-
kiah ; and in regard to their reign, Shallum should
have stood before Jehoiakim. But in both cases
those born of the same mother Hamutal would
have been separated. To avoid this, Shallum
appears to have been reckoned beside his brother
Zedekiah in the fourth place. " Kegarded thus, the
passage loses its obscurity, which Nagelsbach hat
still imputed to it (on Jer. xxii. 11), without
going quite so far as Hitzig, who here lays a
whole series of errors to the charge of the Chro-
nist. Comp. against the imputations of the
latter, Movers, p. 157 f. : "The two names
(Johanan and Jehoahaz) are to be distinguished
exactly as Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin ; had the
Chronist named Jehoahaz along with Shallum, or,
as Hitzig thinks right, called lilm the first-born,
the error would certainly have been undeniable.
Further misled by the passage of Jeremiah, he has
taken Shallum for another son of Josiah, the
fourth, and different from Jehoahaz. Shallum
Jehoahaz is certainly named the fourth in ver. 15,
incorrectly indeed, for he was the third ; but the
Chronist could not mistake the passage of Jere-
miah, for it clearly says : ' who (Shallum) reigned
instead of Josiah his father.' How should an
error in the Jewish line of kings occur in a Jewish
historian!" — Ver. 16. And the sons of Jehoia-
kim: Jechoniah his son, Zedekiah his son. In-
stead of ^'l3^, = VT1 J13"" (whom God establishes),
the son of Jehoiakim in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9, as in
2 Kings xxiv. 8 ff., bears the equivalent name
Jehoiachin (po^JT; comp. paty, Ezek. i. 2), where-
as he is called, Jer. xxiv. 1, xxvii. 20, xxviii. 4, and
Esth. ii. 6, D'l33,> quite as here and Jer. xxii. 24,
28, xxxvii. 1, Conjahu (liV32, al1 abbreviation of
VVjy» i"WO*). The Zedekiah here named can
only be regarded as a son of Jechoniah, and so a
grandson of Jehoiakim and great - grandson of
Josiah ; for the 133 added to his name uniformly
designates in the previous genealogical line the
son of the aforesaid : and the circumstance, that
this son of Jechoniah is named here apart from
his other sons, may find its explanation in this,
that this Zedekiah, perhaps the first-born, did
not go into captivity with his father and brethren,
but died beforehand as a royal prince in Jerusalem.
He is therefore not to be confounded with the
Zedekiah who was mentioned in the foregoing
D
60
I. CHRONICLES.
Terse as a third son of Josiah, and, 2 Kings xxiv.
17 ft., 2 Chron. xxxvi. 11, became successor of
Jechoniah on the throne; he is a grand-nephew
of king Zedekiah, who before his accession was
called Mattaniah, and whose subsequent name, as
well in Chronicles (2 Chron. xxxvi. 10) as in Kings
(2 Kings xxiv. 17 ff. ), is uniformly written in'pTX
(not, as here, n'plV)- This last variety of name
is merely graphical, though in the present case,
where the double name (Mattaniah Zedekiah)
serves as a mark of the king, it may have a further
import. Against the assumption of some ancients
(even of Starke), that the Zedekiah of our verse is
the same as king Zedekiah, who is quoted (ver. 1 5)
as a son of Jehoiachin, because he was his suc-
cessor on the throne, comp. the just remarks of
Calov. in the Biblia illustrata. With respect to
2 Chron. xxxvi. 10, where Zedekiah the successor
ot Jehoiachin appears to be erroneously termed
his brother, which in reality is only inexactness,
or a wider sense of the word |-|X (— relative in
general), see on the passage.
3. The Descendants of Jechoniah to the Seven
Sons of Elloenai ; vers. 17-24. — And the sons of
Jechoniah the captive. It is certainlj possible
to translate the words IBS iTJD'1 ''jni with the
Sept., Vulg., Kimchi, Jun. , etc., and even Ke.il:
"And the sons of Jechoniah were Assir. " But
the appellative meaning of ")BN> "the captive,"
adopted by Luther, Starke, Berth., Kamph., is
decidedly preferable. For, 1. As one of the sons
of Jechoniah, the early deceased Zedekiah, has
been already named, we expect here a remark of
Jechoniah indicating that he as captive or in
captivity begat the sons now to be named. 2. An
Assir, as connecting link between Jechoniah and
Shealtiel, nowhere occurs, neither in Matt. i. 12
nor in the Seder Olam Sutta (comp. Herzfeld,
Oesch. d. V. Israel, i. 379). 3. The absence of
iJ3 after "IBN, while it stands after fwni'NK',
makes it impossible to see in Assir a link between
Jechoniah and Shealtiel. 4. Neither can Assir be
regarded as a brother of Shealtiel, because the
copula could not then be wanting between the
two names, and because the singular ^3 after
^XTf?X!J> is inexplicable, if two sons of Jechoniah
were named. 5. The combination proposed by
Keil (p. 57), that Assir, the only son of Jechoniah
besides the early deceased Zedekiah, left only a
daughter, by whom he became the father-in-law
of Neri, a descendant of David of the line of
Nathan, and by this son-in-law, again ( Luke iii.
27), the father, or strictly the grandfather, of
Shealtiel, of Malchiram, Pedaiah, and the other
eons named ver. 18, fails through its excessive
artificiality, and through this, that it takes faa at
the close of our verse, notwithstanding the con-
stant use of the Chronist in the foregoing genea-
logy, in the sense of his grandson. 6. The single
objection that can be made to the appellative
meauing of -1D&5, that it wants the article, loses
much of its force from the abrupt and merely
allusive mannei of our genealogist. 7. The Maso-
retic accentuation points out -|0X as an appella-
tive addition to rTOSV a circumstance not to be
overlooked in the present case, as it proves our in-
terpretation to be supported by no less respectable
and ancient authorities than the opposite one. —
Ver. 18. And. Malchiram, and Pedaiah, etc. These
six other sons of the captive Jechoniah, Kimchi,
Tremell., Piscat., Hiller, Burmann, and recently
Hitzig on Hag. i. 1, 12, regard not as brothers,
but as sons of Shealtiel, because Zerubbabel else-
where appears (Hag. i. 1; Ezra iii. 2, v. 2; JMjftt.
i. 12) as son, or at all events direct successoi,
perhaps grandson, of Shealtiel, whereas here he
would appear to be his nephew, if his father
Pedaiah (ver. 19) had actually to pass for a
brother of Shealtiel. Against this hypothesis is
— 1. The copula before D"l,3?D, which makes it
impossible to regard the six named in our verse
otherwise than as brothers of Shealtiel. 2. The
paternal relation of Pedaiah to Zerubbabel, as
attested ver. 19, may be easily reconciled with
the elsewhere attested filial relation of Zerubbabel
to Shealtiel, by the assumption of intermarriage
or adoption ; in other words, the Chronist's
making Zerubbabel to be son of Pedaiah and
nephew of Shealtiel may well be taken for a
more exact statement than that of the other
reporters (Hag., Ezra, and Matt.). Besides, the
five sons of Jechoniah named along with Shealtiel
and Pedaiah are otherwise unknown. Only of
Pedaiah are further descendants known in the
following verses. — Ver. 19. And the sons of
Pedaiah : Zerubbabel and Shimei. The latter is
not elsewhere named : concerning the former, of
whose identity with the celebrated prince and
leader of the first band of returning captives, 536
B. c. , there can be no well-founded doubt (although
Hottinger, S. J. Baumgarten, Starke, and the
ancients incline to assume two or even three
different Zerubbabels), comp. on the previous
verse. — And the son of Zerubbabel : Meshirflam
and Hananiah. On the somewhat surprising
sing- pi, on account of the plural number of
sons, and the variant 133:1, see Crit. Note. Ber-
theau, moreover, justly remarks: "In the names
of the sons of Zerubbabel appear to be reflected
the hopes of the Israelites at the time of the
return from Babylon, in Meshullam (friend of
God), comp. Isa. xlii. 19, Hananiah (grace of
God), Berechiah, Hasadiah, Jushab-Chesed (mercy
will return)." — And Shelomith their sister. She
is perhaps named after the first two sons, because
she sprang from the same mother. Her name
divides the collective family of Zerubbabel into two
groups, the former of two, the latter of five sons.
Possibly the second group contains exclusively or
chiefly younger sons of Zerubbabel born after the
return from the exile.— Ver. 21. And the son of
Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah. The two
grandsons of Zerubbabel are otherwise unknown,
but must have belonged to the contemporaries of
Ezra, about 450 B.C.— The sons of Rephaiah, the
sons of Arnan, the sons of Obadidh, the sons
of Shechaniah. In what relation these four
families stand to Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, the sons
of Hananiah, is not clear, as the express state-
ment that their heads, Rephaiah, etc., were sons of
Hananiah, and brothers of those two, is wanting;
and the various readings of the old translator*
(Sept Vulg., Syr.), that give, instead of the plur.
<J3, always the sing, with the suff. 133, thereby
CHAP. III. 22-24.
51
originating a continuous line of descent, with
seven members from Hananiah to Shechaniah,
have little claim to credibility. For, 1. The line
of David's descent would, if ver. 21 actually
reckoned se*'en successive generations, seem to be
continued far into the 3d century B.C. (for in
vers. 22-24 four generations more are added), —
much further than a rational estimate of the age
of our author, who must have lived at the latest
about 330 B.C., will admit (comp. Einl. p. 3).
2. The assumption of an addition to the series,
arising from a younger writer than the Chronist,
is extremely doubtful. 3. The Hattush of ver.
22 appears to be the same with the descendant of
David bearing the same name mentioned Ezra
viii. 2, a younger contemporary of Ezra, which is
quite possible, and even probable, if this Hattush
be the fourth in descent from Zerubbabel, but, on
the contrary, impossible if he be the ninth. 4.
The brief mode of enumerating with the mere
l33> appending the son only to the father without
mention of other descendants, does not agree with
the verses around from ver. 18, in which a more
copious enumeration, almost in every number
giving a plurality of children, is presented. If it
appear, on the whole, most probable that the sons
of Kephaiah, etc., are designations of contem-
porary families of the house of David, not succes-
sive generations, it still remains doubtful how
these families are connected with the last-named
descendant of Zerubbabel. On this there are, in
the main, two opinions among recent expositors :
a. Ew., Berth., Kamph., etc., take Rephaiah,
Arnan, Obadiah, and Shechaniah, as well as the
two before named, Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, to be
sons of Hananiah, and assume that, on account of
the great celebrity and wide extension of their
families, these last four sons are named, "not as
individuals, but as families " (for which cases like
ch. i. 41, ii. 42, iv. 15, xxiv. 26, etc., afford
examples).
6. Movers, Herzfeld, Havernick, Keil see in these
four families, generations "whose descent the
Chronist could not or would not more precisely
define, and therefore merely enumerates one after
another" (Herzf.), and are inclined to regard the
whole series from n'B"l '33 to the end of the
chapter as "a genealogical fragment, perhaps
inserted afterwards into the text of Chronicles "
(Keil), and accept where possible the assumption
defined by the ancients, as Heidegger, Vitringa,
Carpzov, etc., of a corruption of the present
Masoretic text, perhaps a gap before fl'SI '33
(so likewise Keil). We may reserve the choice
between these two views ; for while the assump-
tion of a corruption of the text seems to be
natural enough, and to be rendered even probable
by the change of 133 into 133 in the Sept., yet,
on the other hand, we scruple to ascribe to the
Chronist an uncertain or defective knowledge
concerning the families of the house of David
after Zerubbabel, as it is to be presumed that he
would be especially well informed on matters so
near his own time. — Ver. 22. And the sons of
Shechaniah: Shemaiah. The plur. 133, as in i.
41, ii. 42, etc. On Hattush son of Shemaiah, then
Lamed in the first place, see on previous verse,
tnd Introd. § 3, Rem. The closing notice, that
six sons of Shemaiah are named in all, is strange,
because only five of them are named ; and it is
quite unfeasible, with J. H. Mich., Starke, and
others (as in Gen. xlvi. 15), to assume that the
father is included. We can scarcely escape the
assumpti in, that one of the six names has fsllen
out of the text by an old error of transcription ,
but we can hardly regard the sixth name Sesa
(Sessa), presented by the Vulg. in the Edit. Sixt.
of 1590, as anything else than a poor emendation
arising from the number n$K'> since no other text
presents this name. — Ver. 23. And the, son of
Neariah: Elioenai. With the latter name, which
is here written without n ('3'J)ivX),but elsewhere
in full '3'JjinvX (my eyes unto Jehovah), comp.
Ezra viii. 4, and, with respect to the sentence
which contains its etymology, Ps. xxv. 15. — Ver.
24. And tlie sons of Elioenai: Hodaiah, etc.
With the name ^"Pniil (or perhaps ^fpyiiPI,
" praise Jehovah, praise God ") compare the
shorter form n'Vlin. v. 24, ix. 7, Ezra ii. 40, and
nyiin, Nell. vii. 43 ; see also Crit. Note.
The seven sons of Elioenai here named, if we are
to suppose a direct genealogical connection of the
families enumerated from ver. 216 with the before-
named descendants of Zerubbabel (if, consequently,
the assumption of Movers, Herzfeld, and Keil,
that vers. 216-24 form an unconnected interpo
lation, is to be rejected), would be the seventh
generation inclusive from Zerubbabel, and, if the
length of a generation be fixed at 30 years, would
have to be placed near the middle of the 4th
century B.C., as, for example, Bertheau (p. 35)
reckons the years 386-356 B.C., Ewald (Oesch. d.
V. Isr. 2d edit. i. 229) the time after 350, as the
period of the existence of the seven sons of Elioe-
nai, who are supposed to be contemporary with the
author of Chronicles. The assumption that we
are here dealing with direct descendants of Zerub-
babel is liable to serious doubt. For, besides the
loose connection of n'BT '33 and the following
families in ver. 21, it appears to favour the
fragment hypothesis, that "in the genealogy of
Jesus, Matt, i., not a single name of the descen-
dants of Zerubbabel agrees with the names in this
register," and that at least seven members must
be supposed to be overleaped at once by Matthew
or his genealogical voucher (so Clericus, and
recently Keil). In reply to this, it may be assumed
certainly, that those descendants of Zerubbabel
whose pedigree is traced by the Chronist to Lis
own time need not necessarily have been the
direct ancestors of Joseph (or Mary), but that the
line of Abiud, Eliakim, etc., leading to Jesus in
Matthew, might have sprung from another of the
seven sons of Zerubbabel Besides, Matthew must
have made very great omissions in the interval
of 500 years between Zerubbabel and Joseph, as
he reckons only twelve members for this period
(comp. the edit, of the Bibelw. on Matt. p. 8 f.):
an omission of six or seven successive members
would be nothing inconceivable in his mode of pro-
ceeding. And if the genealogy of Hananiah, com-
municated at length by the Chronist, in particular
the family of Elioenai with his seven sons, were
deemed worthy of special notice on account of
their celebrity, high reputation, and eminent
I. CHRONICLES.
services on behalf of the theocracy, this would
not prove that the New Testament pedigree of
Jesus must necessarily have mentioned these
famous descendants of Zerubbabel as belonging
to the ancestors of our Lord. For lowliness and
obscurity, not splendour and fame, should be the
characteristic of the pedigree of Jesus after the
exile. If the line of the ancestors of Jesus, reach-
ing from David to the exile, according to Mat-
thew's arrangement, contains crowned heads, and
thus forms a lofty range of royal names, it
corresponds to the plan of the apostolic genea-
logists, that the third line from the exile to
Joseph and Mary should include in it chiefly
undistinguished names, and thus form a descend-
ing line which ends in the carpenter Joseph (see
Lange, p. 6). Nothing decisive can thus be
inferred from a comparison of the New Testament
genealogies of the Messiah with our passage for
the relation of the names therein contained to
the posterity of Zerubbabel, or for the question
whether those named in vers. 216-24 are to be
regarded as descendants or as remoter concections
of this prince.
3. Supplements to the Genealogy of the House ofjudah (leading to the Genealogical Survey of
the Twelve Tribes of Israel): ch. iv. 1-23.
Ch. IV. 1. The sons of Judah : Perez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hut, and Shobal.
2 And Reaiah son of Shobal begat Jahath ; and Jahath begat Ahumai and
Lahad : these are the families of the Zorathite.
3 And these were1 of the father of Etam: Jezreel, and Ishma, and Idbash;
4 and the name of their sister was Hazelelponi. And Penuel the father of Gedor,
and Ezer the father of Hushah : these are the sons of Hur the first-born of
Ephrathahj the father of Bethlehem.
5, 6 And Ashur the father of Tekcah had two wives, Helah and Naarah. And
Naarah bare him Ahuzzam, and Ilepher, and Temeni, and the Ahashtari :
7 these were the sons of Naarah. And the sons of Helah : Zereth, Izhar,2 and
Ethnan.
8 And Koz begat Anub and Zobebah, and the families of Aharhel the son
9 of Harum. And Jabez was honoured above his brethren ; and his mother
10 called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez
called on the God of Israel, saying, If thou wilt bless me indeed, and enlarge
my border, and thy hand be with me, and thou deal without evil, that it
grieve me not ! And God brought that which he had asked.
1 1 And Celub the brother of Shuhah begat Mehir ; he was the father of Esh-
,12 ton. And Eshton begat Beth-rapha, and Paseah, and Tehinnah the father of
the city Nahash : these are the men of Rechah.
1 3 And the sons of Kenaz : Othniel and Seraiah ; and the sons of Othniel :
14 Hathath. And Meonothai begat Ophrah : and Seraiah begat Joab father of
the valley of the carpenters ; for they were carpenters.
And the sons of Caleb son of Jephunneh : Ira, Elah, and Naam ; and the
sons of Elah and Kenaz.
And the sons of Jehalelel : Ziph and Ziphah, Tiria and Asarel.
And the son8 of Ezrah : Jether, and Mered, and Epher, and Jalon ; and she
conceived [and bare]* Miriam, and Schammai, and Ishbah father of Eshtemoa.
18 And his wife, the Jewess, bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father
of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah : and these are the sons of Bithiah
daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took.5
And the sons of the wife of Hodiah, the sister of Naham : the father of
Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa6 the Maachathite.
And the sons of Shimon : Amnon and Rinnah, Benhanan and Tulon f and
the sons of Ishi : Zoheth and Benzoheth.8
The sons of Shelah son of Judah : Er the father of Lechah, and Ladah the
father of Mareshah ; and the families of the house of byssus work, of the house
22 of Ashbea. And Jokim, and the men of Cozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, who
23 ruled over Moab, and Jashubi-lehem9 : and these are ancient things. These are
the potters and the dwellers in Netaim and Gederah ; with the king in his
service, they dwelt there.
' For DO'V *3K i"1?N1, which gives no tolerable sense, read with some xss. DCJ? 'OK >22 H;!fcM or wlrt
the Sept., Vulg., and some other mss. Dt^V ''33 !"I?K1.
15
16
17
19
20
21
CHAP. IV. 1.
53
* So ("IIW) In the Kethib. The Keri "in'XI is designed to gain a name better known (comp. Gen. uiii. 8,
xlvi. 10).
• For |D1 some Mas. have '331, which is perhaps to be preferred, as in vers. 13, 16, 19, 20.
* For inW) " and she conceived," the Sept., following perhaps another reading, give *«) iyiimtu 'Wip (Vulg. :
genuitqueMariam). For D*HD they exhibit Mcci^v (cod. Vat.Mccp&*).
' This closing sentence ^TIQ . . . n?Sl stands here probably in the wrong place, and is tc be placed after
Jv^i ver. 17; see Exeg. Expos.
• Before JJDHB'X (which the Sept. here renders by 'lu-Oifiurf,, whereas in ver. 17 it has 'Er8in4t [cod. Vat. 'B»-
$Kip&v]) *QX1 seems to have fallen out, as the parallel fv^P ^3X indicates.
' Kethib: flTHFl ; Keri: ji^J-l.
8 Before nniT~f2, which (not as, for example, pn~|3 immediately before) is not a nom. propr., but denotes "son
of Zohet h," the name of this son seems to have fallen out.
8 Jerome (perhaps on the ground of a somewhat different text, but more probably only following the arbitrary inter-
pretation of an old Jewish Midrash) renders the words from CpVl : et qui stare fecit solem, virique mevdacii et securu*
et incendens, qui principes fuerunt in Moab, et qui reversi sunt in Lachem.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — This section, un-
usually rich in obscurities and difficulties, is
characterized on the one hand as a supplement
to the pedigree of Judah already communicated,
embracing numerous fragments of old genealogies ;
on the other hand, as a transition and introduc-
tion to the genealogical and chorographical survey
of the twelve tribes except Judah, contained in
iv. 24-vii. In common with the latter group of
genealogies, it makes frequent reference to the
places in the territory of each tribe, and inserts
brief historical or archaeological notices, which
are of considerable value on account of the anti-
quity of the events recorded (vers. 9, 10, 14,
21-23). We are reminded of the former notices
of the families of Judah in ch. ii., not only by
the superscription connecting the introductory
verse of this chapter, with its enumeration of
some of the most eminent descendants of Judah
(ver. 1), but also by the abundance of the details
communicated concerning many more or less cele-
brated Jewish families (at all events a proof that
the tribe of Judah passed with the author for the
most important of all, and that the most special
notices concerning it lay before him) ; as well as
by the loose order of the several fragments, in
which a similar neglect of the formation of longer
lines of generations standing in direct succession
to one another betrays itself, as in those supple-
mentary reports concerning various descendants
of (Aieb at the close of ch. ii. , and perhaps in the
closing verses of ch. iii. Nowhere is this frag-
mentary character of the genealogical notes of
our author so striking as in the present section,
which presents no less than ten or twelve isolated
fragments of lines or genealogical notices, having
no visible connection with that which precedes or
follows. The whole, in fact, looks almost like a
gathering of genealogical pebbles, rolled together
from various quarters, and consisting of older
and younger parts, that are kept together only
by their common connection with the tribe
of Judah. That anything here communicated
refers to the state of things after the exile, is
assumed by Bertheau (p. 36), perhaps without
sufficient ground. Yet it cannot rx> positively
asserted that the author (who in ch. iii. traced
the house of David down to his own late times)
here describes only ancient relations, and pur-
posely has not overstepped the limits of the
exile.
1. The Superscription: ver. l.~-The sons of
Judah : Perez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and
Shobal. These five are called " sons " of Judah,
as appears from ii. 3 ff., only in a wider sense ;
for Perez only was an actual son of Judah (ii. 5) ;
Hezron was his grandson ; Carmi, as the probable
grandson of Zerah (ii. 7), was his great-grandson ;
Hur the son of Caleb, son of Hezron, was his
great-great-grandson (ii. 18, 19) ; and Shobal son
of Hur was his grandson's great-grandson (ii. 50).
The putting together of these five descendants is
highly peculiar, and cannot be satisfactorily ex-
plained in its historical grounds. Several of the
families founded by them certainly became chief
families in the tribe of Judah, but not all; in
particular, the prominence of Carmi between
names so celebrated as Hezron and Hur is so
truly strange, as to justify the suspicion that this
name is not genuine, and to favour the hypothesis
of Wellhausen (p. 20), that for ijy\^ is to be read
■OPS, Celubai=Caleb (see ii. 9). If this were the
original reading, we should obtain a series of
directly succeeding descendants of Judah (comp.
ii. 3, 9, 18 f., 50), and so far as our verse is a
superscription for the following, it would merely
indicate descendants of Hezron, who is also
named in ch. ii. as the ancestor of a widely-spread
stock of Jewish families. This indication, how-
ever, would by no means correspond with the
following verses. For only by uncertain con-
jecture do we think to find in vers. 5-7 descend-
ants of Hur, in vers. 11-15 descendants of Caleb,
in vers. 16-23 other Hezronites of different lines
(comp. on the respective passages). On the
whole, the several groups of our section are
strung together without much connection ; and
that they form no continuous line of descent (by
which the line started in ver. 1, if the proposed
emendation be accepted, would be carried for-
ward) is at all events clear and beyond a doubt.
The matter, therefore, must rest with the remark
of Bertheau: "Why in our passage precisely
these five 'sons' of Judah are enumerated, while
in Gen. xlvi. 1 and 1 Chron. ii. other names
occur in a different order, is a question we should
only be able to answer if we could state the point
M
I. CHRONICLES.
of time in the history and development of the
tribe of Judah to which our series refers, and
were in a position to trace further from other
sources the relations of the families of Judah here
exhibited. As matters stand, we must be con-
tented with the general remark, that the families
designated by our five names were without doubt
the prominent families in the time of the author
of our series, and are therefore enumerated as
sons of Judah. It is surprising, certainly, that
in the following pedigree, vers. 2-20, this arrange-
m?.nt almost entirely disappears, and that in vers.
21-23 Shelah, sixth ' son' of Judah, is intro-
duced by way of appendix."
2. The Ziorathites, a line of descent from Sho-
bal : ver. 2. — And Seaiah son of Shobal (the
son who is probably latent under nxiil. ii- 52, on
which see) begat Jahath. j-|rv is no further men-
tioned as a descendant of Judah through Shohal,
but occurs often as a Levite name ; comp. vi. 5,
28, xxiii. 10 ff., xxiv. 22, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12.—
His sons also, Ahumai and Lahad, occur nowhere
else. On the contrary, the closing notice, "these
are the families of the Zorathite," refers us to
well-known ground, in so far as a descent of the
inhabitants of Zorah from Shobal (the ancestor
of Kiriath-jearim, the mother city of Zorah and
Eshtaol) is manifest from ii. 50-53. The pre-
sent verse therefore stands plainly in the relation
of a supplement to that passage.
3. A Line of Descent from Hur : vers. 3, 4. —
And these were of the father of Etam. So is it
to be amended instead of the unmeaning ' ' and
these were Abi Etam " of the Masoretic text, or
with the Sept. and Vulg. : " And these were the
chiiuren of Etam." DD^ whether it be an ele-
ment of a personal name Q&]1 13s, or itself de-
note an old patriarch or family, points at all
events to the inhabitants of an old Jewish moun-
tain city not far from Bethlehem and Tekoa
(2 Chron. xi. 6), which occurs in the history of
Samson (Judg. xv. 8). Jezreel also, the first-
named son of Etam, occurs Josh. xv. 56 as a
mountain city of Judah ; comp. the norn. gentil.
"the Jezreelitess " referring to this city, and ap-
plied to Ahinoara the wife of David, iii. 1. On
the contrary, Ishma, Idbash, and their sister
Hazelelponi are mentioned only here. Whether
the name of the last is the name of a
family or of an individual (comp. Ew. § 273c)
remains doubtful. — Ver. 4. And Penuel the
father of Oedor. Penuel (?K13S) is here the
name of a patriarch of Jewish descent, but in
viii. 25 of a Benjamite. With the city Penuel or
Peniel, east of the Jordan and south of Jabbok
(Gen. xxxii. 31 f., Judg. viii. 8, 17, 1 Kings xii.
25), the name herj has no connection. On the
contrary, that of his son Gedor occurs also as a
name of a town in the tribe of Judah (Josh. xv.
58 ; comp. 1 Chron. iv. 39, xiii. 7), and this
town, preserved as a ruin in the present Jedur
(Kobins. ii. 592), is to be referred to the son of
Penuel as its father or founder. We meet, in-
deed, in ver. 18 with a certain Jered as "father
of Gedor," whence we may conclude that the
posterity of both formed the population of this
Gedor. — And Ezer the father of Hushah. -)fj;
("help ") occurs elsewhere as a man's name (vii.
21, xii. 9), but not in the genealogies of the house
of Judah. The site of the town Hushah founded
by this Ezer is unknown ; but the nom. gentil.
VICTn occurs several times, namely, in the Davidic
hero Sibbechai, 1 Chron. xi. 28, xx. 4, 2 Sam.
xxiii. 27. — These aie the sons of Hur the first-
horn of Ephrathath, the father of Bethlehem.
Comp. ii. 19, and on Hur's relation to Bethlehem
ii. 51, where more precisely than here Salma the
son of Hur is called "father of Bethlehem."
"The circumstance, moreover, that in our verses
(3 and 4) other names and persons are enumerated
as descendants of Hur than in ii. 50-55, betokens
no difference ; for there is no ground for the
assumption that in the latter passage all his
descendants are given " (Keil). Our passage is
thus, like ver. 2, supplementary to ii. 50-55, so
far as it repeats and confirms some of the names
and affinities there mentioned, and adds other
new ones.
4. Ashur the father of Tekoa and his de-
scendants: vers. 5-7. According to ii. 24, this
Ashur was a posthumous son of Caleb [? Hezron]
by Abiah. That he was properly a son of Caleb,
and no other than Hur ("nn = "HDK'X. that is,
"nn K;,N, Ew. § 2736), is a hypothesis of Well-
hausen, grounded on several rather forced emenda-
tions of the text (p. 14 sq. ; comp. above on the
p.) — Ver. 6. And Naarah bare him Ahuzzam, a
son mentioned nowhere else. Why Naarah's
soni are enumerated first, while Helah was
named ver. 5 as the first, and Naarah the second,
wife of Ashur, remains uncertain. Hepher the
second son of Naarah is at all events different
from the Gileadite of this name mentioned xi.
36 and Num. xxvi. 32 f., but might possibly be
the patriarch or founder of the district Hepher,
1 Kings iv. 10, in the south of Judah, not far
from Tappuah, where a Canaanitish king resided
in early times (Josh. xii. 17). — Temeni (iJDTl)
or Temani (Southern), the third son, will de-
signate a neighbouring family of the tribe of
Judah. A hashtari, that is, the family of those from
Ahashtar, is wholly unknown. — Ver. 7. And the
sons of Helah : Zereth, Izhar, and Ethnan. These
names occur only here. The "in'V °f the Keri,
instead of the Kethib "HIV, occurs as the name of
a son of Simeon, Gen. xlvi. 10, and of a Canaan-
itish king, Gen. xxiii. 8 ; but these names have
obviously nothing to do with the son of Ashur
and Helah.
5. Koz and his descendants, among whom is
Jabez : vers. 8-10. This section wants all genealo-
gical connection with the families already men-
tioned.— And Koz begat Anub. A Koz (with the
art. fipn) occurs afterwards, xxiv. 10, as a Levite,
and also in Ezra ii. 61 and Neh. iii. 4, in which
latter passage, moreover, the Levitical descent is
not expressed, so that possibly a Jew descended
from this Koz might be meant. In what rela-
tion our Koz stands to those before named,
whether he belonged to the sons of Ashur (as
Glassius, Tremell., Piscator, Starke, etc., think),
is quite uncertain. The name of his son 3^3J)
appears, moreover, to be identical with that of
the town Qjy, Josh. xi. 21, xv. 50 (a place not far
from Debir in the south of Judah) ; for the Sept
CHAP. IV. 7-14.
55
(cod. Alex.) renders it by 'A»oi/3. If this identi-
fication be correct, 3UJ?, "the grape," would be
the product of yip, a "thorn," and the present
genealogical notice thus present an allegorical
sense, reminding us of the fable of Jotham (Judg.
ix.), and of Matt. vii. 16 (comp. Hiller, Hierophyt.
i. p. 464). — Zobebah and the families of Aharhel
the son of Harwm. These are quite unknown. —
Ver. 9. Awl Jabez was honoured above his bre-
thren. Jabez here is probably the name of another
descendant of Koz ; for the ifiM connects the
notice of him closely with that which precedes.
The town Jabtz, the inhabitants of which are
mentioned ii. 55, may perhaps have been founded
bj him ; from which might be surmised a con-
nection of himself and of those named, ver. 8,
with Shobal the son of Hnr (ii. 50). But all
this is very uncertain. — / bare him with sorrow.
This maternar utterance, discovering the funda-
mental meaning of the name V3JJ' = "son of
sorrow " (comp. the root 3V5J, the second and third
radicals of which are here transposed), reminds us
of similar exclamations of mothers in the patri-
archal age, as Gen. iv. 25, xix. 37 f. , xxix. 32-35,
xxxiii. 20. In like manner, the statement that
Jabez was "honoured above his brethren," re-
minds us of Gen. xxxiv. 19 (Hamor the son of
Shechem). And by the vow of this Jabez to the
" God of Israel " (comp. Gen. xxviii. 20, xxxiii.
20) recorded in ver. 10, as well as by the new ex-
planation of the name, which is contained in the
terms of this vow (a second reference of faj^ to
the root 3XJJ, but with a new turn, 13SJJ TM?,
' ' that thou grieve me not "), we are carried back
to the scenes of Genesis (comp. Gen. xvii. 17 ff.,
xviii. 12, xxi. 6, xxvi. 8, etc.), so that we have
here an undoubted primeval historical record.
Even the rhetorical clothing of the vow, a mere
antecedent clause, with Qx wanting a consequent,
but with clear emphasizing of the 13W coming
in at the end as the point of the whole, reminds
us of the ancient style of the Pentateuch ; couip.
Gen. xxviii. 20 ff. ; Num. xxi. 2, etc. — And God
brought that which he had asked. This statement,
occupying the place of consequent to the aposio-
pesis '}3-Qn TI"I3"DN, serves to explain the above
• •' : it : ' ■■ t
notice that Jabez was honoured above his bre-
thren, and exhibit him as the lord of a wide
domain, and the possessor of the divine blessing.
Observe, moreover, the name Q^ribf* use(l nere
(as in v. 20, 25, 26) instead of nii1\ which occurs
elsewhere in these genealogical sections (for
example, ii. 3, v. 41, etc.).
6 The. Men of Rechah: vers. 11, 12. — And
Celub the brother of Shuhah begat Mehir.
This Celub (3173) bears indeed the same name as
the famous hero Caleb or Celubai (ii. 9), but is
distinguished by the addition "the brother of
Shuhah " from his more illustrious namesake,
and cannot possibly have passed with our genealo-
gist for the same person (as Wellhausen, p. 20,
thinks). The choice of the form 3^3, which
stands to 3^13 as 2W, ver. 8, to 33J7, while the
famous Caleb the son of Jephunneh, ver. 15, is
designated by his usual name, shows that in the
view of the writer the owners of the two names
are to be kept apart. It is doubtful whether
iinVJ' De a man's or a woman's name ; its identi-
fication with ntJ'in, ver' 4, is not admitted (against
Starke and other old writers). Mehir the son,
and Eshton the grandson, of Celub occur no-
where else. — Ver. 12. And Eshton begat Beth-
rapha, that is, perhaps, the house or family of
Kapha, who is otherwise unknown ; for neither
the Benjamite Rapha (viii. 2) nor the offspring of
Rapha (xx. 4-3) can apply here. And the two
following descendants of Eshton remain at least
uncertain. Paseah might possibly be the ancestor
of the "sons of Paseah" introduced among the
Nethinim (Ezra ii. 49 ; Neh. vii. 51) ; Tehinnah
occurs not elsewhere, though perhaps the city
Nahash, of which he is the father or founder, may
be connected with Nahash the father of Abigail,
the step-sister of David (see ii. 16; 2 Sam. xvii
25). — These ate the men of Rechah, the in-
habitants perhaps of the town Rechah, a place
not elsewhere named.
7. The Descendants of Kenaz: vers. 13, 14.
— And the sons of Kenaz : Othniel and Seraiah.
That Kenaz (fjp), the "father" of Othniel the
judge (Judg. i. 13 ff. , iii. 9), sprang from
Hezron the grandson of Judah, appears to follow
from this, that Caleb the son of Jephunneh is
several times designated a Kenhaite (^3p), and so
placed in a certain genealogical relation to Kenaz.
It is to be observed, indeed, that Kenaz, if really
father or grandfather, and not a more remote
ancestor of Othniel, would have been younger
than Caleb or a contemporary of nearly the same
age. Caleb and Othniel are usually called
" brothers," on account of their common relation
to Kenaz (Josh. xv. 17 ; Judg. i. 13) ; and, in-
deed, in the latter place Othniel is called the
"younger brother" of Caleb (we must there-
fore translate, with Bachmann, the son of Kenaz,
younger brother of Caleb, with which, how-
ever, Josh. xv. 17 would conflict ; see Keil, p.
63). Hence appears the possibility that both the
companion of Joshua, Caleb the son of Jephunneh
(who was eighty -five years old at the conquest of
Canaan, Josh. xiv. 10 f. ), and Othniel the judge,
at least a generation younger (the conqueror of
Cushan rishathaim), stood in a common relation to
an otherwise unknown patriarch Kenaz. Of what
nature this relation was, whether it was that
Caleb, by means of his father Jephunneh, was a
grandson of Kenaz (as appears to have been the
case, Num. xxxii. 12), and that Othniel, either
through Jephunneh or some other, was likewise
his grandson, or perhaps great-grandson, must re-
main uncertain. Possibly Kenaz is merely the
name of a race external to Israel, belonging in
fact to Edom, Gen. xxxvi. 11, 1 Chron. i. 36, 53,
to which Caleb became somehow related in the
march through the wilderness, and from which
also Othniel was descended. Knobel (on Gen.
xxxvi. 11, p. 281) conceives the relationship
thus : " The ' Kenizzite ' is perhaps a surname of
Caleb, originating from some Kenizzites having
passed into his family during the journey of
Moses. After Jephunneh's death, one of them
appears to have married Caleb's mother, and had
by her Othniel. His name being afterwards for-
56
I. CHRONICLES.
gotten, he was designated by the name of his
tribe. "— Seraiah, Othniel's brother, occurs only
here ; we meet with a later Jew of this name,
who returned with Zerubbabel, Ezra ii. 2. — And
the sons of Othniel : Hathath. On the phrase
^31 before only one name, see ii. 7. Yet the
plural might here possibly refer also to Meonothai
as brother of Hathath (ver. 14), if a Tlbiyioi
had fallen out at the end of our verse, or if the
genealogist had presupposed that Meonothai was
brother to Hathath, and therefore hastened at
once to the statement of his descendants.
Othniel's sous occur nowhere else. The name
Meonothai might also be connected with the
town Maon (Josh. xv. 55), or with the Meunim
(Ezra ii. 50; Neh. vii. 52).— Ver. 14. And
Meonothai begat Ophrah. We can scarcely think
of Ophrah as the Benjamite town of this name
(Josh, xviii. 23 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 17), or even of the
home of Gideon in the tribe of Manasseh (Judg.
vi. 11). — And Seraiah begat Joab father of the
valley of the carpenters. This occurs here as a
place founded by Joab son of Seraiah (ver. 13),
called the " Valley of the carpenters or the
craftsmen " (D'chn)) an*l in Neh. xi. 35 ; and,
indeed, as a place not far from Jerusalem, on the
north side. Whether it had received its name
after the exile, and whether Joab, the founder of
the colony, is to pass for one of those Joabs in
Zerubbabel's time who are mentioned Ezra ii. 6,
Neh. vii. 11 (to which hypothesis Berth, seems
inclined), must remain doubtful.
8. The Descendants of Caleb the Son ofjephun-
neh: ver. 15. — That this Jephunnite Caleb is
probably the same with him whose genealogy is
given cl). ii. 46-49 (and therefore with the Caleb
of Num., Josh., and Judg.), and different from
the Hezronite Celubai or Caleb (ii. 9, 18, 42 ff.,
50 ff. , perhaps his ancestor [rather desceudant]),
has been fully shown on ii. 49. — Iru, E!ah, and
Naam. These three sons of Caleb occur nowhere
else ; for the second, Elah, must have been com-
bined with the Edomite prince of the same name
mentioned i. 52, as Kenaz might be identical
with the Kenaz named there, ver. 53. This
Calebite Kenaz cannot be the same as the father
of Othniel (ver. 13) ; rather as grandson or great-
grandson, he bore the same name as his ancestor.
Why "the sons of Elah" are set down between
this Kenaz and Naam in the series of the sons of
Caleb we can no longer explain. It is inadmis-
sible, at all events, to translate, with a number
of older expositors (including Starke) : " and the
sons of Elah were (also) Kenaz," as if 1 before
fjp could be anything but the copula. As the
words run, Kenaz is appended to the aforemen-
tioned descendants of Caleb, of whom the sons of
Elah take the fourth place, as the fifth and last ;
only if a name were fallen out before fjp} (as
Keil supposes) could Kenaz be regarded as be-
longing to the sons of Elah.
9. JehaleleV s Sons : ver. 16. — Ziph and ZiphaJi,
Tiriah and Asarel. Only the first of these is
known, and, indeed, as the supposed father of
one of those towns in Judah which are named in
Josh. xv. 24, 55. Even of Jehalelel we know
nothing more. A quite arbitrary hypothesis of
some older scholars makes out of him rather a
woman, the supposed second wife of Kenaz, ver
13, whose first wife was (?) Jephunneh.
10. Ezrah's Posterity: vers. 17, 18.— And tht
sons of Ezrah: Jether, and Mered, and Epher,
and Jalon ; and she conceived, etc. If the
sing, p^ is to be retained, we may compare such
cases as iii. 19, 21, 23, etc. ; but see Crit. Note.
The here-named Ezrah occurs nowhere else ; he
belongs, at all events, to a grey antiquity, as the
father of old Jewish towns like Eshtemoa, Socho,
Zanoah, etc. It is not clear how he is connected
with the foregoing or following families of Judah.
Of his four sons, the last, Jalon, occurs only here
even in name ; the names Jether and Epher occur
elsewhere, but in other families (Jether, ii. 32,
eomp. 53 ; and Epher, xi. 33 and v. 24) ; further
notices of them are wanting. On the contrary,
the closing sentence of ver. 18 shows, with respect
to Mered, that probably all the names from ver.
176 ("and she conceived," etc.) denote descend-
ants of this man by two wives, a "Jewess" and a
"daughter of Pharaoh." And as the words "infll
"iJI, standing as they now do after the name of
the fourth son of Ezrah, and wanting a feminine
subject, yield no rational sense, the removal (pro-
posed by Bertheau, and adopted by Kamph.,
Keil, and others) of that closing sentence: "and
these are the sons of Bithiah daughter of Pharaoh,
whom Mered took," to our passage after jpi-i,
commends itself as a very suitable amendment ;
comp. the Crit. Note, "infll is then to be taken
as a synonym of "ppil (which is given by the
Sept. and the Vulg.), and the names Miriam
(D'HD, fOT which, perhaps, DilD, as in Sept. cod.
Vat. or the like, is to be read, as we expect to find
a man's name in the first place), Shammai, and
Ishbah then denote the sons born to Mered by
Pharaoh's daughter; whereupon in ver. 18 the
names of those descended from the Jewess are
added. We obtain here, accordingly, two lines
descending from Mered — one Egyptian, from which
(and in particular from Ishbah the third son of
Pharaoh's daughter) the inhabitants of the town
Eshtemoa (Sept. 'E^e^wv or 'Eo-Haifthiv), on the
mountains of Judah, the present Samua, south
of Hebron, drew their origin (comp. Josh. xv. 15,
xxi. 14, and ver. 19), and one Jewish, from which
three towns of Judah are derived: — 1. Gedoi,
comp. on ver. 4 ; 2. Socho, perhaps the present
Suweikeh, in the lowland south west ot Jeru-
salem, comp. Josh. xv. 35, 1 Sam. xvii. 1, etc. ;
3. Zanoah, perhaps the present Sanuah, in the
lowland near Zorah, comp. Josh. xv. 34 (though
the other Zanoah on the mountains of Judah,
Josh. xv. 36, the site of which we do not know,
might bo meant). Of the names of the three
"lathers" or founders of these towns, JekuthieJ
(?NTWp\ probably "fear of God") occurs no-
where else; while Jered (comp. Gen. v. 15) and
"On occur elsewhere, the latter pretty often
(Gen. xlvi. 17; Num. xxvi. 45; Judg. iv. 11, 17;
1 Chron. viii. 17). — And these are the sons of
Bithiah, etc. These words, in the position which
we have assigned to them, are not a subscription
for the preceding, but rather an introduction
to the following words "iji inni. We know
nothing more of this daughter of Pharaoh.
nJnBVG may be merely a general phrase for
CHAP. IV. 19-23.
67
ITHXD, an Egyptian ; so thinks Hitzig, Gesch. d.
V. Isr. p. 64, who, indeed, without right, might
thus degrade the Pharaoh's daughter of the
Exodus, the foster-mother of Moses, into a com-
mon Egyptian. No less arbitrary is the opposite
conjecture of the older Rabbins, and recently of
Fiii'st (Gesch. d. bibl. Liter, i. 319), that this
same king's daughter Thermuthis, the protectress
of Moses, is here meant. The name Miriam, at
the head of the descendants of this Egyptian,
seems to hare given rise to this identification
with Thermuthis (comp. Wagenseil, Sota, p. 271).
The opinion of Osiander, Hiiler, J. H. Michaelis,
Starke, etc., that we are not to think of an
Egyptian here, as Bitlnah is a Hebrew name,
and Pharaoh the name of a Jew, is also arbitrary,
and directly against the phrase njPEVB (comp.
2 Chron. viii. 11; 1 Kings ix. 24).
11. The Sons of the Wife of Hodiah: ver. 19.
— And the S07is of the wife of Hodiah, the sister
of Naham. Hodiah (ns"lin), as the presents.
constr. nc'X, an(l i's occurrence as the name of
several Levites after the exile, in the book of
Nehemiah (Neh. viii. 7, ix. 5, x. 11), show, is
not a woman's, but a man's name. We know
neither the name of Hodiah's wife nor her rela-
tion to the foregoing ; for that DIT}, whose sister
she is said to be, is the same as QJ)J, Caleb's son,
ver. 15, no one will seriously assert. — The father
of Keilah the Garmite, and Eshtemoa (or perhaps
"the father of Eshtemoa;" see Crit. Note) the
Maachathite. The two designations, ' ' the Gar-
mite " and "the Maachathite," are to us equally
obscure and unintelligible ; the latter may, per-
haps, contain an allusion to Maachah the third
wife of Caleb, ii. 48. The situation of Keilah
(nP'Jfp)! a town iD the lowland of Judah (Josh.
xv. 44), has not yet been ascertained. On Eshte-
moa, see ver. 17.
12. Descendants of Shimon and Ishi : ver. 20.
— And the sons of Shimon: Amnon, etc. We
know not otherwise either Shimon or his four
sons, and therefore cannot indicate his place in
the genealogy of Judah. That he was a Hezronite,
like all the foregoing, is a mere conjecture of
Wellhausen (p. 20). — And the sons of Ishi:
Zoheth and Benzolieth. The name Ishi was also
bome by a Jerahmeelite (ii. 31), the son of
Appaim, and by a Simeonite, iv. 42. Neither
can be meant here, especially as a son Zoheth,
not there mentioned, and an anonymous grandson
of this Zoheth, are added as descendants.
13. Descendants of Shelah, third son of Judah :
vers. 21-23. — The sons of Shelah son of Judah.
On this third son of Judah by the Canaanitess
Bathshua, seeii. 3; Gen. xxxviii. 5. The absence
of the copula 1 before nbtJ* ^3 (as before 1J3
rPniV, ver. 1) marks the beginning of a new
genealogical series ; and, indeed, a series that is
of the more importance, because the posterity of
Shelah is entirely omitted in ch. ii. — Er the
father of Lecha.h, and Ladah the fattier of Mar-
eshah. This Er is not to be confounded with
Shelah 's brother, the first - born of Judah (as
Pertheau thinks); rather is this a similar case
Df uncle and nephew having the same name, as
in Ram, for example, ii. 9; comp. ver. 25. We
know no more of the town Lechah (rD?) founded
by this younger Er ; but Mareshah, founded by
his brother Ladah, is no doubt the present Marash
in the Shephelah; see on ch. ii. 42. — And the
families of the house of byssus work, of the house
of Ashbea. This house of byssus work (cotton
factory) may have been situated in Egypt, or
possibly in Palestine. We know as little of its
situation as of the "house of Ashbea" (JV3
V3K'X, rendered by Jerome : domus juramenli).
For the cultivation of cotton (j^Q, here defec-
tively J»a) also in Syria and Palestine, comp.
Ezek. xxvii. 16; Pausan. v. 5. 2; Pocoeke, Mor-
rjenl. ii. 88; Robinson, ii. 612, 628, iii. 432.—
Ver. 22. And Jokim, and the men of Cozeba, etc.
The strange rendering of these and the following
words in the Vulg. (see Crit. Note) seems to have
been occasioned by an old Rabbinical combination
of the words 3X1D? vlQ "IK>N with the narra-
tive of the hook of Ruth ; the Dipi1 = qui stare
fecit solem are accordingly Elimeleeh, the viri
mendacii his sons Mahlon and Chilion, who re-
moved with him to Moab, and married daughters
of this land ; and in Dri7 'OSS" is indicated their
return to Bethlehem, etc. Our passage in reality
states a total or partial conquest of Moab, effected
in ancient times by several descendants of Shelah,
whose names are not otherwise known to us.
O'pi' appears contracted from Q''p',i\ The men
of n3tb might be the inhabitants of 3V3, Gen.
xxxviii. 5 (^a^DN, Josh. xv. 44), the birth-
place of Shelah, in the lowland of Judah. An
altogether strange and now inexplicable name
occurs at the end, Qn? ,3CJ>,) "which the punc-
tuators would scarcely have so pronounced, if the
pronunciation had not been so handed down to
them" (Berth.). — And these are ancient things,
that is, not merely "before the exile, in the
period of the kings," as Bertheau thinks (p. 46),
who endeavours to convert this notice into an
indirect support of his hypothesis, that in vers.
7-20 the generations and families of Judah after
the exile are reported, while vers. 21-23 form an
appendix referring to the period of kings, but
certainly without warrant ; the words merely be-
speak a high age, belonging to the grey foretime,
for the traditions concerning Jokim, the men of
Cozeba, etc. (comp. Wellhausen, p. 23, n. 1). —
Ver. 23. These are the potters and the dwellers in
Netaim and Gederah. rXBT\, "these," appear tc
refer to the whole descendants of Shelah (with
the natural exception of those "byssus workers,"
ver. 21, that could not well be at the same time
potters), and not merely those named in ver. 22
(as Berth. ) ; for this verse has its closing notice
in D'pTlJJ D'Hn'nni. It is not known where
Netaim (d^LDJ, "plantings") was; perhaps it
means royal gardens near Jerusalem, or near
those pleasure gardens of Solomon in the Wady
Urtus at Bethlehem (see on Song i. 1, vol.
xiii, p. 29 of Bibelw. ) ; comp. also Tzziah's
o8
I. CHRONICLES.
gardens, 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. Gederah (iTTIS,
"fence") is perhaps the town mentioned Josh,
xv. 36 in the lowland of Judah (the present
village Gedera, about an hour south-west of
Jabneh; see Keil on 1 Chron. xii. i).— WUh the
king, in his service, they dwelt there. To what
king this alludes is uncertain ; probably no single
king (as Uzziah, or David, or Solomon) is meant :
but the phrase applies to the kings of the house
of David in general, who, from the beginning,
inherited extensive private domains, where not
merely cattle - breeding, tillage, and gardening
were pursued, but also handicrafts, as the pottery
here mentioned, the cotton-weaving, ver. 21, and
perhaps carpentry, ver. 14.1
It has been already remarked that Bertheau's
assumption, that vers. 1-20 of our chapter
"presented a description of the generations and
families of the tribe of Judah which were living
soon after the exile (the time of Zerubbabel,
Ezra, and Nehemiah)," but vers. 21-23 formed
an appendix relating to earlier times, was not
well founded, and finds no sufficient support in
the assertion, "and these are ancient things."
Comp. the full refutation which Keil (p. 66 ff.,
note 2) has given to this hypothesis. Neither is
1 Moreover, the engineer of the " Palestine Exploration
Fund," Captain Wan en, has lecently discovered remains
of the pottery of these royal factories in Jerusalem. See
Our Work in Palestine, London 1873, p. 149.
the concomitant assumption tenable, that there
are exactly twelve families of the house of Judah
in vers. 1-29, and of Judah, too, after the exile,
in the days of Zerubbabel ; for the families men-
tioned are not arranged according to the sons
and grandsons of Judah in ver. 1, but are strung
together loosely, and without any mark of con-
nection. Instead of twelve, also, a smaller num-
ber of families may be brought out by another
mode of reckoning ; as, for example, Ewald, in a
far more arbitrary way indeed than Berthei.0,
has found twelve families in the whole of out
section, including Shelah and his descendants
in vers. 21-23 (Qesch. i. p. 471). Both appeal
to be merely accidental — the number twelve of
the families named, according to Bertheau's
reckoning, and the circumstance that many of
the persons and places in our section recur in
Ezra and Nehemiah. To the latter circumstance,
strongly urged by Bertheau, Keil has justly
opposed the no less undeniable fact, that most
of the places already occur in Joshua, and very
many of the persons in Samuel and Kings, and
that, with respect to the geographical coincidences
with Ezra and Nehemiah, the historical contents
of these books, that were almost exclusively
enacted on the soil of Judah, and among Israelites
of Jewish extraction, should in great part he
taken into account in explanation of this. Comp.
also what has been urged above in the Prelimi-
nary Kemark, p. 53.
c. The Families of Simeon, and the Teansjordanic Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-
Manasseh (till the Deportation of the latter by the Assyrians). — Ch. iv. 24-v. 26.
1. The Families of Simeon: ch. iv. 24-43.
Ch. IV. 24. The sons of Simeon were Nemuel, and Jamin, Jarib, Zerah, Shaul.
25, 26 Shallum his son, Mibsam his son, Mishma his son. And the sons of Mishma:
27 Hamuel his son, Zaccur his son, Shimi his son. And Shimi had sixteen sons
and six daughters ; but his brethren had not many sons : and all their family
did not multiply, like the sons of Judah.
28, 29 And they dwelt at Beer-sheba, and Moladah, and Hazar-shual. And at
30 Bilhah, and at Ezem, and at Tolad. And at Bethuel, and at Hormah, and at
31 Ziklag. And at Beth-marcaboth, and at Hazar-susim, and at Beth-biri, and
32 at Shaaraim : these were their towns until the reign of David. And their
33 villages, Etam, and Ain, Bimmon, and Tochen, and Ashan, five towns. And
all their villages that were round these towns unto Baal. This was their
habitation, and they had their own genealogy.
34, 35 And Meshobab, and Jamlech, and Joshah the son of Amaziah. And Joel,
36 and Jehu the son of Josibiah, the son of Seraiah, the son of Asiel. And
Elioenai, and Jaakobah, and Jeshohaiah, and Asaiah, and Adiel, and Jesimiel,
37 and Benaiah. And Ziza the son of Shiphi, the son of Allon, the son of Jedaiah,
38 the son of Shimri, the son of Shemaiah. These are they that entered by name
39 princes in their families ; and their father-houses spread greatly. And they
went to the entrance of Gedor,1 to the east of the valley, to seek pasture
40 for their flocks. And they found fat and good pasture, and the land was
wide on all sides, and quiet, and peaceful ; for they were of Ham who dwelt
41 there before. And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah
king of Judah, and smote their tents, and the Meunites '' that were found
there, and destroyed them unto this day, and dwelt in their stead ; for there
42 was pasture there for their flocks. And of them, of the sons of Simeon, five
hundred men went to mount Seir ; and Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Bephaiah,
CHAP. IV. 24-33.
59
43 and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, were at their head. And they smote the
remnant that had escaped of Amalek, and dwelt there unto this day.
1 The Sept gives here Vspxp , whence *ln3 might possibly be an error of transcription for ^H-).
* So (DO^VSri) the Keri, whereas the Kethib gives D^JftSi"!, and the Sept. accordingly MuxUve.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — This account of the
tribe of Simeon includes in it a genealogical, a
geographical, and a historical section. The first
(vers. 24-27) gives the five sons of Simeon, and
traces the posterity of the last, Shaul, through a
Beries of generations ; the second (vers. 28-33)
recounts their dwelling-places till the time of
David ; the third (vers. 34-43) contains two
migrations or conquests of Simeonite families, one
in the time of Hezekiah into a region previously
inhabited by Hamites, another without a date to
Mount Seir, into a district previously Amalekite.
These accounts partake of the same fragmentary
character as the sections referring to the following
tribes. Comp. moreover, K. H. Graf, Der Stamm
Simeon, a contribution to the History of Israel,
Meissen 1866, and, with respect to the geography,
the great work of the Englishmen E. H. Palmer
and T. Drake, The Desert of the Exodus, etc.,
Cambridge 1871, one of the most valuable publica-
tions of the ' ' Palestine Exploration Fund, " with
specially valuable contributions to the geography
of the south of Palestine. With the conclusion
of these inquirers, that the south border of Pales-
tine, in particular of the tribe of Simeon, must be
extended much farther than is usually supposed,
agrees also Consul Wetzstein, Ueber Kadesh und
Palastina'sSiidgrenze (Excursus III. in Delitzsch's
Comment on Oen. , 4th edit. ).
1. Tlie Five Sons of Simeon, and the Descendants
of Shaul : vers. 25-27. — Lemuel, and Jamin, Jarib,
Zerah, Shaul. The list in Num. xxvi. 12-14 also
names five sons of Simeon, and quite the same as
here, except Jarib, who is there Jakin (p3'*), of
which it appears to he a corruption. On the
contrary, in the older parallels, Gen. xlvi. 10,
Ex. vi. 15, six sons of Simeon are enumerated,
among whom an Ohad stands in the third place,
who is wanting here and in Numbers, perhaps
because his posterity had died out so soon as to
form no distinct family ; and in the first place a
Jemuel, who corresponds to the Nemuel of our
passage, and in the last a Zohar, instead of the
Zerah here before the last. It is plain that we
have here equivalent names, as in'V> candor, is
not very remote from rnf> ortus solis (comp.
Mai. iii. 20 ; Luke i. 78), and also ^X103 (with
whom Hitzig on Prov. xxx. 31, perhaps too
boldly, identifies the conjectural king Lemuel of
Massa) appears only a by-form of PN!lD,> day of
God. It is uncertain whether we are to regard
the forms given in Genesis and Exodus at once as
original. It is at least plain, from the agreement
of Num. xxvi. 12-14 with our passage, that the
Chronist has not adopted an arbitrary form of the
names, as Gramberg assumes. — Ver. 25. Shallum
his son, etc. Only of Shaul, the last (perhaps the
voungest) of the sons of Simeon, whose mother is
called a Canaanitess in the parallel accounts of
Genesis and Exodus, are further descendants re-
ported in six succeeding generations, Shallum,
Mibsam, Mishma, Hamuel, Zaccur, and Shimi.
By the words, " and the sons of Mishma," at the
beginning of ver. 27, these six generations are
divided into two groups, of which, however, the
second, only lineal, without any collateral descen-
dants ; comp. the plur. i}2] in like cases, as i. 41,
ii. 31, iii. 16, 22, etc. — Ver. 27. And Shimi had
sixteen sons and six daughters. This father of a
very large and flourishing family is brought into
prominence, like Elioenai, iii. 24 : comp. the
descendants of Jacob, Jesse, David, Jet, and
Ps. exxvii. 3, exxviii. 3. — But his brethren (the
remaining Simeonites, not merely Shimi's imme-
diate brothers) had not many sons. This is the
reason that their whole " family did not multiply
like that of Judah. " "With this agrees the com-
paratively small number of the Simeonites in the
census under Moses (Num. i.-iv.), and the way
in which this smaller tribe was included in the
stronger tribe of Judah in the division of the land,
Josh. xix. 1.
2. The original Dwelling- Places of the Simeon-
ites in the Southern Part of the Land of Judah:
vers. 28-33 ; comp. Josh. xix. 2-8.— With the
names of the Simeonite dwelling-places reported
in this old parallel, those here named agree in the
main, and in particular with respect to the sepa-
ration into two groups, one of thirteen, the other
of five towns. Only the second group consists
there of only four towns (see on ver. 32), and in
the first group, notwithstanding the statement
that thirteen towns are reported, ver. 6, four-
teen are actually named ; between Beer-sheba
and Moladah a Sheha is inserted, a name (JOB")
which appears to be a repetition of the second
component of JQB> ~\K3, occasioned by negligence
in copying, but possibly also = JJOKN "■ town
named, Josh. xv. 26, before Moladah (of the latter
opinion is, for example, Keil, on Josh. xix. 2 and
our passage). There are several unessential differ-
ences of form or orthography between our passage
and Josh, xix., as in the latter np3 for nn?3,
ver. 29, l^inbt* for "T^in, ^fl3 for ^Kins,
nDiD isn for QipiD -ivn, nisiA n^a (house of
lions) for 1^13 D,|3i an<i jnilB' (pleasant har-
bour) for D'H^E' (two gates). It cannot be shown
which of these forms is the more original : some
of the deviations may rest on mere errors of tran-
scription, as might so easily happen in places that
scarcely ever occur again. Moreover, the book of
Joshua (xv. 26-32) repeats the most of them as
belonging to the towns of the south of Judah, and
certainly with some variations of form (for ex-
ample, r6j>3 for Bilhah, ^D3 for Bethul, Q^nW
for Shaaraim, Madmannah for Beth-marcaboth,
Sansannah for Hazar-susim). Most of these
places are still undiscovered ; Beer-sheba survives
60
I. CHRONICLES.
in Bir-es-Seba ; Moladah probably in the ruins
Tel Milh, south of Hebron, on the road to Aila ; l
Hormah, the older name of which was Shephath,
in the ruin Sepata, two and a half hours south of
Khalasa ; Ziklag in Kasluj, east of this Sepata ;
and Shaaraim in Tell Sheriah, between Beer-sheba
and Gaza. — -These were their towns until the reign
of David, and their villages. With almost all
recent expositors, DIVWI1 is certainly to be at-
tached to ver. 31, for the parallel, Josh. xix. 6,
speaks of "towns and their villages," and all
that are named in ver. 32 are expressly named
"towns." Moreover, the separation of Dmvm
from the foregoing, occasioned by the date "until
the reign of David," is already very old ; for the
old translators agree with the Masoretie text in
transferring the word to the following verse.
The reason why the dale "until the reign of
David" was inserted here, and not in ver. 33
(where it would be less surprising), appears to be
this, that the changes occurring from the time of
David in the habitations of the Simeonites, con-
sisting in their partial removal by the Jews (comp.
ver. 34 if.), applied only to the thirteen towns
already named, whereas the rive towns, with their
villages to be named in the following verse, re-
mained still an undiminished possession of the
Simeonites. So, justly, Keil, following Rashi and
Kimchi, and partly against Bertheau, who assumes
as the object of the subscription merely an allu-
sion to Ziklag (comp. 1 Sam. xxvii. 6), or perhaps
to others of the forementioned towns, as belong-
ing from the time of David no longer to the tribe
of Simeon, whereas such a limitation of the sense
is foreign to the words ; and, moreover, Ziklag was
severed from Simeon by the Philistines before the
reign of David (1 Sam. xxvii. 6).— Ver. 32. Etam,
ami Aim, Rimmon, and Tochen, and Ashen, five
towns. After the thirteen towns, the parallel,
Josh. xix. 7, gives a second group, not a penta-
polis, but only a tetrapolis, with the omission of
Tochen, and the change of Etam (DC)?) into Ether
(injj). It is hard to say where the original is to
be sought. We are scarcely entitled, with Movers
(p. 73) and Bertheau, to charge both texts with
inaccuracy, and to affirm that the series of these
towns originally ran thus : pen pj?, ~\T\]J, ph,
(Sty, so that by an oversight two cities were made
out of one En-rimmon (which occurs in Neh. xi.
29), and by another oversight Tochen fell out of
the text of Joshua, and by a third the name "injJ,
which is proved to be original by the subsequent
mention of such a town in Josh. xv. 43, has in
Chronicles been supplanted by the better known
DEW Against this conjecture Keil has justly
urged : 1. The |iQ-| and py are counted as sepa-
rate cities not merely in Josh. xix. 7, but also in
Josh. xv. 32, and the union of the two names into
an En-rimmon in Nehemiah may be explained
simply from the contiguity of the two places (of
which Rimmon is discovered in "Bum er Rum-
inanin," four hours north of Beer-sheba, and Ain
appears to have been the name of an old well lying
near it), or possibly by a coalescence of the two at
a later period ; 2. Etam, if it actually came into
the text by exchange with the original Ether,
1 So also Palmer and Drake, p. 303
should have been, not at the head of the list, but
the last but one (where -inj? stands in Josh. xix.
7) ; and 3. There were notoriously two Etams, one
in the mountains of Judah south of Bethlehem,
2 Chron. xi. 6, and one in the Negeb of Judah on
the border of Simeon, which occurs in the history
of Samson, Judg. xv. 8, 11, and must be the place
here meant, where a locality near Ain and Rim-
mon is intended. This leaves nothing unsolved
but the difference of the number, being only four
in Joshua, and five here. The hypothesis of Keil,
that pn is only another name for ~\7\V, is not
well grounded. — Ver. 33. And all tlteii villages
that were round these towns unto Baal. The
parallel, Josh. xix. 8, is more full : "and all the
villages that were round these towns, unto Baa-
lath-beer, Ramath-negeb." Hence pjQ appears
to be an abbreviation of the fuller name fjpya
1X3, an|l the group of villages extending to this
Baalath-beer (or Bealoth, as it is called Josh. xv.
24) bore the name Ramath-negeb or Rainah of the
south, with which Ramoth-negeb, 1 Sam. xxx. 27,
is manifestly identical. "An attempt has been
recently made to determine the situation of this
place, in doing which it is to be observed that
Baal or Baalath-beer is not to be counted among
the towns of Simeon ; for it is only said that the
villages of the last-named towns extend to Baal,
that is, in the direction and perhaps very near to
Baal, so that we are warranted in seeking our
Baal in a region somewhat more remote from the
towns, if it had otherwise a, peculiar character
and adaptation to denote the direction in which
the territory of Simeon extended. Now Walkott
found near Ramet el Khulil, about an hour north
of Hebron, a second Raman, called Ramet el
Amleh, and also two heights with old sites. A
whole group of places on hills, which can be
observed at one glance, and present a grand and
peculiar aspect, is here found : there is no doubt
that the Ramoth-negeb, 1 Sam. xxx. 27, is to be
sought here. As there is a remarkable well in
Ramet el Khulil, the conjecture arises that here
is a Baalath-beer, a well-town ; and a confirmation
of this conjecture presents itself in the designation
of this place by the addition Ramoth-negeb."
So Bertheau, after Roediger (review of Robinson's
Bibl. Sacra, Halle'sche Literaturztg. 1843, No.
Ill) ; whereas Keil on Josh. xix. 8 is inclined to
seek Baalath-beer and Ramoth-negeb in a more
southerly situation than Ramet el Khulil, which
is not far from Hebron ; and the best chartogra-
jhers of the day (Menke in ch. iii. of his Bibk
Atlas, Gotha 1868) place the localities in ques-
tion south-west of the Dead Sea, on the caravan
road leading to Hebron. — Thus was their habita-
tion, and they had their own genealogy, that is,
their own register of families as a separate inde-
pendent tribe, though they dwelt in the territory
of Judah, and were much less in number and ex-
tent than this contiguous tribe. On the substan-
tively used infin. BTITIil, genealogy (properly,
entrance in the register), comp. Introd. § 5.
3. History of the Two Migrations or Conquests
of the Simeonites: vers. 34-43.— a. First expedi-
tion, in the time of Hezekiah : vers. 34-41.
And Meshobab, and Jamlech, and Joshah, etc.
These thirteen princes of the tribe of Simeon are
CHAP. IV. 38-43.
61
only made prominent because they were the
leaders of the present expedition, not because the
former genealogical series (vers. 24-26) was con-
tinued V>y them. For although of some of them
(Joshah, Jehu, and Ziza) the descent for several
generations is given, yet the connection of these
small genealogical lines with that earlier series is
wanting. With the remarkable form roby1, "to
Jacob " (reckoned to him), comp. the analogous
form HPSOb") 1 Chron. xxv. 14, and other
examples in Ewald, Lehrb. p. 670, n. 1, 7th edit.
-Ver. 38. These are they that entered by name
princes in their famine's (not: " these were famous,
celebrated princes, " as Luther). A phrase essen-
tially the same occurs in ver. 41 ; comp. also xii.
31; Num. i. 17; Ezra viii. 25. "Princes of
families " are, moreover, not heads of families,
but " heads of the houses into which the families
were divided " (Keil). — And their father-houses
spread greatly, unfolded and branched out into a
great multitude. On DiDfrOVBi plural of the
compound 3N~JV3, comp. Ewald, § 270, p. 657,
where the same plural is cited from 2 Chron.
xxxv. 5, Num. i. 2, 18, 20, vii. 2, etc., and
the similar J"liD3 IT'S, high houses, from 1 Kings
xii. 31, 2 Kings xvii. 29, 32. — And they went to
the entrance of Gedor (scarcely "to the west of
Gedor," as Keil, for this would have required
the addition of {y'Dtyn to t030^>). to the east of
the valley. What valley is uncertain, as the de-
finite article only points to some known valley
near Gedor, a place that cannot itself be deter-
mined ; but the identification of this fcOHH with
the valley of the Dead Sea is a very precarious
conjecture of Ewald and Bertheau, for the valley
of the Dead Sea with its southern continuation
bears in the 0. T. the standing name of n3"IJ?n.
Equally uncertain is the conjecture of the same
inquirers, and of Kamph., Graf, Miihlau (also of
Menke in ch. iii. of his Bible Atlas), that -nj
is an error of transcription for "nj (Tsf^inSept. ;
see Crit. Note). A place so far west as Gerar
(now Kirbet el Gerar) on the river Gerar can
scarcely >ave been used to mark the border of the
Simeonite pasture lands ; and the mode of ex-
pression is Dot fitted to indicate the west and
east bounding points of the region occupied by
the Simeonites (comp. also on ver. 41). On the
other hand, to identify Gedor with the town
-|f!3 named in Josh. xv. 58, situated on the
mountains of Judah, has its difficulties. For it
must also be presumed that the Meunim named
in ver. 41 were the inhabitants of the adjacent
hill-town Maon, Josh. xv. 55 ; and the region of
this hill-town of Judah cannot be that intended
here, as the latter is described, -er. 40, as on all
sides (literally " on both sides; " DT, as in Gen.
xxxiv. 21) open, and therefore clearly as a plain. —
Ver. 40. For they were of Ham who dwelt there
before. For the phrase, comp. Judg. xviii. 7, 28.
These men of Ham, whom the Simeonites found as
inhabitants, peaceable and harmless inhabitants of
the country in question, and subdued, may have
been Egyptians, Cushites, or Canaanites ; most
probably they belonged to the last branch of the
Hamites, as the region in question is contiguous
to Palestine. Hitzig ("The Kingdom of Massa" in
Zeller's Theolog. Jahrbiichern, 1844, p. 269 ff.,
and on Prov. p. 312) gratuitously supposes the
Amalekites to be designated by "the men of
Ham " (likewise Hoffmann, Blicke in diefruheste
Oeschichte des heiligen Landes, p. 73) : for the
history of the second expedition of the Simeonites
refers to the Amalekites, vers. 42, 43, and it is a
question whether the Amalekites were Hamites
(Knobel on Gen. x. 13, 23, and comp. above on
i. 36 f. ) ; and the circumstance that these Hamites
were nomades aoes not compel us to think of
Amalekites (Ludim, Hyksos?), since many
Canaanitish tribes lived as nomades ; for example,
those of Laish, Judg. xviii. — Ver. 41. Came in
the days of Hezekiah. Here is a quite definite
chronological date, that shows still more posi-
tively than the reference to the reign of David in
ver. 31, the high age and the certainty of these
notices. — And smote their (the Hamites') tents,
and the Meunites that were found there. The
smiting refers first to the tents or d-vellings of the
Hamites, and then to the Meunitos found there,
who are therefore foreigners who had come to
dwell among the Hamites. D'iWD (f°r which the
Kethib has Q'O'iJJO and the Sept. MimTm) are here,
as in 2 Chron. xxvi. 7 (comp. xx. 1), probably
inhabitants of the town Maon near Petra, east of
the Wady Musa (Robinson, iii. 127). Their
being involved in the fate of the Hamites implies
that the scene of the present event lay to the east,
though it cannot be further defined. Against the
reading proposed by some old expositors (Luther,
Starke), D'ijJSnTlKl. "and the fixed habita-
tions, " in contrast with the forementioned tents,
see Bochart, Geogr. Sacra, p. 138. — And destroyed
them unto this day, and dwelt in their stead.
DD,"ins1, ad internecionem usque eos exciderunt
(J. H. Mich.), deleverunt (Vulg.). Comp. cnnn,
ban, extirpate, in 2 Chron. xx. 23, xxxii. 14, 2
Kings xix. 11, Isa. xxxvii. 11. The term "unto
this day " points to the time of composition, not
by the Chronist, but by the old historical sources
at least before the exile employed by him.
b. Second expedition of the Simeonites against
Mount Seir : vers. 42, 43.- — And of them, of the
sons of Simeon, five hundred men went to Mount
Seir. Nothing more precise is stated regarding
the time of this expedition ; it may have been
before or after that in the time of Hezekiah.
And the statement, "of them, of the sons of
Simeon," is quite general, and sets no limit either
to the Simeonites named vers. 34-37 or to those
before enumerated, vers. 24-27. Keil, who ex-
changes the Ishi of our verse with Shimi, ver. 27,
is arbitrary in thinking only of the latter ; and
no less so is Bertheau, who refers the words to
the part of the Simeonites described ver. 34 ff.
Of the surmise, that the event of our verse is
somehow connected with that referred, vers. 34-
41, to the time of Hezekiah, and is to be re-
garded as in some measure a continuation of it
(Ew., Berth., Kamph.), there is not the slightest
hint in the text, even if the valley of the present
expedition to Mount Seir could be situated in the
same direction from the tribe of Simeon as that of
the former ; see on vers. 39, 40. — Ver. 43. And
they smote the remnant that had escaped of
82
I. CHRONICLES.
Amalek, that is, those Amalekites who escaped
annihilation in the victories of Saul and David
over this hereditary foe of the Israelites (who
were formerly settled, Judg. v. 14, xii. 15, comp.
Num. xiii. 29, chiefly in Paran or half-Manasseh
east of Jordan ; comp. Hitzig, Oesch. d. V. Isr.
pp. 26, 104) ; comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 48, xv. 7; 2 Sam.
viii. 12. These who thus escaped had retired
into the Idnmean mountains, and there inter-
mingled partly with the Edomites (comp. i. 36 f. ).
Here they were now sought out and extirpated
by the Simeonites under the sons of Ishi, while
the conquerors occupied their seats. From a
comparison of the present passage with Mic.
i. 15, ii. 8-10, Isa. xxi. 11, xxviii. 12, etc.,
which appear to indicate an advance of the
Israelites who believed in Jehovah far into the
south and south-east in the times of Hezekiah
and Isaiah, Hitzig {Das Konigrelch Massa) has,
with the concurrence of Bunsen, Bertheau, etc.,
doveloped his hypothesis of the founding of an
Israelitish kingdom of Massa east or south-east
of Seir (not far from Dumah ; comp. Gen. xxv. 44;
1 Chron. i. 30) by the colony of Simeonites here
mentioned, and has assigned to it as kings, Agur
and Lemuel, the. authors of the two appendices
to the book of Proverbs. Comp. our substantially
concurring judgment concerning this hypothesis
on Prov. xxx. 1 ff., vol. xii. p. 208 of the Bibelw.
The objections urged against this hypothesis by
Graf (Der Stamm Simeon, p. 12 ff. ) and Miihlau
(De prov. Aguri, etc., orig. p. 24 f.) certainly
point out much that is not and cannot be proved
in it, but are not sufficient to show that it is a
mere fancy picture. At all events, the traditions,
that in accordance with our passage part of the
tribe of Simeon penetrated far into Arabia and
founded there an Israelitish colony, are as wide-
spread as they arc ancient. Arabian legends even
make the tribe of Simeon found the city and tha
temple of Mecca. See Hoffmann, Blieke, etc.,
p. 124.
2. The Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh : eh. v.
a.. The Tribe of Reuben: vers. 1-10.
Ch. V. 1. And the sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel, — for he was the first-born ;
but, because he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to the sons ot
2 Joseph the son of Israel, though he was not to be registered as first-born. For
Judah was mighty among his brethren, and of him was the prince; and Joseph
3 had the birthright. — The sons of Reuben, the first-born of Israel : Hanoch and
4 Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. The sons of Joel : Shemaiah his son, Gog his son,
5, 6 Shimi his son. Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son. Beerah his son,
whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Asshur carried away ; he was prince among the
Reubenites.
7 And his brethren by their families, in the register after their generations:
8 the chief Jeiel, and Zechariah. And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema,
9 the son of Joel ; he dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon. And east-
ward he dwelt unto the entrance into the wilderness from the river Euphrates ;
10 for their cattle multiplied in the land of Gilead. And in the days of Saul they
made war with the Hagarites, and they fell by their hand ; and they dwelt in
their tents on all the east side of Gilead.
£. The Tribe of Gad: vers. 11-17.
1 1 And the sons of Gad dwelt over against them, in the land of Bashan, unto
12 Salcah. Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat1 in
1 3 Bashan. And their brethren by their father-houses : Michael, and Meshullam,
14 and Sheba, and Jorai, and Jachan, and Zia, and Eber, seven. These are the
sons of Abihail the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son
15 of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz. Ahi the
16 son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of their father-houses. And they dwelt in
Gilead in Bashan, and in her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon2 unto
17 their outgoings. All of them were registered in the days of Jotham king of
Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.
y. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh with Arab Nations: vers. 18-25!.
18 And the sons of Reuben, and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant
men bearing shield and sword, and drawing the bow, and skilful in war, were
19 forty and four thousand and seven hundred and sixty going forth to war. And
20 they made war with the Hagarites, and Jetur, and Naphish, and Nodab. And
they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their
hand, and all that were with them ; for they cried to God in the battle, and He
CHAP. V. 1-6.
63
21 was entreated of them, because they trusted in Him. And they took their
cattle; their camels fifty thousand, and sheep two hundred and fifty thousand,
22 and asses two thousand, and souls of men a hundred thousand. For many fell
slain, because the war was of God ; and they dwelt in their stead until the
captivity.
S. The half -Tribe of Manasseh: vers. 23, 24.
23 And the sons of the half-tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land, from Bashan
24 unto Baal-hermon and Senir and Mount Hermon ; these were many. And
these were the heads of their father-houses, even Epher, and Ishi, and Eliel,
and Azriel, and Jeremiah, and Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, valiant heroes, famous
men, heads of father-houses.
25
t. Carrying of the Three East-Jordanic Tribes into Exile: vers. 25, 26.
And they were untrue to the God of their fathers, and lusted after the gods
26 of the people of the land, whom the Lord destroyed before them. And the God
of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Asshur, and the spirit of Tilgath-
pilneser king of Asshur, and he carried them away, the Reubenites, and the
Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah and Habor,
and the mountain and the river Gozan, unto this day.
< For tDD2>l the Sept. read t33{5> or ISD ; for it gives the words |E>33 DDBn 'Jjn by : *«! r«w» i rp*r
uvrfC: iv Beta-civ.
' For p"lSp the cod. Vat. of the Sept. has Tifti/* (possibly from an original |1'l*)t}>; cornp. Exeg. Note).
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — The three east-jor-
danic tribes are closely connected by our genea-
logist on account of their common fate, not only
by being here placed together, although by this
arrangement the eastern half of Manasseh are
severed from their western kindred, but also by
the insertion of two historic episodes referring to
the common doings and fortunes of the three.
The first of these pieces is inserted between Gad
and half-Manasseh ; the second is transferred to
the end, because it describes the catastrophe by
which the three tribes lost their independence.
"An endeavour after an equable distribution of
the historical matter" (Berth.) may lie at the
ground of this; for even to the genealogical
account of the Reubenites a short war notice,
ver. 1 0, is appended. But the notable thing is,
that the more copious and important of these
historical notices refer to the common acts and
the common fall of the three (it is not observed
that the tribe of Gad, in connection with whose
generations the war report, vers. 18-22, is given,
played a specially prominent part in it), by which
our section is distinguished as one compact group
from the genealogical series of our chapter.
1. The Tribe of Reuben : vers. 1-10. — The in-
troductory vers. 1, 2 treat of the birthright of
Reuben in its relation to that of Joseph. — For he
was the first-born ; but because, etc. These words
to the close of ver. 2 form a parenthesis, which,
reminding us in its opening words of Gen. xlix. 4,
set forth the ground on which the hirthright of
Joseph is mentioned along with that of Reuben.—
Though lie was not to be registered as first-born,
literally, "though not to register (^> before {•TITin,
to denote that which should take place ; see Ew.
§ 237, c) for the first birth," that is, in the rank
of the first-born. The subject here is perhaps
not Reuben (Sept. , Vulg. ), but Jos»ph, as Kimchi
and other Rabbinical expositors justly observe ;
for the statement of the following verse refers to
Joseph as the chief person spoken of here. — Ver.
2. For Judah was mighty among his brethren.
"133, was strong, mighty, in numbers and influ-
ence ; comp. Gen. xlix. 8 ff. ; Judg. i. 1, and ch.
ii.-iv. — And of him loas the prince (namely,
David, xxviii. 4; 1 Sam. xiii.14, xxv. 30), or, "and
of him should be one of the princes" (Kamph. ).
This concealed reference to the Davidic kingdom
that sprang from Judah reminds us in its form
of Mic. v. 1 (comp. !|3BD nere with ^t3D there,
and TJ3? with pt»>'io niTI? there). — And Joseph
had the birthright. To him were allowed two
territories (according to the right of first birth,
Deut. xxi. 15-17), one for Ephraim and one for
Manasseh. — Ver. 3. Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron
and Carmi. So are the four sons of Reuben
named Gen. xlvi. 9, Ex. vi. 14; comp. Num.
xxvi. 5-7. — Vers. 4-6. The descendants of Joel,
as a single line of Reubenites, which is carried
through several generations. From which of the
four sons this line descended, the author of the
present list knew, and perhaps even the Ghronist,
who incorporated it into his work ; but the know-
ledge is lost to after times. — Shemaiah his son,
Gog his son, etc. The first 1J3 after ,T1?DB> the
Sept. has read as a nom. propr., and therefore
inserted between Shemaiah and Gog another
descendant of Joel, B«»«ia, whereby his whole
descendants are increased from seven to eight,
though scarcely in accordance with the original
text. The seven names occur also elsewhere,
but only here in reference to the descendants of
Reuben. — Ver. 6. Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-
pilneser carried away. The Chronist always
writes "lDW^fi flJ^n, whereas in 2 Kings the
64
I. CHRONICLES.
only form of writing is iDkSq TV)T\ (comp. the
similar difference between "Nebuchadrezzar" of
Jeremiah and Ezekiel and "Nebuchadnezzar" of
the other books; see on Dan. i. 1). Whether G.
Oppcrt's interpretation of the name = "JTOn
iriD'N^Si "prayer to the son of the Zodiac,"
the Assyrian Hercules, be correct, or the cer-
tainly preferable one of Schrader (Tuklat-habal-
asar, "trust in the son of the house of grace,"
or, "he who trusts in the house of grace," that
is, in the god Adar ; comp. Schrader, D\e Ke'din-
schriften und das Alte T., 1672, pp. :34 f., 237),
the form used in the books of Kings appears
the more original. — He, was a prince among the
Eeubenites, that is, Beerah. He was prince of «,
family of Eeubenites, not of the whole tribe ; for
the ^ ('J^X")?) indicates a looser sort of con-
nection than the relation of prince to the whole
tribe, to be expressed by the stat. constr. The
adjective form, "the Reubenite, " denotes here,
as in ver. 26 and xxvi. 32, generally those be-
longing to the tribe of Reuben ; comp. ver. 18, 'HJ.
and iv. 2, TiyiXn, and similar forms in Chronicles.
— Vers. 7-9. The brothers of Beerah, that is,
the families among the descendants of Joel most
nearly related to his family. — And his brethren
bij their families (before ynnBETO supply t;"N,
every one by his family ; comp. Num. ii. 34,
xi. 10), in the register after their generations (or
order of birth): the chief Jeiet, etc. t?N"in, the
head, the first, the chief of the family. Comp.
ver. 12 and ix. 17, where, however, this epithet
stands after the name of the person in question,
while in xii. 3, xxiii. 8, as here, it stands before.
— Ver. 8. And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of
Shema, the son of Joel; scarcely any other than
the Joel of ver. 4. From him sprang Bela in the
third generation, a clear proof that he belonged
only in the wider sense to the brethren of Beerah,
who descended from him in the seventh genera-
tion, and that he was at all events considerably
older than the latter; see on ver. 10. — He dwelt
in A rocr, even unto Nebo and Baal-meon. Aroer,
now a ruin, Arrayr on the river Anion (comp.
Josh. xii. 2, xiii. 9, 16); Nebo, a place on Mount
Nebo, in the range of Abarim, over against Jericho
(Num. xxxii. 38, xxxiii. 47) ; Baal-meon, perhaps
the ruins Myun, two miles south of Heshbon
(comp. Num. xxxii. 38, where it is also found
along with Nebo). — Ver. 9. And eastward he
dwelt, unto the entrance into the wilderness from
the river Euphrates, that is, to the line where the
great wilderness begins, that extends from the
Euphrates to the east border of Peraa, or Gilead
as it is called in this verse ; for Gilead (Gen. xxxi.
21, xxxvii. 25; Josh. xiii. 11, xvii. 1; Judg. v.
17, etc.) is the general term usual in the Old
Testament for the territory of Israel east of the
Jordan; comp. on ver. 16. — Ver. 10. And in the
days of Satd (the first king of Israel) they made
war with the Hagarites (or Hagarenes; comp.
Ps. lxxxiii. 7), the same North Arabian tribe that
appears, vers. 19, 20, as the adversary of the east-
jordanic Israelites, perhaps the 'AypxToi of Strabo,
xiii. p. 767, occurring, according to Schrader, in
the form Hagaranu (or Ha-ar-gi-'i) several times
in the Assyro - Babylonian cuneate inscriptions.
— And they fell by their hand, or, even into their
hands, of which the consequence was, that the
victors dwelt in the tents of the vanquished (that
is, occupied their country, Gen. ix. 27), "od all
the east side of Gilead," that is, on the whole east
border of the land of Gilead and beyond it (with
ijQ-^a-^j; comp. 13 Q \y, "close before," Gen.
xvi. 12). Who are these conquerors ? Are they
the Eeubenites in general, or only those of the
family of Bela ? Against the latter alternative,
which is defended by Keil, appears to be the
circumstance that in vers. 8, 9 Bela is spoken of
in the singular. But this singular begins even in
ver. 96 to pass into the plural (QrPJpD), an<i the
mighty outspreading of the Belaites mentioned
there seems intended to prepare for the notice of
their war with their Hagarene neighbours. More-
over, the statement in ver. 8, that Bela was great-
grandson of Joel, while Beerah was his descendant
in the seventh generation, corresponds with the
fact that this conquest of the Hagarites preceded
the deportation of the Reubenites under Beerah
by Tilgath-pilneser, ver. 6, some centuries. After
the removal of a considerable portion of the
Reubenites, so wide an outspreading of another
Reubenite family as is here related would scarcely
have taken place. We must therefore refer what
is recorded from ver. 7 of the family of the
brothers of Beerah, and especially of that of Bela,
to a much earlier time than that which is related
in ver. 6, because the narrative issues in the pre-
sent notice of a war in the time of Saul; and there
is no good ground why we should isolate this war
notice, and regard it as an unconnected appendix
to the genealogy of Reuben (against Berth, and
others, and also against Hoffmann, Das gelobte
Land in den Zeiten des getkeilten Reichs, etc.
1871, p. 27).
2. The Tribe of Gad ■ vers. 11-17.— And the
sons of Gad dwelt over against them in the land of
Bashan, that is, over against the Eeubenites
dwelling beside the Dead Sea in the mountain
range of Abarim or Moab, and also beyond the
Jordan in middle Gilead, which formed the
southern part of the former kingdom of Og king
of Bashan (Num. xxi. 33; Deut. iii. 11). The
extension of this tract inhabited by the Gadites
to the east is shown to be considerable by the
addition "unto Salchah" (as in Josh. xiii. 11).
For Salchah, now Sulkhad, lies on the southern
slope of Jebel Hauran, six or seven hours east of
BozTa, and therefore about thirty hours in a direct
line east from Jordan.— Ver. 12. Joel the chief, and
Shapham the second, and Janai and Shaphat in
Bashan, that is, dwelling, the ^3tl'i of the pre-
: it
vious verse completing the sense here. It is un-
certain how these four Gadite heads of families
are genealogically connected with the immediate
descendants of Gad named in Gen. xlvi. 16. The
omission of those seven sons of Gad enumerated
in Genesis (Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri,
Arodi, Areli) is surprising, and raises the sus-
picion of a gap in the text. On the variant
reading of the Sept. for DSE?\ see Crit. Note. As
t0SK» occurs elsewhere as a proper name, for ex-
ample, iii. 22, its retention here is the less doubt-
ful.— Ver. 13. And their brethren by their father-
houses, that is, by the families at whose head
they stood, and which were named after them.
CHAP. V. 15-22.
65
For the plur. Dn»ni3K IT'Sl, comp. on iv. 38.
Luther has erroneously taken the phrase for a
singular, and therefore translated, " and their
brethren of the house of their fathers,'- etc. The
term "brethren" stands naturally in as wide a
sense as in ver. 7. A statement of the country
where they dwelt does not follow the names of these
seven brothers of the four Gadite heads of families
already named. But their pedigree is first given,
vers. 14, 15, through eight generations, termin-
ating in a not otherwise known Buz, who has
perhaps as little to do with his namesake the son
of Nahor, Gen. xxii. 21, as with the progenitor of
Elihu, Job xxxii. 2. — Ver. 15. AM, the son of
Abdkl, the son of Guni, chief of their father-
houses. This Ahi we may suppose to have lived
at the beginning of the eighth century B. c. , under
..eroboam II. of Israel, or half a century later,
under Jotham of Judah, as ver. 17 shows. — Ver.
16. And they dwelt in Gilead, in Bashan, and in
her daughters, and in all the suburbs of Sharon
•into their outgoings. The first of these designa-
tions of place is the widest and most general : it
embraces both " Bashan and her daughters " and
"the suburbs of Sharon;" see on ver. 9. The
suffix iu nT)i333 refers to both countries, the
more extensive Gilead and the narrower Bashan
forming merely the northern part of Gilead ; and
the " suburbs " or pastures (D'KHJtfi. as ™ Num.
xxxv. 2 ff . ; Josh. xxi. 11 ff. ; Ezek. xlviii. 15) of
Sharon are no doubt to be sought in Gilead, as
nothing is known of a dwelling or a grazing of
any Gadites on the well-known plain of Sharon,
west of Jordan, between Cffisarea and Joppa
(Song ii. 1; Isa. xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2, lxv. 10); and
the " outgoings " of the suburbs of Sharon are not
necessarily outgoings or boundaries on the sea, as
Keil, referring to Josh. xvii. 9, will have it ;
comp. on the contrary, Num. xxxiv. 4, 5. Kamph.
is right, who at the same time mentions a plausi-
ble conjecture of the early expositors, that Shirion
should be read for Sharon. But we see no reason
why there should not be a Sharon east of the
Jordan. Comp. Smith's Bibl. Diet. , Art. ' ' Sharon. "
— Ver. 17. All of them were registered in the days
of Jotham, etc. "All of them " refers to the col-
lective families of the Gadites from ver. 11, not
merely to those mentioned ver. 13 ff. Of the
two kings of the eighth century under whose
reign the registration took place, that of the
rightful kingdom of Judah is, contrary to the
order of time, named first. We meet with no
other notices of these two registrations of the
tribe of Gad, of which that undertaken by Jero-
boam II. of Israel (825-784), at all events, coin-
cides with the restoration of the old boundaries of
the northern kingdom mentioned 2 Kings xiv.
25 ff. A temporary subjection of the tribe of
Gad by Jotham of Judah (759-743), or per-
haps by his predecessor, the powerful Uzziah
(811-759), as a prelude to the second registration
here mentioned, is easily conceivable, because
after Jeroboam's death a long weakening of the
northern kingdom by internal strife and anarchy
ensued, from which it recovered under Pekoh's
reign of twenty years (759-739). Comp. Keil,
p. 77, where, however, Pekah's reign, probably
by an error of the press, is stated to be of only ten
years' duration.
3. War of the Tribes of Reuben, Qad, and half-
Manasseh with Arab Tribes: vers. 18-22. — On
the reason why this account is inserted here after
the families of Gad, see Preliminary Remark. — Of
valiantmen, literally, of sons of valour (yft s33 |0;
comp. yn '"lias. ver- 24). These and the follow-
ing descriptions of the military prowess of these
tribes are confirmed by 1 Chron. xii. 8, 21, at
least with regard to Gad and half-Manasseh.
"With nt3r6o HID^, comp. the partic. Pual
'"ista, Song iii. 8 and ch. xxv. 7. The number
44,760, which certainly rests on an exact numera-
tion, nearly agrees with that given in Josh. iv. 13,
but not with the added numbers yielding a far
greater sum in Num. i. 21, 25, xxvi. 7, 18. The
difference is explained by this, that the statements
in Numbers refer to the time when the whole
tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh were
armed for war under Moses, and in a wandering
state, and each of these tribes, at least of the first
two, numbered more than 40,000 men fit for war,
whereas the present statement, like that in Josh,
iv. 13, refers to the time after they were settled
beyond the Jordan, when the number of troops
available for external service was naturally much
smaller; comp. on xxi. 5.— Ver. 19. And tftey
made war with the Hagarites. The same tribe of
northern Arabs with which Reuben alone, ver.
10, had been at war. The present common fight
of all the tribes beyond the Jordan with this tribo
is perhaps to be dated later than that of Reuben ;
comp. ver. 22. — And Jetur, and Naphish, and
Nodab. The first two tribes (of which fiC?1 has
given name to the district of Itursea) occurred
in i. 31 and in Gen. xxv. 15 as descendants of
Ishmael. Nodab, also a Beduin tribe, occurs
nowhere eUe. The name appears to signify
"noble, princely," and might possibly be the
source of the Nabataeans (Arab, nabt) ; for to
identify this at once with ni'OJ, Gen. xxv. 13,
Isa. lx. 7, as is usually done, has its difficulties ;
comp. Chwolsohn, Die Sabier, i. 698 ; Quatre-
mere, Les Nabatiens, Par. 1835 ; Muhlau, De
prov. Aguri et Lemuelis orig. et indole., p. 28 f. —
Ver. 20. And they were helped against them.
\-\\y\t namely, of God ; comp. 2 Chron. xxvi. 15;
Ps. xxyiii. 7. — And all that were with them,
namely, the Iturieans, etc., the confederates of
the Hagarites. — And he was entreated of them.
"liRWI is n°t an unusual form of the perf.
Niphal (for 1P1JJ31, Isa. xix. 22), but, what alone
suits for continued narrative, as here, infin. abs.
Niph., with ■■<■ perfect meaning ; comp. DlPin:,
Esth. viii. 8; *]iBnj, Esth. ix. 1.— Ver. 21.
Camels, fifty thousand. Luther, Starke, and
even Kamph., in Bunsen's Bibelwerk, incorrectly
(not observing the plur. D^Dn), "five thousand. "
The enoi-mous numbers, that are explained by the
great riches in herds of the north Arabians, re-
mind us ef the like statements regarding the
rich booty in the war with Midian, Num. xxxi.
11, 32 ff. — Ver. 22. For many fell slain. The
greatness of the defeat which the foe sustained
accounts for the extremely great value of the booty
taken from them. On the further explanatory
sentence, " for the war was of God," comp.
E
r.6
I. CHRONICLES.
2 Chron. xxv. 20; 1 Sam. xvii. 47. — And they
dwelt in their stead, in the seats of the conquered
tribes ; unhindered, they made use of their abodes
and pastures, "until the captivity," until the
deportation decreed by Tilgath-pilneser, ver. 6.
4. Th£ half-Tribe of Manasseh: vers. 23, 24.—
From Bashan unto Baal-hermon and Senir and
Mount Hermon. As B.ishan is the district in-
habited by Gad bordering on the south, ver. 12,
it denotes here the south border, while Baal-
hermon (Judg. iii. 3, or " Baal- Gad under Her-
mon, " Josh. xii. 7, xiii. 5), Senir (later, by the
Arabs, Sunir ; according to Ezek. xxvii. 8, the name
of a part of the Hermon range ; according to Dent,
iii. 9, an Amorite name for the whole of Hermon),
and Mount Hermon (or Antilibanus, now Jebel
esh Sheik) designate the north border. On
account of this wide extent from south to north,
and also in breadth, it is said of those belonging
to this half- tribe, "these were many;" comp.
Num. xxvi. 34, where the number of military age
in this whole tribe is said to be 52,700. — Ver. 24.
And these were the heads of tlieir father-houses,
even Epher. The ) before -|Qj) may be rendered
" even "; but it is surprising, and raises the sus-
picion that perhaps a name has fallen out. None
of these heads of families of East Manasseh is
otherwise known, so that we know nothing of the
deeds for which they were called "valiant heroes,
famous men."
5. Carrying away into Exile of the three east-
Jordanic Tribes: vers. 25, 26. — And they were
untrue, etc., namely, the three eastern tribes
named in the following verse, and not merely
the Manassites. For the terms, as for the fact,
comp. 2 Kings xvii. 7 ff. — The people of the land,
whom the Lord had destroyed before them, are
the Amorites and the subjects of Og of Bashan.
— Ver. 26. And the Uod of Israel stirred up the
spi it of Pul. ~ijj»i, as 2 Chron. xxi. 16 (comp. I
xxxi 26 ; Ezra i. 1, 5). L. Lavater justly re- '
marks : in mentem illis dedit, movil eos, ut ex-
peditionem facerenl contra illos. Pul is, more-
over, named as the beginner of the oppressions
coming from Assyria (comp. 2 Kings xv. 19 f. );
the removal itself is completed by Tiglath-pi-
leser, as the sing. Q7J»l, reierring only to him,
shows. Besides, the Assyriologists, especially
Rawlinson, Schrader (p. 124 ff.), declare Pul to
be the same with Tiglath-pileser, and his name
a mere mntiktion of the latter name, because the
Assyrian inscriptions nowhere exhibit any such
thing as a ruler Pul almost contemporary with
Tiglath-pileser. — Carried them away, the Heuben-
ite#, etc. The suffix in tbyi] is more precisely
defined by the following accusatives '\}\ 'JDINI^
introduced by p (according to later usage) ; comp.
Ew. § 277e. — And brought them to Halah and
Habor, and the mountain and tlie river Gozan,
unto this day. fpn, perhaps = |"l?3i Gen. x. 11,
at all events = K^Xa^'m, a, region described by
Strabc and Ptolemy: "On the east side of the
Tigris, near Adiabene, north of Nineveh, on the
borders of Armenia." Not far from this Halah
(the name of which occur« on the Assyrian monu-
ments in the form Kal-hu; comp. Schrader, Die
Keilenschriften und d. A. T. p. 20 f.) is to be
sought "lton, perhaps a district in North Assyria,
after which both the mountain Xafivfxs (Ptolem.
vi. 1), near the Median border, and a river flow-
ing into the Tigris (Khabur Chasanice, now
Knabur), are named. "We are not here to think
of the Mesopotamian river Chaboras, rising at
Nisibis, and falling into the Euphrates near
Circesium, as its Hebrew name is "133, Ezek. i. 1.
The river Gozan, also, is scarcely to be sought in
Mesopotamia (where there is certainly a district
r«t/f<s»iV/c, the present Kaushan, bordering on
that river Chebar, and where also Schrader, p.
161, has pointed out a place Guzana, near Nisibis
— Nasibina — in an Assyrian inscription), but per-
haps in the border land of Assyria and Media,
where the Median city T*uZ,*«ix, mentioned by
Ptol. vi. 2, lay, and where also a river Ozan (in
full, Kizil-Ozan, the red Ozan) is found, the
Mardos of the old Greeks, rising south-east of
the lake Urumiah, forming the boundary of
Assyria and Media, and falling into the Caspian
Sea. As all these places point to the north of
Assyria and to Media, so the term before the
last, "the mountain," appears to mean the Median
highlands ; and, indeed, Kin seems to be the
Aramaic form for the Hebrew in, mountain, the
popular designation in that region of the Median
highlands (al Jebal among the Arabs); comp. also
2 Kings xvii. 6, where, in place of Kin, the
"cities of Media'' (ho v-iy) are naired. Keil
on our passage and on 2 Kings xvii. 6, Bahr on
the latter, Ew. (Oesch. iii. p. 318), M. Niebuhr
(Gesch. Assure und Babels), Wichelhaus (Das
Exil der 10 Stdinme, in the Deutscheu Morgenl.
Zeitschr. v. 467 ff.), Kamph. on our passage, etc.,
are here right ; while Thenius, Berth. , Hitz.
think, without sufficient grounds, of parts of
Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates. Moreover,
not merely the Chronist, but the sources used by
him, appear to have assumed as the place to
which Tiglath-pileser removed the tribes beyond
the Jordan, the same region in the north of
Assyria to which, 2 Kings xvii. 6, some decennia
afterwards, Shalmaneser transplanted the remain-
ing tribes of the northern kingdom. Whether this
statement be historically correct, or involve the
confounding of two different events (as Berth,
will have it), must remain undecided. From
2 Kings xv. 29, where the country to which
Tiglath-pileser brought the 24 tribes is simply
called Asshur, the inaccuracy of the present state-
ments cannot be proved.
d The Family of the Levites, with a Statement of their Seats in the different
Tribes.— Ch. v. 27-vi. 66.
1. The Family of Aaron, or the High-priestly Line to the Exile: ch. v. 27-41.
Ch v. 27, 28. The sons of Levi : Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the sons of
29 Kohath : Amram. Izhar, and Helron, and Uzziel. And the sons of Amram •.
CHAP. V. 27-VI. 66. 67
Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron : Nadab and Abihu,
30 Eleazar and Ithamar. Eleazar begat Phinehas, and Phinehas begat Abishua.
31, 32 And Abishua begat Bukki, and Bukki begat Uzzi. And Uzzi begat Zerahiah,
33 and Zerahiah begat Meraioth. Meraioth begat Amariah, and Amariah begat
34, 35 Ahitub. And Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Ahimaaz. And Ahi-
36 maaz begat Azariah, and Azariah begat Johanan. And Johanan begat
Azariah, he that served as priest in the house that Solomon built in Jeru-
37, 38 salem. And Azariah begat Amariah, and Amariah begat Ahitub. And
39 Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Shallum. And Shallum begat Hilkial
40 and Hilkiah begat Azariah. And Azariah begat Seraiah, and Seraiah begat
41 Jehozadak. And Jehozadak went away, when the Lord carried away Judah
and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.
2. The Descendants of Gershom, Kohath, and Merari, in a Double Series : ch. vi. 1-15
Gu VI. 1, 2. The sons of Levi: Gershom, Kohath, and Merari. And these are the
3 names of the sons of Gershom : Libni and Shimi. And the sons of Kohath :
4 Amram and Izhar, and Hebron and Uzziel. The sons of Merari : Mahli and
5 Mushi. And these are the families after their fathers.
6 To Gershom : Libni his son, Jahath his son, Zimmah his son. Joah his
son, Iddo his son, Zerah his son, Jeatherai his son.
7 The sons of Kohath : Amminadab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son.
8, 9 Elkanah his son, and Ebiasaph his son, and Assir his son. Tahath his son,
10 Uriel his son, Uzziah his son, and Shaul his son. And the sons of Elkanah :
1 1 Amasai and Ahimoth. Elkanah his son,1 Elkanah of Zoph his son, and Nahath
12, 13 his son. Eliab his son, Jeroham his son, Elkanah his son. And the sons of
Samuel : the first-born2 Vashni, and Abiah.
14 The sons of Merari : Mahli, Libni his son, Shimi his son, Uzzah his son.
15 Shima his son, Haggiah his son, Asaiah his son.
3. The Ancestors of the Levitical Songmasters Heman, Asaph, and Ethan: vers. 16-34.
16 And these are they whom David set over the singing in the house of the
17 Lord, after the resting of the ark. And they ministered before the dwelling
of the tent of meeting with singing, until Solomon built the house of the Lord
18 jn Jerusalem, and they attended in their order to their service. And these
are they who attended, and their sons : of the sons of Kohath : Heman the
19 singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel. The son of Elkanah, the son of
20 Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah. The son of Zuph,8 the son of
21 Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai. The son of Elkanah, the
22 son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah. The son of Tahath,
23 the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah. The son of Izhar,
the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.
24 And his brother Asaph, who stood on his right hand, Asaph the son of
25 Berechiah, the son of Shima. The son of Michael, the son of Baaseiah, the
26 son of Malchiah. The son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah.
27, 28 The son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimi. The son of, Jahath,
the son of Gershom, the son of Levi.
29 And the sons of Merari, their brethren on the left hand : Ethan the son of
30 Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluch. The son of Hashabiah, the son
31 of Amaziah, the son of Hilkiah. The son of Amzi, the son of Bani, the son of
32 Shamer. The son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi.
33 And their brethren the Levites, given for all service of the tabernacle of
34 the house of God. And Aaron and his sons offered on the altar of burnt-
offering, and on the altar of incense, for all the work of the holy of holies,
and to atone for Israel, in all that Moses, the servant of God, had com-
manded.
4. The Series of High Priests from Eleazar to Ahimaaz (in the time of Solomon) : vers. 35-38.
35 And these are the sons of Aaron : Eleazar his son, Phinehas his son,
68 I. CHRONICLES.
36, 37 Abishua his son. Bukki his son, TJzzi his son, Zerahiah his son. Meraioth
38 his son, Amariah his son, Ahitub his son. Zadok his son, Ahimaaz his son.
5. The Towns of the Levitts: vers. 39-66.
39 And these are their dwellings, by their districts, in their border, of the
sons of Aaron : of the family of the Kohathites, for to them was the lot.
40 And they gave them Hebron, in the land of Judah, and its suburbs round
41 about it. And the field of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb the
42 son of Jephunneh. And to the sons of Aaron they gave the free towns,4
Hebron and Libnah and its suburbs, and Jattir and Eshtemoa and its suburbs.
43, 44 And Hilen5 and its suburbs, Debir and its suburbs. And Ashan and its
45 suburbs, and Bethshemesh and its suburbs. And out of the tribe of Benjamin:
Geba and its suburbs, and Allemeth and its suburbs, and Anathoth and its
suburbs ; all their cities were thirteen cities in their families.
46 And to the sons of Kohath that remained of the family of the tribe, were
47 from the half-tribe, the half of Manasseh, by lot, ten cities. And to the sons
of Gershom for their families, of the tribe of Issachar, and of the tribe of
Asher, and of the tribe of Naphtali, and of the tribe of Manasseh, in Bashan,
48 thirteen cities. To the sons of Merari for their families, of the tribe of
Reuben, and of the tribe of Gad, and of the tribe of Zebulun, by lot twelve
cities.
49 And the sons of Israel gave to the Levites the cities and their suburbs.
50 And they gave by lot out of the tribe of the sons of Judah, and the tribe of
the sons of Simeon, and the tribe of the sons of Benjamin, these cities which
they called by names.
51 And of the families of the sons of Kohath, some had the cities of their
52 border out of the tribe of Ephraim. And they gave them the free towns,
Shechem and its suburbs in Mount Ephraim, and Gezer and its suburbs.
53, 54 And Jokmeam and its suburbs, and Beth-horon and its suburbs. And
55 Aijalon and its suburbs, and Gathrimmon and its suburbs. And out of the
half-tribe of Manasseh, Aner and its suburbs, and Bilam and its suburbs,
to the family of the remaining sons of Kohath.
56 To the sons of Gershom, out of the family of the half-tribe of Manasseh,
57 Golan in Bashan and its suburbs, and Ashtaroth and its suburbs. And out
of the tribe of Issachar, Kedesh and its suburbs, Daberath and its suburbs.
58, 59 And Ramoth and its suburbs, and Anem and its suburbs. And out of the
60 tribe of Asher, Mashal and its suburbs, and Abdon and its suburbs. And
61 Hukok and its suburbs, and Rehob and its suburbs. And out of the tribe of
Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee and its suburbs, and Hammon and its suburbs,
and Kiriathaim and its suburbs.
62 To the sons of Merari that remained, out of the tribe of Zebulun, Rim-
63 mono and its suburbs, Tabor and its suburbs. And beyond Jordan by
Jericho, east of Jordan, out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer in the wilderness
64 and its suburbs, and Jahzah and its suburbs. And Kedemoth and its
65 suburbs, and Mephaath and its suburbs. And out of the tribe of Gad,
66 Ramoth in Gilead and its suburbs, and Mahanaim and its suburbs. And
Heshbon and its suburbs, and Jazer and its suburbs.
' The Ketliib is 133 i"U£pN; the Keri puts \)3 for 133, and places n3p?K (with Athnach) as a separate super-
scription, The text is, at all events, corrupt (see Exeg. Expl.), whether the first ri3p5>K is to be erased, and 'ja
to be read, or the second H3p?X removed, and the sing. ^33 to be retained.
• After "113311, the name PXi11 must have fallen out, as the comparison of 1 Sam. viil. 2 shows (comp. also ver. 18).
• The Kelhtb has *pX~|3i the Keri, more correctly, S)1X~|3.
• For Dj-pBn 'HjmS, some old prints, after the BiU. Vmeta Babb. 1526, have 'BH TVWY< '"ljmtf. The
ass. (see de Rossi, Var. Ucl ) do not show this addition, which appears to have come into the text from the margin.
• For P'l"! (in Josh. xxi. 16, Pfl), the mere accurate Has. have, according to B. Noni and Ed. NtapolU., jSTV
CHAP. V. 27-36.
69
EXEGETIOAL.
Preliminary Remark. — Of the five sub-
divisions into which this section falls, the first
(v. 27-41 ) is a list of the high priests from Aaron
to the exile, which appears to be taken from a
peculiar older source, partly because one portion
of the high priests is enumerated again (vi. 35-38)
under a different genealogical form (instead of
*1 vifl before the name, 133 comes after it), partly
Itecause Gershon (v. 27) appears instead of " Ger-
shom," which is used throughout ch. vi. But
the four divisions also in ch. vi. bear a more or
less fragmentary character ; only the genealogies
of the three Davidic songmasters Heman, Asaph,
and Ethan (vers. 16-34), appear to be complete in
themselves, and without detect. In the register
of the three Levitical families Gershom, Kohath,
and Merari (vers. 1-15), many names are obviously
wanting, and some parts, especially in the series
of the Kohathites, vers. 7-13, appear to have
come down in a state of some confusion. The
list of the Levitical cities, vers. 39-66, presents
great corruptions of the text in considerable num-
ber, with many inaccuracies, and a notorious per-
version of the original order (see on vers. 49, 50),
as a cursory comparison of it with that drawn
from other sources in the book of Joshua, xxi. ,
will show. And lastly, the short list of the high
priests appears clearly to be a fragment from its
breaking off with Ahimaaz ; is, moreover, closely
connected with the preceding remarks in vers.
33, 34, on the ministry of the Aaronites in the
temple, and might be fitly formed with these two
verses into a special section referring to the ipxu-
pa.rtxov yivos of the house of Levi and its func-
tions. Comp. moreover, H. Graf, Zur Gesch. d.
St. Levi, in A. Merx's Archiv.f. Wissenscliaftliclie
Erforschung des A. T. vol. i. 1870 (hypercritical
on the content of our chapter, and throughout).
1. The Family of Aaron, or the High-priestly
Line to the Exile : v. 27-41. a. Aaron's descent
from Levi : vers. 27-29. — Gershon, Kohath, and
Merari. So run the names of the three sons of
Aaron in the Pentateuch, Gen. xlvi. 11, Ex. vi.
18. The form jitjnj is there constant, while for
nnp is occasionally nnp- — Ver. 28. The names
of the four sons of Kohath (the father of the chief
Levitical line) are literally the same in Ex. vi.
18. Likewise the names of the three children of
Amram, and those of the four sons of Aaron, ver.
29, agree literally with Ex. vi. 20, 23 ; comp.
Num. iii. 2-4, and in 1 Chron. xxiv. 2, the ac-
count of the premature death of Nadab and
Abihu by a divine judgment, reminding us of
Lev. x. Iff. — b. The descendants and successors
of Eleazar (Num. xx. 28; Josh. xiv. 1) in the
office of high priest : vers. 30-41. Only this series
of high priests from Eleazar is given here, as in
vi. 35 ff., not that from Ithamar, as the former
only is strictly legitimate. That the line from
Ithamar, to which Eli belonged (1 Sam. ii. 30),—
whose son was Phinehas, and grandson, Ahitub
(1 Sam. iv. 11, xiv. 3), further, Ahitub's son
Ahijah or Ahimelech (comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 3 with
xxii. 9 ff. ), lastly, this Ahimelech's son Abiathar
(from whom Solomon took the high-priesthood to
give it to Zadok, 1 Sam. xxii. 20 ; 1 Kings ii.
26-35), — was not unknown to our author, is shown
by his account in 1 Chron. xxiv. 3 ff. But the
line of Eleazar only must have passed with him
as really legitimate ; for here, and in vi. 35 ff., he
ignores the line of Ithamar running parallel with
it for several generations (from Uzzi, ver. 31, the
contemporary of Eli, to Zadok, the contemporary
and rival of Abiathar, ver. 34). On the relation
existing between those collateral lines in the times
of Saul and David we find nothing certain, either
in our books or in thosp of Samuel or Kings. Sc
much appears certain, however, from various in-
timations in the latter books, that the statement
of Josephus^nrtg'. Jud.viii. 1. 3; con_p. ch. v. 12),
that the descendants of Eleazar kept quiet, and
lived as private persons during the supremacy of
Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub, and Ahimelech, is incor-
rect, and rests on mere conjecture. Rather, from
1 Kings iii. 4 ff. (comp. 1 Chron. xvi. 39), Zadok
appears to have presided at Gibeori, contemporary
with Abiathar (the constant companion of David,
1 Sam. xxii. 20-23) at Jerus-ilem over the service
of the sanctuary ; and even before David, there
seems to have been a certain co-existence of differ-
ent sanctuaries with different high priests in
different places, — an assumption that is at least
better supported than the conjecture proposed by
Thenius on 2 Sam. viii. 17, that, in David's time,
the two high priests of the collateral houses might
have held office in alternate years. — "Ver. 35. And
Ahimaaz begat Azariah. As Ahimaaz (ver.
38) is son of Zadok, he belongs to the reign of
Solomon, within which also his son Azariah may
have been high priest. Without doubt, the notice
standing in ver. 36, beside a younger Azariah
(grandson of the other), "he that served as priest
((113, Ex. xl. 13; Lev. xvi. 32) in the house that
Solomon built in Jerusalem," only suits the pre-
sent Azariah, the grandson of Zadok. For in
1 Kings iv. 2, also, Azariah the son (more exactly
grandson) of Zadok is named as priestly prince
under Solomon ; his grandson of the same name
in ver. 36 cannot have lived before the time of
Rehoboam, or even Asa or Jehoshaphat. We
must therefore assume, with Bertheau, that the
words quoted from ver. 366 originally stood after
the name n,_lTJJ> ver- 35a, — an assumption which,
from the second occurrence of the same name
shortly after, and from the notorious occurrence
of such erroneous transpositions in our section
(see on ver. 49 f. ), involves no difficulty, and at
least commends itself more than the attempt of
Keil to identify the Azariah of ver. 36 with the
high priest of this name under king Uzziah (who,
2 Chron. xxvi. 1 7, boldly resisted the attempt of
this king to burn incense in the sanctuary). ' The
name Azariah appears to have ofter. recurred in
the family of the high priest in the time of the
kings ; for as our series contains this name no less
than three times (vers. 35, 36, 40), we know from
other accounts several other high priests of the
name before the exile ; thus, besides the one in
Uzziah' s time, another in the time of Hezekiah,
2 Chron. xxi. 10, who cannot possibly be identi-
' It is only an insipid rabbinical conceit, which Keil should
not have reproduced, of Rashi and Kimchi 10 apply the
words, ver 366, " he that kervid as priest in the house that
Solomon built," to the bold stand of the Azariah, under
Uzziah, against this king recorded in 2 Chron. xxvi. 17. But
no less untenable is Neteler's assertion (Chrm. pp. 88, 240),
that Azm-iah was the son of Jeholada, the husband of Jeho-
shabaih, and effecter of that revolution which rnised .loash
to the throne (2 Kings xi.; i Chron. xxtii. 1 ff.); see OS
2 Chron. xxiii 8.
70
I. CHRONICLES.
cal with those here mentioned. For the one
named in ver. 40 as the son of Hilkiah (2 Kings
xxii. ) may have lived under Josiah, nearly a
century after Hezekiah ; of all the three Azariahs
of our section, therefore, only the first (ver. 35)
can coincide with one of the elsewhere mentioned
high priests of this name, and this can have been
no other than that contemporary of Solomon
named in 1 Kings iv. 2. ' — Ver. 37. And Azariah
begat Amariah. This is the Amariah mentioned,
2 Chron. xix. 11, in the history of Jehoshaphat.
Here Oehler, Art. " Hoherpriester" in Heizog' slleal-
Encycl. vi. 205, is certainly right, though opposed
by Keil ; in the sixty-one years between Solomon's
death and Jehoshaphat's accession, the four high
priests named between Zadok and Amariah may
very well have followed in succession. — Ver. 38.
And Ahilub begat Zadok. In the neighbourhood
of this second Ahitub, whom we must place at the
beginning or middle of the ninth century B.C.,
we miss the Jehoiada who dethroned Athaliah,
and governed some time for the young king
Joash (who was perhaps, however, not properly
high priest, but only ' ' chief of the priesthood of
his time, " that is, a very influential priest ; see
on 2 Chron. xxiii. 8). Even so somewhat later in
the vicinity of Shallum is wanting the Uriah,
known from 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff. , who was high
priest under king Ahaz. The list from vers.
37-40, or for the last period of the kings (ninth,
eighth, and seventh centuries), appears very defec-
tive and concise, like the New Testament genealo-
gies of Jesus (Matt. i. 8-10; Luke iii. 28-31),
which make the longest leaps in this very epoch.
The number of the links omitted in our list
between the high priests for the time of Solomon
(ver. 36) and Seraiah must be at least seven ; for
with the ten generations of high priests enume-
rated vers. 36-40, correspond seventeen genera-
tions of the house of David, from Solomon to
Zedekiah (eomp. iii. 10-27); and there is no
reason why the line of priests should have a less
rapid succession of generations than that of kings.
— Ver. 41. And Jehozadak went away, to captivity
in Babylon, rhft stands here for the usual more
definite ry?)32 Tiprii Jer. xlix. 3. The carrying
away of this Jehozadak must have taken place
before the destruction of Jerusalem (perhaps 599);
for at the destruction of Jerusalem (588), not he,
but his aged father Seraiah, grandson of Hilkiah,
was high priest, as appears from the account in
2 Kings xxv. 18, 21, of his capture by Nebuchad-
nezzar and execution at Riblah. Jehozadak, in
exile, became father of that Joshua who returned
536 B c. with Zerubbabel at the head of the
exiles, Ezra iii. 2, v 2, Hag. i. 1.
With the series here given of the high priests
from Aaron to the exile, agrees that in Ezra vii.
1-5, which is more summary, and makes even
greater omissions. If we compare the sixteen
names there given, from Seraiah to Aaron, with
twenty-two of our list, the shorter list of Ezra
appears to be an abbreviated extract of the pre-
sent longer one. But the author of the latter
1 With Keil's and BHhr's attempt (Bibelw. part vii. p. 25 ff.)
to regard the " Azar.ah son of Zudok " of this passage, not
as priest or high priest, but as the first of the great civil
functionaries of Solomon, we cannot agi'te, because }!"lbn
is thereby taken In too abnormal a sense. Comp. Gesen.-
Dietrich on the word (fin
cannot have aimed at absolute completeness. The
-p^in used by him to denote the descent is quite
as much a mere phrase of indefinite and elastic
meaning as the p of Ezra. Moreover, the argu-
ment of Gramberg, p. 55, from the repeated
occurrence of the same names in our list, for
the assumption of an arbitrary process of com-
piling by the Chronist, has been long refuted by
Movers, Keil, and others. On the extra-biblical
traditions concerning the series of high priests
before the exile, in Josephus, in the Seder Olam,
etc., comp. Lightfoot, Ministerium templi, Opp.
t. i. p. 682 sqq. ; Selden, Be successions in pontif.
1. i ; and Eeland, Antiq. ii. c. 2. So far as these
accounts supplement the statements of our text,
they are almost devoid of any historical authority.
[The line from Aaron is not said to be a list of
actual high priests. External influence seems to
have often determined who should be the actual
high priest.— J. G. M.]
2. The Descendants of Gershom, KohatJi, and
Merari : vi. 1-15. — These are first given alone
with their sons (vers. 1-4) ; then follow further
genealogical statements regarding the descendants
of the most important of these sons, who became
the ancestors of the three chief families of the,
Levites. That in the Kohathite family the lino
of Amram, the father of Aaron, is not given again,
as in v. 27 ff., is explained by this, that the
families of the Levites, not that of the high priest,
are here to be registered. For the form "Ger-
shom," comp. on v. 27. The two sons each if
Gershom and Merari, and the four sons of Kohath,
bear the same names as in the Pentateuch, Ex.
vi. 16-19, Num. iii. 17-20, xxvi. 57 ff.— Ver. 45.
And these are the families of Levi, after 'their
fathers. This formula, found by the author in
his source, seems rather to be the superscription
for the following special genealogy of the Levites,
than the subscription to what precedes ; but comp.
Ex. vi. 19, where the same words serve clearly as
the subscription to the list of the sons and grand-
sons of Levi. — Vers. 5, 6. Descendants of Ger-
shom.— To Gershom: Libni his son, etc. The p
before DiEH2 serves for introduction, and there-
fore stands in another sense than in Ezraii. 6, 16,
where it is nota genitivi; comp. rather Ps. xvi. 3;
Isa. xxxii. 1. — Jeatherai, the last in this eight-
link chain of the descendants of Gershom, may
have lived in the times of Saul and David, but is
not otherwise known. That some of the names
in this series, Jahath, Zimmah, and Zerah, occur
also among the ancestors of Asaph, who springs
from the line of Shimi (vers. 24-28), does not
warrant the identification of the two series, nor
(as Bertheau affirms) the assumption that "these
are inserted, not because they lead to Jeatherai,
but because they belong to the ancestors of
Asaph." As if the recurrence of the same names
in different lines were not usual in our genet-
logical sections! — Vers. 7-13. Descendants of
Kohath. Three series of names, each beginning
with a new 133 or 133s, (vers. 7, 10, 13), without ex-
hibiting their genealogical connection. The very
beginning: "The sous of Kohath: Amminadab
his son,' involves a surprising deviation both
from ver. 3 and from Ex. vi. 18 ff., where no
Amminadab occurs among the sons of Kohath.
As the latter parallels, as ver. 23, agree in naming
CHAP. VI. 10-17.
71
an Izhar as the link between Kohath and Korah,
with Keil and the majority of older expositors,
Amminadab is to be regarded as a by-name of
Izhar ; for to regard Amminadab, with Bertheau,
as a descendant of Izhar, and suppose an omission
of the latter by some oversight, is less probable.
Why should not the name Amminadab, otherwise
occurring among the descendants of Judah as
father of Nahshon and father-in-law of Aaron
(Ex. vi. 23; Num. vi. 23; Ruth i. 19; comp.
1 Chron. ii. 10), by some no longer discoverable
:ause, serve as a by-name to Izhar, the second son
Kohath ? — Korah his son, Assir his son, Elkanah
his son, and Ebiasaph his son. If we compare
the series in vers. 18-23 of the ancestors of
Heman, which presents so many points of contact
with the present, that it may and must be used
for the elucidation of several of its obscurities, it
appears that Ebiasaph also (the father of that
second Assir who is named ver. 8) is a son of
Korah, and a brother of that first Assir ; and in
fact Assir, Elkanah, and Ebiasaph appear in Ex.
vi. 24 as sons of Korah. Thus these three, not-
withstanding the inexact phraseology of our list,
which seems to exhibit them as father, son, and
grandson, are rather to be taken for brothers.
That Ebiasaph, the third of these Korahites, had a
son Assir, and this a son Tahath, is recorded also
in the genealogy of Heman, ver. 22. On the con-
trary, the names of the three following members,
Uriel, Uzziah, and Shaul, vary from the parallel
names Zephaniah, Azariah, and Joel, in the line
of Heman, ver. 21 ; whence it would appear
natural to assume a double name (favoured by
the known identity of the king's name, Uzziah-
Azariah) for these three members; but this is
liable to grave doubts. — Ver. 10. And the sons
of Elkanah: Amasai and Ahimolh. Among the
ancestors of Heman also, ver. 20, an Amasai is
named as son of an Elkanah. It is natural to
identify that Elkanah with the present, to take
him for a son of Joel, son of Azariah, and so
supply the severed connection between Shaul,
ver. 9, and Elkanah. The present Elkanah
might also, indeed, be the son of Korah men-
tioned ver. 8, and brother of Ebiasaph. It is
impossible, however, to decide absolutely. — Ver.
11. Elkanah his son, Elkanah of Zoph his son, or
"Elkanah Zophai." As the text is here notori-
ously corrupt, and an Elkanah, be it the first or
the second, is redundant (see Crit. Note), it
should perhaps be emended, with Bertheau,
"Elkanah his son, Zophai his son," etc. In this
case, a desirable agreement with ver. 20 is gained,
where Elkanah appears, not indeed as son, but as
grandson of Amasai (through a certain Mahath
omitted in our text), and where, further, Zuph is
named as son of this Elkanah, a name that is
obviously identical with Zophai (cornp. Kelubai,
ii. 9, with Kelub, iv. 11). — Ver. 12. Eliab his son,
Jeroham his son, Elkanah his son. As "Nahath,"
the father of Eliab, bears a name that is closely
allied in etymology to Toah, the son of Zuph (or
Zophai), in the series of the ancestors of Heman,
ver. 19, and so may pass for a by-form of this
name, 3K'9X also appears to be a collateral form
°f ^K^N, ver. 19 ; but Jeroham and Elkanah
coincide exactly with the two there named pre
decessors (or rather descendants) of Eliab. Hence
the two parallel series actually agree out and out,
from Zuph to the last Elkanah. So much the
more certainly is a. 133 PKIOE' (comp. ver. 18),
forming the transition to ver. 13, to be supposed
omitted at the end of our verse, or the assumption
at least to be made that the author (as follows at
once from ver. 13) meant by the last Elkanah no
other than the father of Samuel. — Ver. 13. And
the sons of Samuel : the first-born Vashni, and
Abiah. That here the name of Joel, who was
actually the first-born of Samuel, and is named,
ver. 18, as his proper scion, has fallen out, ap-
pears indubitable from 1 Sam. viii. 2 ; comp.
Crit. Note. On the whole, the present genealogy
of Kohath coincides with that of the ancestors of
Heman in vers. 18-23, though the text of our
list appears the more defective, inaccurate, and
partly corrupt. — Vers. 14, 15. Descendants of
Merari, of the line of Mahli, from whom six
generations of direct descendants are given.
Against Bertheau's attempt to identify the names
Mahli, Libni, Shimi, Uzzah, Shema, Haggiah,
Asaiah with those of the ancestors of Ethan in
vers. 29-32 (Mushi, Mahli, Shamer, Bani, Amzi,
Hilkiah, Amaziah), in order to represent the three
series of our section as mere parallels to the three
series of the following section, see the remarks of
Keil (p. 89). The latter justly asserts, in refer-
ence to ver. ia: "The vers. 14 and 15 furnish a
list of the family of Mahli, whereas the ancestors
of Ethan, vers. 29-32, belong to the family of
Mushi. Accordingly, our series cannot be de-
signed to introduce Ethan or Ethan's ancestors.
This hypothesis is altogether a castle in the air. "
3. The Ancestors of the Levitical Songmastera
Heman, Asaph, and Ethan: vers. 16-34. — And
these are they whom David set over the singing in
the house of the Lord; comp. xv. 17 if. and
2 Chron. xxxix. 27. — T'B>"VT"$>J?, properly: "to
the hands of song," that is, for the singing, for
the purpose of leading and executing it. — After
the resting of the ark; from the time when the
ark ()i"iK = JVQil pK), instead of its previous
wandering, had a permanent abode on Mount.
Zion, 2 Sam. vi. 2, 17. — Ver. 17. And they
ministered before the dwelling of the tent of meet-
ing with singing. ' ' Before the dwelling ; " for in
the court, before the holy tent, or before the
temple, took place the public worship, consisting
of sacrifice and singing. The genitive, "of the
tent of meeting" (institution), is explicative of
the dwelling, that is, the dwelling of God among
His people. This means, in the first place, the
tent of institution or meeting (lJ)iO"Snk), which
David erected on Zion, as the immediate pre-
decessor of the stone temple (2 Sam. vi. 17 ff. ;
1 Chron. xxi. 28 ff. ; 2 Chron. i. 3), and along
with which the old Mosaic tent of meeting con-
tinued a long time in Gibeon, with a separate
service (1 Chron. i. 29 ; 2 Chron. i. 3 ; 1 Kings
iii. 4). That this Davidic tent on Zion is in-
tended in the first place, is shown partly by the
following reference to the building of Solomon's
temple, and partly by the circumstance that the
following genealogy takes its start from the three
songmasters of David. — And they attended in
their order to their service. "In their order"
(DtOBB'DS), that is, according to the order pre-
scribed by David, — so, namely, that 'ver. 18 ff.)
I. CHRONICLES.
Heman the Kohathite, as chief leader of the
whole choir, should stand in the middle, Asaph
the Gershonite, with his choir, on his right, and
Ethan the Merarite on his left, in conducting the
Bacred singing of the temple (comp. xvi. 37 ff.,
xxiv. 1; 2 Chron. xxx. 16). — Ver. 18. And these
(the following) are they who attended, and their
som, with the choirs formed of their sons and
their families. The names of their sons, see in
xxv. 2-4. Here it is intended to trace, not so
much the descendants of these songmasters from
David's time down, as rather their ancestors up
to Levi. — Of the sons of Kohath: Heman the
singer. He stands before the rest, and is dis-
tinguished from them by the mere predicate, "the
singer" ("niti'Di-!; Sept. » ipccXTuiis), because the
chief leading of the temple singing belonged to
him. He appears here as the grandson of Samuel,
which is chronologically and genealogically admis-
sible, and is needlessly questioned by Hitzig
(Gesch. d. Jsr. p. 125 f. ), who denies that Samuel
belonged to the house of Levi. On the series of
Kohathites now following to ver. 23, consisting
of twenty-two generations, and its relation to that
in vers. 7-13, see above. — Ver. 23. The son of
Levi, the son of Israel. Only here is this ascent
beyond Levi to the patriarch of all Israel ; comp.
Luke iii. 38: *ei '/Chau, rm Qiou. — Vers. 24-28.
The ancestors of Asaph the Gershonite. — And his
brother Asaph. " Brother," obviously in a wider
sense, as relative and fellow-officer in the sacred
service. On the relation of his genealogy, in-
cluding fifteen members to the earlier series of
Gershonites, see on vers. 5, 6. — Vers. 29-32. The
ancestors of Ethan the Merarite. — And the sons
of Merari, their brethren on the left, forming the
choir standing on the left. For the name Jedu-
thun (n]-pfl\ " praiseman "), otherwise occurring
for Ethan, perhaps an honorary surname, comp.
xvi. 41, xxv. 1; 2 Chron. xxxv. 15; Neh. xi. 17.
The series of Ethan's ancestors must be greatly
abbreviated, as it contains only twelve names up
to Merari. — Ver. 32. The son of Mahli, the son
of Mushi, the son of Merari. If Mahli and
Mushi, ver. 4, be named together as sons of
Merari (as also Lev. iii. 20), this does not con-
tradict our passage, as Mahli is plainly enough
designated, not as son, but as grandson of Merari,
therefore as nephew or perhaps grand-nephew of
Mushi the younger son of Merari. On the
diversity of the whole series, vers. 29-32, from
that in vers. 14, 15, see on these verses. — Ver.
33 f. And their brethren the Levites, given for all
service, etc. "Their brethren the Levites" are
other Levites beside the singers already men-
Oned. A general notice of the ministry of the
Levites not belonging to the families of the
singers thus closes our section, as the like notice
of the liturgical functions of the singers them-
selves (vers. 16, 17) opened it. D^rO, "given
to all service," that is, given to Aaron and his
descendants, to the priestly family appointed for
service in the performance of worship ; comp.
Num. iii. 9, viii. 16-19, xviii. 6; also Samuel's
consecration or dedication to the temple service
1 Sam. i. 11, 28, and the oblati of monkery in
the middle ages, for example, Bernard, etc. — Ver.
34. And Aaron and his sons offered. There are
three functions of the priestly portion of the
Levites: — 1. Sacrifice (on the altars of burnt-
offering and incense), Num. xviii. 1-7 ; 2.
Ministration in the holy of holies, 1 Chron.
xxviii. 13; 3. Propitiation or expiation for Israel,
Lev. xvi. 32. — In all that Moses, the servant of
God, had commanded. For this honourable de-
signation of Moses, comp. Num. xii. 7 ; Deut.
xxxiv. 5; Josh. i. 1, 13; Heb. iii. 2 If.
4. The Series of High PriesU from Eleazar to
Ahimaaz: vers. 35-38. — This section is closily
connected with the two preceding verses ; for it
states who were "tlie sons of Aaron" named,
ver. 34, as the conductors of the priestly service
in the temple. This series (which agrees essen-
tially with v. 30-34 ; comp. Ezra vii. 1-5) is
brought down only to Ahimaaz, the contemporary
of Solomon (comp. 2 Sam. xv. 27), because in the
whole section, from ver. 16, » "source is used in
which the prominent families of Levi in the time
of David (and Solomon) were described, and along
witli the genealogies of Heman, Asaph, and
Ethan, that of Ahimaaz also stood, which the
author of Chronicles was induced to insert for
the sake of completeness and confirmation of the
former series" (Bertheau). This series of high
priests, breaking off with the time of Solomon,
does not form a specially suitable transition to
the following list of the Levitical cities (against
Keil), although by its introductory words (espe-
cially by the suffix in oniaE'lDi ver. 38, that
points to jiinx "OS H5N1, ver- 35) it appears
closely connected with the foregoing section.
5. The Cities of tlie Levites: vers. 39-66. — And
these are their dwellings, by their districts in their
border — the border which was then assigned to
the several Levitical families. The superscrip-
tion may have stood in the document which the
Chronist here follows ; it is wanting in the list of
the dwellings of the Levites, Josh, xxi., which
runs in the main parallel to this, but deviates in
form and in many details. For HTD (from -rjj,
circumdare), in ea-'ly times, village of nomades,
of tents (Gen. xxv. 16 ; Num. xxi. 10), here dis-
trict, circuit of dwellings, comp. Fs. lxix. 26. —
Of the sons of A aron, of the family of the Ko-
hathites; for to them was the lot. These words
form the special superscription to vers. 40-45.
After plisn, perhaps rub"N~l has fallen out ;
comp. Josh. xxi. 10. At all events, the first lot
is here in question. — Vers. 40, 41 agree almost
literally with Josh. xxi. 11, 12, only Hebron has
there its old name Kiriath Arba; and for "in
the land of Judah," stands "on the mountains
of Judah." — And its suburbs round about it.
D^kHJO is the standing phrase for the pastures
(Kamph.) or commons belonging to the cities, as
distinguished from the field iT\fc>< or arable land,
ver. 41. For the historical contents of ver. 41,
comp. also Josh. xiv. 14, xv. 13. — Ver. 42. And
to the sons of Aaron they gave the free towns
Hebron and Libnah. As Hebron only was a free
town (nviin D^ptp TJJ, place of refuge for the
manslayer), the plural appears at least inexact.
The parallel, Josh. xxi. 13, has the correct form
-pj?. The same occurs with respect to Shechem,
ver. 52. — And Jattir, and Eshtemoa, and its
suburbs. After "?wt the standing addition
CHAP. VI. 43-66.
73
JT'BnjDTlKl, which is found in Josh. xxi. 13
as always. — Ver. 43. And Hilen and Us suburbs.
Instead of |^n> Josh. xxi. 15 has the more correct
ph (comp. Josh. xv. 51).— Ver. 44. And Ashan
and Us suburbs. The name |5>>y in this place
appears more correct than py in Josh. xxi. 16.
Immediately after this Ashan the name of Juttah
must have fallen out, as appears from Josh. xxi. ;
as in ver. 45 the name of Gibeon before Gf>ba.
This twofold omission is indirectly confirmed by
the closing notice in ver. 45: "all their cities
were thirteen cities in their families ; " for at
present, the list referring to the tribes of Judah,
Simeon, and Benjamin, vers. 42-45, contains only
eleven cities. Besides, the third of the Levitical
cities in Benjamin is called, Josh. xxi. 18, not
Allemeth (niD^y), but Almon (v\obv)- It is lm-
possible to decide which is the original form. —
Vers. 46-48 give summarily only the number,
not the names, of the cities of the remaining
Levites of the families of Kohath, Gershom, and
Merari (parallel to vers. 5-7 in Josh. xxi. ) ; the
enumeration by name follows ver. 51 ff. — Of the
family of the tribe, from the half -tribe. Between
these words of ver. 46 (niSSil and jyXnBn) there
is an obvious gap ; according to Josh. xxi. 5, the
words " Ephraim, and of the tribe of Dan and"
have here fallen out. — Ver. 47. And of the tribe
of Manasseh in Bashan. More exactly, Josh,
xxi. 6, " and of the half- tribe of Manasseh in
Bashan," though we may do without the missing
»Sn. Vers. 49, 50 disturb the progress of the
enumeration, which, after the summary state-
ments of the foregoing three verses, raises the
expectation of a specification of the cities of the
other Kohathites in a way so surprising, that
their original occupation of another place, and
that before ver. 396 ("of the sons of Aaron,"
etc.), admits of no doubt ; comp. Josh, xxi., where
they stand in vers. 8, 9 as superscription of the
list of cities assigned to the priests. As they are
there annexed to the summary statement, vers.
5-7, which forms here vers. 46-48, a mechani-
cally proceeding compiler takes them over with
these at once, and the Chronist, who followed
this compiler, neglects to repair his negligence.
— Tliese cities which they called by names. The
plurals nictJJ and ^"ip* are suitable explana-
tions, instead of the corresponding singulars in
Josh. xxi. 9, as the subject, "the sons of Israel,"
is easily supplied to the verb from ver. 48, and
several names of cities are given. The masc.
DnnS> instead of [rtflX, I1;ay be only an oversight
(Berth., Keil). — Vers.' 51-55. The cities of the
remaining Kohathite-s; comp. Josh. xxi. 20-26.
And of the families of the sons of Kohalh. —
Instead of ninSB>E>D:l, is perhaps to be read
ninSK'D^l, "and with respect to the families,"
etc. — Ver. 52. For the pi. "free towns," comp.
on ver. 42. — Ver. 53. And Jokmeam. Josh.
xxi. 22 gives for this Djjppi an otherwise un-
known D^SDP ! but the Sept. confirms the former
reading by its 'is^a**. — Ver. 54. And Aijahn
»nd its suburbs, and, Gath-rimmon and its suburbs.
In Josh. xxi. 23, 24, these two Levitical cities,
with two others here omitted, Eltekeh and Gib-
bethon, belong to the tribe of Dan. According
to this, before these words a whole verse has
fallen out: "and of the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh
and its suburbs, Gibbethon and its suburbs."
That the mention of the tribe of Dan is here for
the second time avoided (comp. ver. 46), ca-i
scarcely be called accidental ; comp. on vii. 12.
— Ver. 55. Aner and its suburbs, and Bilam and
its suburbs. Josh. xxi. 25 calls the two Levitical
cities in West Manasseh rather Tanach and Gath-
rimmon ; but these names appear to be errors of
transcription originating in the foregoing verse.
In this case, our text should he the more correct,
only that Djf?3 (Josh. xvii. 11) should perhaps
be changed into Dy?!*- — To the family of the
remaining sons of Kohath. These words, formally
annexed to "they gave," etc., ver. 52a, form
a kind of subscription, in which, perhaps, the
singular "family" should be changed into the
plural; comp. J"linSK'D^> Josh. xxi. 26. — Vers.
56-61. The cities of the Gershonites ; comp. Josh,
xxi. 27-33. — Golan in Bashan. That Golan is
one of the six cities of refuge, like Hebron,
Shechem, etc., is not mentioned; this again is
one of the omissions in which our text abounds.
For the name Ashtaroth, Josh. xxi. 27 substitutes
Beeshterah (mriE>JQ), perhaps compounded of
mnE'jrn''3- This city (Deut. i. 4, Josh. xiii.
12, once the seat of king Og) was perhaps formerly
called Ashteroth-karnaim, Gen xiv. 5, now Tell
Ashteroth, some hours north-west of Edrei. — •
Ver. 57. Kedesh and its suburbs. For BHp,
Josh. xxi. 28 has more correctly [i'B'p, as in
ver. 58 the reading fVIDT, Josh. xxi. 29, is per-
haps more correct than nit3N"l, and Q'JJ pj) than
□3JJ. —Ver. 59. Mashal (?[?d) is contracted for
?HWQ, Josh. xix. 26. On the contrary, pp^|"l,
ver. 60, appears to be wrongly transcribed for
nppn, which Joshua has in our passage and xix.
25 (p'pn in Naphtali, Josh. xix. 24, cannot be
here intended). — Ver. 61. Kedesh in Galilee. Of
this city, also, it is not noted that it belonged to
the siy free towns, Josh. xxi. 32. On its site,
west of the lake Merom, where Kedes now lies,
see Eob. iii. 682, Raumer, Palcest. p. 116.— The
following Hammon corresponds to Hammoth-dor,
Josh. xxi. 32, and to Hammath, Josh. xix. 35,
which three forms appear all to point to hot
springs in the vicinity of the place. In Joseph.
Antiq. xviii. 2. 3, the name is ' h^^o.tvi. For
Kiriathaim, Josh. xxi. 32 has the contracted form
Kartan (|Fnp), that stands to the present full
form as |niT, 2 Kings vi. 13, to pnil, Gen. xxxvii.
17. — Vers. 62-66. The cities of the Merarites ;
comp. Josh. xxi. 34-37.— To the sons of Merari
that remained, namely, the Levites, as the fuller
form nnnian D»1^n, Josh. xxi. 34, shows, which
may mean, "those of the Levites still to be men-
74
I. CHRONICLES.
tioned." — Rimmono and its suburbs, Tabor and
Us suburbs. Here the names of two other cities
of Zebulun have fallen out, Jokneam and Kartah.
But even the two here named have other name?
there, where, for i;iB"l> tne probably less correct
fOOT appears (comp. the repeated mention of a
t : ■ .
city jisi in Zebulun, Josh. xix. 13), and where,
in place of our inn, stands the name ypnz, which
is certainly identical with Nahalol, Judg. i. 30,
and is perhaps found in the present Nalul, souih-
west of Nazareth. It is hard to say how our
~f\2F\ came into the text instead of the un-
doubtedly original ^nj ; possibly the author
meant, instead of the city, only the region where
it lay — Mount Tabor (Movers) ; possibly the name
of the city fell out, and of the determination of
its site, that was perhaps included in the words
lian J"6d3 ^"Q3 ^J?i only tne last wor(i remains
(Berth.); or possibly the place bore two quite
different names. — Vers. 63, 64 are wanting in
some editions of the books of Joshua, where they
are xix. 36, 37. But the most and best mss.
contain them, and there is no decisive reason for
their condemnation as spurious ; see the par-
ticulars in Fay on the passage. — And beyond
Jordan by Jericho, east of Jordan. This deter-
mination of place (which is often found in like
terms, Num. xxii. 1, xxvi. 3, xxxiv. 15 ; comp.
on 2 Chron. viii. 3) is wanting in the book of
Joshua, which in other respects agrees with our
verse, only that it omits not to mark Bezer as a
free town. — Ver. 65. And out of the tribe, of Gad,
Ramoth in Gilead. Here also is wanting the
mention of its being a city of refuge ; comp. Josh.
xxi. 36, where also the name is written, not as
here, niDSI, bit Didi as of the tw0 Plai:es
mentioned in the following verse, the latter is
there not Jaazer but Jazer ; comp. Num. xxi. 32.
The situation of these towns is wholly unknown.
Moreover, let us compare, with respect ti the
Levitical cities in general, the not unimpoitant
remark of Hengstenberg, Gesch. d. Reichs Gottei
unter dem. A. B. ii. i, p. 259: "the number of the
cities in all amounted to forty-eight. At first
sight, for a comparatively small tribe, this appears
to be too great. But this appearance vanishes,
when we consider that in these cities, not the
Levites alone, but, along with them, craftsmen and
others from the other tribes dwelt, who made
often the greater part of the population ; comp.
Lev. xxv. 33 ; 1 Chron. vi. 40, 41 (Caleb as in-
habitant of the lands of Hebron), etc." There
is weight also in his remark, p. 260, on the many
differences between our list and Josh. xxi. ; these
" are most easily explained by the fact that some
of the cities assigned to the Levites were at the
time (when the land was divided among the twelve
tribes) in possession of the Canaanites, and as the
hope of their immediate conquest failed, were first
recovered from them by others, in whose posses-
sion they remained, on account of the inconve-
nience of the change." In many cases this
assumption may be correct, and serve to explain
the double names, as Ashan and Ain, Allemeth
and Almon, Kedesh and Kishion, Anem and En-
gannim, Tabor and Nahalal, etc. (See on vers.
44, 45, 57, 58, 62.) But that, besides numerous
corruptions of the text, errors in transcription,
and omissions of names, sentences, and clauses,
took place not merely in our text, but also in that
of Joshua, must have been abundantly evident
from our exegetical and critical remarks.
e. The Families of the Remaining Tijibrs (except Dan and Zebulun), and in particular
OF THE BeNJAMITE IIolSE OK Saul. — Cll. VII. viii.
1. The Families of Issachar, Benjamin, AajdUali, West Manasseh, Ephraim, and Asher: ch. vil
a. The Tribe, of Issachar : vers. 1-5.
Ch. VII. 1. And the sons1 of Issachar : Tola and Puah, Jashub2 and Shimron, four.
2 And the sons of Tola : Uzzi, and Rephaiah, and Jeriel, and Jahmai, and
Jibsam, and Samuel, heads of their father-houses to Tola, valiant heroes in
their generations ; their number in the days of David was twenty and two
3 thousand and six hundred. And the sons of Uzzi : Izrahiah ; and the sons ot
4 Izrahiah : Michael, and Obadiah, and Joel, Ishiah, five heads in all. And with
them, by their generations, by their father-houses, troops of the host of war,
5 thirty and six thousand ; for they had many wives and sons. And their
brethren of all the families of Issachar, valiant heroes, eighty and seven
thousand was their register for all.
/3. The Tribe of Benjamin : vers. 6-11.
6, 7 Benjamin : Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three. And the sons of Bela :
Ezbon, and Uzzi, and Uzziel, and Jerimoth, and Iri, five, heads of father-
houses, valiant heroes ; and their register was twenty and two thousand and
8 thirty and four. And the sons of Becher : Zemirah, and Joash, and Eliezer,
and Ehoenai, and Omri, and Jerimoth, and Abiah, and Anathoth, and Alemeth:
9 all these were the sons of Becher. And their register by their generations,
heads of their father-houses, valiant heroes, twenty thousand and two hundred
CHAP. VII. 75
10 And the sons of Jediael : Bilhan ; and the sons of Bilhan : Jeush,3 and
Benjamin, and Ehud, and Chenaanah, and Zethan, and Tarshish,and Ahishahar.
11 All these were sons of Jediael, by the heads of the fathers, valiant heroes,
seventeen thousand and two hundred going out in the host for war.
y. Another Tribe, and the Tribe ofNaphtali: vers. 12, 13.
12, 13 And Shuppim and Huppim, sons of Ir : Hushim, sons of another. The
sons of Naphtali : Jahziel, and Guni, and Jezer, and Shallum, sons of Bilhah.
8. Half-Tribe of Manasseh (west of Jordan): vers. 14-19.
14 The sons of Manasseh: Ashriel,' whom his concubine, the Aramitess, bare;
15 she bare Machir, the father of Gilead. And Machir took a wife for Huppim
and Shuppim, and the name of his sister was Maachah, and the name of the
16 second was Zelophehad ; and Zelophehad had daughters. And Maachah,
wife of Machir, bare a son, and she called his name Peresh ; and the name of
17 his brother was Sheresh ; and his sons were Ulam and Rekem. And the sons
of Ulam : Bedan : these are the sons of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of
18 Manasseh. And his sister Hammolecheth bare Ishod, and Abiezer, and
19 Mahlah. And the sons of Shemidah : Ahian, and Shechem, and Likhi, and
Aniam.
s. The Tribe ofEphraim: Ters. 20-29.
20 And the sons of Ephraim : Shuthelah, and Bered his son, and Tahath his
21 son, and Eladah his son, and Tahath his son. And Zabad his son, and
Shuthelah his son ; and Ezer and Elad ; and the men of Gath that were born
in the land slew them, because they came down to take away their cattle.
22 And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to
23 comfort him. And he went in to his wife, and she conceived and bare a son,
24 and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house. And his
daughter was Sherah, and she built Beth-horon, the nether and the upper, and
25 Uzzen-sherah. And Rephah his son, and Resheph and Telah his son, and
26, 27 Tahan his son. Ladan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son. Non
28 his son, Joshua his son. And their possession and their habitations were
Bethel and her daughters, and eastward Naaran, and westward Gezer and
her daughters, and Shechem and her daughters unto Ajjah5 and her daughters.
29 And on the side of the sons of Manasseh, Bethshean and her daughters,
Taanach and her daughters, Megiddo and her daughters, Dor and her
daughters ; in these dwelt the sons of Joseph the son of Israel.
£. The Tribe of Asher: vers. 30-40.
30 The sons of Asher : Imnah, and Ishuah, and Ishui, and Beriah, and Serah
31 their sister. And the sons of Beriah : Heber and Malchiel ; he is the father
32 of Birzavith.8 And Heber begat Japhlet, and Shomer, and Hotham, and
33 Shua their sister. And the sons of Japhlet Pasach, and Bimhal, and
34 Ashvath : these are the sons of Japhlet. And the sons or Shemer : Ahi, and
35 Rohgah, and Hubbah,7 and Aram. And the son of Helem his brother :
36 Zophah, and Imna, and Shelesh, and Amal. The sons of Zophah : Suah, and
37 Harnepher, and Shual. and Beri, and Imrah, Bezer, and Hod, and Shamma,
38 and Shilshah, and Ithran, and Beera. And the sons of Jether : Jephunneh,
39 and Pispah, and Ara. And the sons of Ulla : Arah, and Hanniel, and Riziah.
40 All these were the sons of Asher, heads of father-houses, choice, valiant heroes,
heads of the princes : and their register for the service in war was twenty and
six thousand.
1 For ^y?\ read ^"2\ as the Sept. cod. Alex, reads **J ovrot i'm 'Icc&x^P (cod- ^att ^as *"" ™e "'"* '^*r*)-
S So the Keri: the Kethib has 2,tJ'>.
* gfcjp in the Kethib.
76
I. CHRONICLES.
' 7N'l1K''i< appears to be a gloss introduced into the text by the double writing of the following consonants,
"h* lew
s So (nslO all the best ms8 and prints. The IHJJ of some other mss. and editions is an error of the pen or the preai
introduced into the text by the influence of the Sept , VuIk., and Targ. ; comp. de Rossi, Var. lect. ad h. I.
' So the Keri: it is doubtful how the Kethib "fllTO is to be pronounced (ni["l3 ? with Gesen., who supposes it to bit
a woman's name).
7 For HalT i» to be read, with the Keri, nam.
EXEGETIOAL.
1. The Tribe of 1 ssachar : vers. 1-5. — And the
sons of Issachar. That ^api is an error of the
pen for 13^ (comp. ver. 20, v. 11, etc.), occa-
sioned by the many 1337 in the previous section
(vi. 42, 46, 47, etc.), is probable in itself, and is
confirmed by the Sept. cod. Alex, (see Crit. Note).
To regard the p as introductory, "as for the sons
of Issachar,*' is impossible, because the names of
the four sons immediately follow. On the con-
stant Keri (-OBK "obtained by hire") referring
to the name na£>E>>\ an<i °n its probable pronun-
ciation, comp. the expositors on Gen. xxx. 16,
and Dietrich's Oesenius. — Tola and Puah, Jashub
and Shimron. So run the names also in Num.
xxvi. 23 ff., while in Gen. xlvi. 15 the second
and third vary (ms for nt<lB> and 3^ for 21B''1).
— Ver. 2. Uzzi and Rephaiah, etc. These sons
of Tola occur nowhere else They are here de-
signated " heads of their father-houses to Tola"
their parent ; this addition JJpinp serves to defiue
Dni3N JTO? more exactly ; but it is somewhat
strange, which raises the suspicion of corruption.
— Valiant heroes in their generations, after their
births, that is, as they are registered. Before
Dni"Ph? a DETVnn appears to have fallen out ;
comp. ver. 9. Less probable is the connection
of DJ"l'i"pr6 with the following D1SDD, against
the accentuation, which Keil proposes, " after
their births their number was," etc Moreover,
the number 22,600 for the men of Issachar fit for
service in David's time should rest on the known
census made by Joab under this king (ch. xxi. ;
2 Sam. xxiv.), and therefore, like the following
numbers, vers. 4, 5, 7, 11, etc., should be cre-
dible and accurate. — Ver. 3. Five heads in all,
namely, Izrahiah the father with his four sons. —
Ver. 4. And with them, namely, the five heads of
families mentioned ver. 3 (pJ7 in DiT^JTI, "with,
along with "). The number 36,000 for this
family alone is at first sight surprising ; but the
following remark: "for they (those five heads)
had many wives and sons," is sufficient to explain
and justify it, pointing to an unwonted fruit-
fulness of this family, and making it conceivable
that the grandson of Izrahiah should have nearly
twice as many descendants (36,000) as the patri-
arch Tola (22,600).— Ver. 5. And their brethren
. . . eighty and seven thousand was their register,
literally, their register with respect to all (pap).
In this sum total of all the tribes of Issachar in
the time of David are included — 1. The 22,600
descendants of Tola ; 2. The 36,000 of Izrahiah ;
and 3. "Their brethren," 28,400 of the other
families of the tribe not mentioned by name.
The credibility of these numbers is shown by the
circumstance that in the two enumerations under
Moses the men of Issachar fit for service were
respectively 54,400 (Num. i. 29) and 64,300
(Num. xxvi. 25). The comparatively slow in-
crease (about 23,000) during the centuries from
Moses to David is due to the desolating troubles
in the time of the judges.
2. The Tribe of Benjamin : vers. 6-11. — Benja-
min : Bela, and Becher, and Jediael, three. A 133
or 133:1 appears to have fallen ™it before po'JS.
If only three sons of Benjamin are here enume-
rated, this seems to contradict Gen. xlvi. 21, where
ten sons of Benjamin are named ; also Num. xxvi.
38, where at least five are named ; and 1 Chron.
viii. 1 f., where at all events five are enumerated,
though some of them are different from those in
Numbers. The relation of these four different
registers may be thus exhibited : —
Gen. xlvi. Num. xxvi. 1 Chr. viii. 1 Chr. vii.
Bela. Bela. Bela. Bela.
Becher. Becher.
Ashbel. Ashbel. Ashbel.
Gera.
Naaman.
Ehi. Ahiram. Ahrah (ninx).
Kosh.
Muppim. Shephuphan.
Huppim. Hupham.
Ard.
Nochah (nnii).
Raphah (XS"|).
Jediael.
From this comparison, it appears that — 1.
Jediael occurs only here, and may be corrupted
from the Ashbel of the other three lists, or a
synonymous by-form of it. If this conjecture of
most old expositors (with whi ih the derivation of
P3E»>X from ?JQB>'tSI ["Wellhausen, Text d. B.
Sam. p. 31] would not agree) Terewell groundedj
our text would give three sons of Benjamin
agreeing with Genesis, and pass over in 6ilence
the remaining seven. 2. Becher the secend son
of Benjamin, is, to our surprise, wanting in
Num. and 1 Chron. viii., although a family of
nine sons, growing into 20,200 men, are given
underneath (vers. 8, 9). His omission iu those
lists in Num. xxvi. may arise from this, that he
did not attain to great numbers in the time of
Moses, but only in the days of David and
Solomon, whose enumerations lie at the basis of
the data here. 3. Some of the differences in
the other names prove to be mere variations of
pronunciation or structure ; thus Ehi, Ahiram,
and Ahrah are one and the same ; also Mup-
CHAP. VII. 7-13.
77
pim (D^EDi probably written by mistake for
D^SE*; see on ver. 12) and Shephupham, Huppim
and Hupham. 4. Two of the ten names in Gen.
xlvi. , as the partly more correct genealogy in Num.
xxvi. 38-40 shows, are not sons, but grandsons of
Benjamin, Naaman and Ard, who were sons of
Bela. 5. The two names in Gen xlvi. that have
no parallel, Gera and Eosh,. appear to have died
childless, or to have not been blessed with a
numerous offspring, to wl.ose existence the later
genealogists were not led to make any further
reference.— Ver. 7. And the sons of B°.la . . .
five, etc. Their names do not agree with the
names of the sons of Bela given in viii. 3 and in
Num. xxvi. 40 ; the difference will rest on this,
that a part of these heads of father-houses of the
family of Bela, or perhaps all of them, were later
descendants of their ancestors, and therefore sons
in a wider sense. — Valiant heroes. D^TI ,_li33
here and in ver. 10 for the otherwise usual and
more concrete y<T\ 'Hiaa (vers. 2, 9, etc.). — Ver. 8.
And the sons of Becker, etc. Of the names of
these nine sons of Becher, the last two, Anathoth
and Alemeth, occur otherwise as cities of Benja-
min ; Alemeth (in the varied form nD?y)> vi- 45,
and Anathoth there and Isa. x. 30, Jer. i. 1, both
as Levitical cities. — Ver. 9. Heads of their
father-houses, valiant heroes. Di")i3K IY3 'E'fcO
is in explanatory apposition with Dflilph?, an|l
yn ,_li3J with the former. The heads of houses
are, at the same time, designated as heroes of
war. See a similar construction in Ezra iii. 12.
— Ver. 10. And the sons of Bilhan : Jeush, and
Benjamin, and Ehud, etc. Of these grandsons
of Jediael, the first is called in the Kethib
" Jeish " (see Crit. Note) ; the second bears the
name of the patriarch, his ancestor ; the third is
a namesake of Ehud the judge (Judg. iii. 15),
who was of the family of Gera, and scarcely
identical with the present one (Gen. xlvi. 21).
Ohenaanah, nay 33, may incline us to think (with
Berth. ) of a Ganaanitish family incorporated with
the Benjamites. The names Tarshish, otherwise
denoting a precious stone, and Ahishahar, brother
of the morning blush, point to the glory and
fame of their bearers, and may be surnames,
which afterward became personal names. — Ver.
11. All tkesewere sons, descendants, of Jediael, by
the heads of the fathers registered. ni3KH ,B'K"1
stands briefly for TV\2ti TCI 'E'SI- The f) be-
fore i{5»NT seems to be redundant ; it is also want-
ing in the Sept., and is perhaps to be erased,
though it may be dependent on a Dt'TlTin (ver.
6) to be supplied in thought, and in this case
to be retained. The 17,200 men of Jediael's
family fit for war, with the 20,200 men of
Becher's and 22,034 of Bela's, make up 59,434
warriors or heads of houses in Benjamin when
David made his census, about 14,000 more than
in the day3 of Moses, when all the families of
Benjamin presented in the field 45,600 men
(Num. xxvi. 41). In weighing the grounds for
this not very rapid increase during a period of
three or four centuries, it is proper to take into
account the catastrophe of the first period of the
judges, whereby the whole tribe of Benjamin
was reduced to 600 men (Jud^. xx. 47). The
number of 280,000 Benjamite warriors given, 2
Chron. xiv. 7, for the time of Asa is explained
in this way, that there, not heads of houses,
but individuals fit for military service, are in-
cluded.
3. Another (unnamed) Tribe, and the Tribe of
Naphtali ; vers. 12, 13. — And Shuppim and
Huppim, sons of Ir. This first half of the verse
contains pretty certainly a supplement to the
genealogy of Benjamin ; for the names Shuppim
and Huppim coincide with those of two by the
sons of Benjamin, as they are called Gen. xlvi.
21 (the word qiqo there appears, as has been
said, corrupted from D'BE') > an(l that these two
Benjamites, whose more correct forms are pre-
served in Num. xxvi. 39, appear here as yiy 133,
is easily reconciled with other statements, for "\iy
is most probably identical with v-py the son of
Bela, ver. 7 ; hence those who are called, Gen.
xlvi. and Num. xxvi., sons of Bela, appear here
more correctly as his grandsons. Thus our verse
contains so far nothing difficult or enigmatical.
— Hushim, sons of another, or "sons of Aher"
(inx)- It is possible that these words also re-
fer to a Benjamite family, for the name DBTIi
in the varying form D^CTPl or Ctf'n, is found,
viii. 8, 11, among the Benjamites as the son of a
Shaharaim, who might lie hid under the inx
of our passage (so thinks Davidson, Introd. ii.
51, who proposes the middle form ""intJ' as com-
mon ground for "inK and D'HriC')- But it ia
more probable that DB'n denotes the only son of
Dan mentioned Gen. xlvi. 23, who is himself, in-
dicated by the mysterious "ICIS- For — 1. Both
in Gen. xlvi. and Num. xxvi. Dan immediately
follows Benjamin, and he stands in the first
passage, as here, between Benjamin and Naphtali.
2. The name QITlW, which Num. xxvi. 42 gives
T
for the only son of Dan, is different only in form
from the D£»n of our passage and the Qi{j.'n
of Genesis ; we may suppose a DB^n or DrVH"IB>
(comp. DS1SK>, Num. xxvi. 39) as common ground-
form for both. 3. Decisive for the reference ol
ver. 126 to the tribe of Dan is the nn^>3 '33 at
the close of ver. 13, a note referring obviously,
Gen. xlvi. 25, to Dan and Naphtali, the two sons
of Bilhah. The avoiding to name Dan, and con-
cealing him under the indefinite "inK (comp.
Ezra ii. 31), recall the former surprising omissions
of this tribe in vi. 46-54, and appear to rest like
these on a peculiar dislike of our author to
record particulars concerning a tribe that had
early separated itself from the theocratic com-
munity by the establishment of a foreign wor-
ship ; comp. Judg. xvii. xviii. That the name
Dan occurs three times in our hook (ii. 2, xii. 35,
xxvii. 22) certainly appears to stand against this
78
I. CHRONICLES.
hypothesis proposed by Bertheau, and approved
by other moderns, as Kamph., Bohmer (Zur
Lehre vom Antichrist, Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol.
1859, p. 449), and to favour either the view of
Ewald, who supposes an accidental omission of
the name of Dan and of some other words by a
corruption of the text, or that of Keil, who,
with the ancients, finds in the words " Hushim,
sons of Aher, " only a Benjamite family (named
viii. 8, 11). But that here again a corruption of
the text accidentally affects the name of Dan,
whom we expect to meet between Benjamin and
Naphtali, is scarcely credible ; and against the
addition of the words in question to the fore-
going series of Benjamites is the absence of the
copula "| before Dg'n- There is therefore con-
siderable probability in the assumption of Berth.,
that the omission of Dan is as little accidental
here as in the list of the twelve tribes in Rev. vii.
5-8, and that it has a theocratic, judicial import,
as it points to the fall of Dan into idolatry.
From the Rabbinical tradition concerning Judg.
xviii. 30, where the name of Moses is supposed
to be intentionally changed into Manasseh, that
it might not occur in the history of the Danite
sanctuary, nothing can be drawn in support of
this assumption, as this is only an insipid conceit
in explanation of the Keri nC'JD (against
Berth.). It is also to be borne in mind that
another tribe, that of Zebulun, is wholly passed
over in our series, the omission of which may
well be called accidental (as, for example, that of
the tribes Asher and Gad in the list of tribe-
princes, xxvii. 16-24). Comp. the evangelical-
ethical principles, No. 2. — The sons of Naphtali:
Jahziel, and Guni, and Jazer, and Shallum. The
parallel lists, Gen. xlvi. 24, Num. xxvi. 48 f. ,
give these names, only the first is there Jabzeel
(^NVIT) an|i the last Shillem (d^K>). For the
addition, " sons of Bilhah,'' see on ver. 12.
4. The half -Tribe of Manasseh (west of Jor-
dan): vers. 14-19. — The sons of Manasseh:
Ashriel, whom his concubine the Aramitess bare.
That here it is treated of the western half of
Manasseh is understood of itself after the former
communications concerning East Manasseh, v. 23 f.
Of the six families of West Manasseh named in
Num. xxvi. 30, 34, and Josh. xvii. 2, only two
are mentioned here, Ashriel and Shemida (ver.
19). But Ashriel, from the more exact accounts
in Num. xxvi. 31, is not a son, but a grandson, of
Manasseh, by his father Gilead. Now, as the fol-
lowing sentence referring to the Aramaean con-
cubine of Manasseh, " she bare Machir the father
of Gilead," seems designed to explain how Ashriel
could be called a son of Manasseh and his concu-
bine, it seems necessary to assume that he sprang
from her in the fourth degree as the son of Gilead
and grandson of Machir. But this assumption is
as doubtful as the Masoretic expedient, which
separates the words rcfoi ^'8 by an Athnach
under the latter from the following '^ StM^B,
and requires the supplement of some unmentioned
wife to the "whom she bare." The sagacious
hypothesis of Movers (assented to by Berth, and
Kamph.) here commends itself, that the name
Ashriel, as a gloss arising from wilting twice the
consonants immediately following ^ "\£'n, is to be
erased, and so the sense is to be gained: "the
sons of Manasseh, whom his Aramaean concubine
bare : she bare Machir," etc. Comp. the Sept.
on Gen. xlvi. 26 : lyivovro Ss vloi Mttv/urtrtj, eus
itix.iv aiirai h ira\Xax.*l *l Svpet. — Ver. 15. And
Machir took a wife for Huppim and Shuppim,
etc. The whole verse is so obscure, that the
assumption either of interpolation or of the omis-
sion of some words seems unavoidable. Bertheau
proceeds in the former way, rejects the wcrds
D'SE^I D*SI"6 as a gloss from ver. 12, and by
means of some other changes, especially the ic-
sertion of ver. 18a, arrives at the sense : "and
Machir took a wife, whose name was Maachah,
and the name of his sister was Hammolecheth ;
and the name of his brother (the second) was
Zelophehad." Somewhat less violent is the
emendation attempted by Movers (p. 89), which
limits itself to the change of inhX before royn
into nriKH, and yields the sense : " and Machii
took a wife from Huppim and from Shuppim (p
standing for [£, and pointing to a marriage of
Machir with two wives out of the families of
Huppim and Shuppim, ver. 12) ; the name of
the first was Maachah, and the name of the
second Zelophehad. " Keil conjectures an omis-
sion of some words, among these the name of
Ashriel, the first son of Gilead, but at the same
time the intrusion of senseless interpolations in
ver. 15a; while, on the contrary, he regards as
critically impregnable the wards of the second
half verse: "and the name of the second is
Zelophehad ; and Zelophehad had daughters
(only)." Several gaps are also supposed in the
emendations of older writers, as in that of J. H.
Michaelis, who endeavours to squeeze out the
sense : "and Machir took to wife (the sister of)
Huppim and Shuppim, and the name of his sister
(namely of Huppim) was Maachah, and the name
of the second (here named son of Manasseh) was
Zelophehad." From the unsatisfactory character
of all these attempts, it is plain that a correct
interpretation of the verse must be given up. So
much only is clear from the second gloss, whether
it be preserved intact or in some way corrupted,
that therein Zelophehad was called the brother
or near relative of Machir, and was the same who,
Num. xxvii. 1, xxxvi. Iff., Josh. xvii. 3, was called
the father of a great number of daughters. — Ver.
17. The sons of Maachah here mentioned, Peresh
and Sheresh, as also the sons C the latter, Ulam
and Rekem, occur only here. — Ver. 17. And the
sons of Ulam : Sedan. The Masoretic text names
a judge Bedan, 1 Sam. xii. 11, where, however,
perhaps pig is to be read. — These are the sons of
Gilead, the son of Machir. Bertheau, perhaps
rightly, proposes here the change (favoured by
ver. 41 and by ii. 21): " These are the sons of the
father of Gilead, of Machir the son of Manasseh."
— Ver. 18. And his sister Hammolecheth bare
Ishod. The Vulg. explains this not elsewhere
occurring name appellatively : Regina (as Kimchi,
queen of a part of Gilead). Rightly ?— The first
of her sons, Ishod, "man of fame, of glory," is
otherwise unknown ; on the contrary, the second
appears to be identical with the Abiezer named
Josh. xvii. 2, the chief of one of the families of
Manasseh. If this were so, he would have to pasa
for the ancestor of Gideon, Judg. vi. 11, 15. But
CHAP. VII. 19-27.
79
Abiezer in Joshua, or Jezer (lTJ?K) as it is in
Num. xxvi. 30, appears as first son of Manasseh
after Machir, not as the mere sister's son of this
Maehir, as here ; for which reason the identity is
doubtful. Whether the following name nirtD
denotes a brother of these two, or a sister (comp.
Mahlah, the daughter of Zelophehad, Num. xxvi.
33, xxvii. 1), is doubtful. — Ver. 19. And the sons
of Shemidah. A son of Manasseh, Josh. xvi. 2, or,
more exactly, of Gilead, Num. xxvi. 32. The
names of his four sons, except Shechem, t33K>,
who appears, Josh. xvii. 2, as an immediate son
of Manasseh, but, Num. xxvi. 32, as a son of
Gilead, occur nowhere else ; for Bertheau's at-
tempts to connect Likhi with Helek, Num. xxvi.
30, and Aniam (DJJ^N) with nj)b. one of the
daughters of Zelophehad, Num. xxvi. 33, Josh,
xvii. 3, are arbitrary.
5. The Tribe of Ephraim: vers. 20-29. — Shu-
thelah, and Bered his son, etc. Shuthelah ap-
pears also, Num. xxvi. 25, as founder of a chief
family of Ephraim. This family is here traced
through six generations to a second Shuthelah,
ver. 21, to whom are then added Ezer and Elad,
two brothers of the older Shuthelah, and therefore
sons or near descendants of Ephraim. — And the
men of Oath, that were born in the land, slew them,
namely, Ezer and Elad. The Avim (Avites),
driven by the Philistines from their seats between
Hazerim and Gaza, Deut. ii. 23, are said to be
born in the land, in contrast with the intruders.
Hence Ew. , Berth., Kamph. will have these Avim
to be here mpant, whereas Keil thinks rather of
the Philistines, whose settlement in south-west
Palestine, in the district of Gath, was attested
even in the time of Abraham, or even of the
Canaanites, but not the Avites, of whom there is
no tradition that they had spread to Gath. At
any rate, reference is here made to a very old
event, as Ephraim, the son of Jacob, still lived
and begat other children. This can scarely have
taken place before the descent into Egypt, as
Ephraim was born in Egypt, Gen. xlvi. 20
(against Ewald). We must suppose it to have
occurred during the sojourn in Egypt, and to
have been a warlike expedition from the land of
Goshen, that may have fallen in the interval from
Gen. 1. 13-23. The verb "JV is not absolutely
against this assumption, which was advocated by
older expositors (Rossi, Kimchi, L. Lavater, Grot.,
Calov., etc.), and accepted by more recent ones,
as Fiirst (Oesch. d. bibl. Lit. i. 318). When the
Ephraimite host marched from the wilderness of
Shur or Paran, we may very well regard this as a
descent upon the district of Gath (without directly
identifying Ephraim with Paran, as Hitzig does,
Oesch. Isr. p. 48). — Ver. 22. And Ephraim, their
father, mourned many days. Bertheau will,
without ground, take these words figuratively,
and apply them to the whole tribe of Ephraim ;
the going in of Ephraim to his wife, mentioned
ver. 23, can only be taken literally ; and as there
is no indication that a younger Ephraim is meant
(as Keil), it is plainly recorded of the old patriarch
Ephraim that he begat a son, Beriah, after those
two sons were slain by the Gathites. Ewald per-
laps goes too far, when he makes the sons Rephah
and Resheph, ver. 25, be born to Ephraim in this
latter period. Rather is the interwoven historical
notice of the raid of Ezer and Elad against Gath
and its results to be regarded as closed with ver.
23, and the following passage from ver. 24 to be
taken as the continuation of the genealogy of
Ephraim. — And lie called his name Beriah,
because it went evil with his house, " because there
had been calamity (rtJTG) in his house." This
etymology of the name njj^3, reminding us of
the well-known derivations of Genesis (especially
Gen. v. 9, 29, 30), speaks for the undoubted
antiquity of the present account. For the rela-
tion of this Ephraimite to his namesake of Benja-
min, see on viii. 13 f. — Ver. 24. And his daughter
was Sherah, namely, Ephraim's daughter (ver. 20),
not Beriah's, who is only mentioned by the way.
The places Nether and Upper Beth-horon built,
that is, fortified, by this Sherah, probably a
powerful heiress, correspond (Robinson, iii. 273ff. )
to the present Beit Ur et-Tachta and Beit Ur
el-Foka, on the road from Jerusalem to Joppa.
They lay at the south border of the tribe of
Ephraim, on a strip of land stretching out between
the tribes of Benjamin and Dan. IJzzen-Sherah
must be sought in their immediate neighbourhood.
The name (»N = |fK, ear) points to a like projec-
tion or skirt as its site. — Vers. 25-27. Joshua's
forefathers. — And Rephah his son, and Resheph.
These two can scarcely pass for actual sons of
Ephraim ; comp. Num. xxvi. 30 f. It is uncer-
tain to which of the families of Ephraim there
mentioned they belonged. — And Telah his son,
that is, Rephah's son, who is the chief person,
while Resheph is only mentioned by the way.
The Tahan named as the son of this Telah
appears different from the Tahan named Num.
xxvi. 25 as son of Ephraim, but might belong to
his posterity.- — Ver. 26. Ladan his son, etc. The
name pjj^; occurs, xxiii. 7 f., xxvi. 21, also as the
name of a Levitical family, but only here as an
Ephraimite. Elishama, the son of Anmihud,
meets us, Num. vii. 48, x. 22, as prince of the
tribe of Ephraim in the time of Moses. His
grandson was Joshua the son of Non, or Nun, as
it is constantly spelled in the Pentateuch and
Joshua. [This episode corresponds in antiquarian
interest with the notices concerning Caleb in ch.
ii. The simplest exposition of the passa^o is
obtained by making a pause after " Shuthelah
his son," and another after " Kephah his son."
Ezer and Elad are then the second and third sons
of Ephraim. This younger but greater son of
Joseph became heir to the portion of ground
which Jacob had taken from the Amorive in the
region of Shechem, Gen. xlviii. 22. Hence, in
the early period of Israel's sojourn in Egypt, we
find Ephraim in this quarter asserting his claim
and taking possession of this domain. The pre-
sence, or perhaps the aggression, of his family
provoked the Philistines, and in a warlike en-
counter these two sons of Ephraim were slain by
the men of Gath. After this another 6on was
born to Ephraim, of whom Sherah, the builder
or fortifier of towns, and Rephah were most
probably the daughter and son, though they are
generally regarded -us the immediate children of
Ephraim. Then we have a fifth son of Ephraim,
Resheph, through whom Ju>hua is the eighth in
descent from Ephraim. After the exploits of
Sherah, it is probable that the tribe lost its hold
on this region, and the ;.ndage in Egypt com-
80
I. CHRONICLES.
menced. We learn from this curious passage that
there were nine generations in the line of Joshua
during the sojourn in Egypt. — J. G. M.]— Vers. 28,
29 attach as a geographical notice of the dwelling-
places of the Ephraimites, ver. 28, and West
Manassites, ver. 29, to their genealogies, as the
account of the Levitical cities, vi. 39 ff. , to the
preceding genealogy of Levi, or as the like geo-
graphical notice of the dwelling-places of the
Simeonites, iv. 28 ff., to the preceding genealogy.
— Bethel and her daughters, that is, the surround-
ing hamlets belonging to Bethel. Bethel, now
Beitin, on the borders of Benjamin and Ephraim
(Josh. xvi. 2, xviii. 15), was originally assigned
to the former tribe (Josh, xviii. 22), but after-
wards belonged to the kingdom of the ten tribes,
and therefore to Ephraim. Our genealogist regards
only this later relation. — Naaran bears in Josh,
xvi. 7 the name nmj?3. lengthened by n local,
and seems to be identical with Neara, north of
Jericho (comp. Joseph. Antiq. xvii. 13. 1). — Gezer
(Josh. xvi. 3) lay between Bethhoron and the sea,
in the south-west corner of Ephraim, while the
next named, Shechem and Ajjah, lay on the north-
west. For the uncertainty of the reading n-tj},
see Crit. Note. The only here occurring nsJJ
lay not far from Shechem (Neapolis, Nations),
perhaps in the region of Miehmethah (Josh. xvi.
6, xvii. 7). — Ver. 29. And on the side of the sons
of Manasseh, on their border, and in their posses-
sion. >T> p}>, as in vi. 16. The four cities now
named, Bethshean, Taanach, Megiddo, and Dor,
lie properly (like lbleam joined with them, Josh,
xvii. 11) outside the territory of Manasseh, in that
of the tribes of Issachar and Asher bordering it on
the north. They were, however, to be assigned
to Manasseh as remote dwelling-places towards
the north, and serve here to mark the north
border of the whole territory of "the sons of
Joseph," as the Ephraimite cities named, ver. 28,
determined their south border.
6. The Tribe of Asher: vers. 30-40. — The sons
of Asher : Jmnah, and IsMiah, and Ishvi, and
Beriah. So Gen. xlvi. 17, whereas, Num. xxvi.
44 ff., Ishui is omitted. Beriah 's sons Heber
and Malchiel occur also in Gen. xlvi. and Num.
xxvi., but the last, Birzajith, only here (perhaps
a woman's name, see Crit. Note ; but perhaps
also = ri,T "IN3, "well of the olive," and so a
local name). — Vers. 32-34. Heber's descendants
for three generations. The name Shomer (-|piK>),
ver. 32, recurs, ver. 34, in the form -|ogj (inpausa
~\0'j)> without warranting a difference between
the two. For the name Ahi OnN) ln ver. 34
f which is not to be taken appellatively, "brother,"
as the following l shows), comp. v. 15, where a
Gadite is so called. — Vers. 35-38. Descendants
of Helem, as it appears, the son of Heber, and
brother of Shemer, who was called Hotham in
the third place after Japhlet and Shomer, ver. 32.
One of the two names, either DniD or DPP1, seems
to have arisen from a slip of the pen, but which
is uncertain. So it is with Ithran, the last but
one of the eleven sons of Zophah, ver. 37, who
reappears in the following verse under the name
of Jethev, and perhaps also with Ulla,- ver. 39,
which may be = Beera, the last son of Zophah,
on the supposition of a very gross error of the
pen. — Ver. 40. All these were the sons of Asher,
etc. This collective notice is like that in ver.
11 ; the plur. D^TI, as in ver. 5. — Heads of the
princes (Vulg. duces ducum), that is, captains o!
the greater divisions of the army, at the head of
which stood the D,x,t;'J, elati, magnates, opti-
mates. — And their register for the service in war,
that is, not that of the whole tribe of Asher, but
only that of the family of Heber, as the most
powerful and nourishing. The limitation to this
one family explains how the present list of
warriors (it is expressly designated as such, in
contrast with registers including the whole in-
habitants of the country; comp. ix. 22) yields
only 26,000 men of war, whereas for the whole
tribe of Asher, the numbers 41,500 and 53,400
are given in Num. i. 41, xxvi. 47.
2. Again the Families of Benjamin, especially the House of Saul: ch. viii.
1. The Families of Benjamin : vers. 1-28.
Ch. viii. 1. And Benjamin begat Bela his first-born, Ashbel the second, and Ahrah
2, 3 the third. Nohah the fourth, and Bapha the fifth. And the sons of Bela
4 were Addar, and Gera, and Abihad. And Abishua, and Naaman, and Ahoah.
5 And Gera, and Shephuphan, and Huram.
6 _ And these are the sons of Ehud (these are the heads of the fathers to the
7 inhabitants of Geba, and they removed them to Manahath. Even Naaman,
and Ahiah, and Gera, he removed them) : and he begat Uzza and Ahihud.
8 And Shaharaim begat, in the field of Moab, after he had sent them awaj%
9 Hushim and Baarah, his wives. And he begat of Hodesh his wife : Jobab, and
10 Zibiah, and Mesha, and Malcam. And Jeuz, and Shobiah, and Mirma: these
11 were his sons, heads of fathers. And of Hushim he begat Ahitub and
12 Elpaal. And the sons of Elpaal : Eber, and Misham, and Shemer; he built
Ono and Lod, and her daughters.
13 And Beriah and Shema (these were the heads of fathers for the inhabi-
14 tants of Aijalon; these put to flight the inhabitants of Gath). And Ahio,1
15, 16 Shashak, and Jeremoth. And Zebadiah, and Arad, and Eder. And Michael,
and Ishpah, and Joha, sons of Beriah.
CHAP. VIII. 1-7.
81
17,18 And Zebadiah, and Meshullam, and Hizki, and Heber. And Ishmerai,
and Izliah, and Jobab, sons of Elpaal.
19, 20 And Jakim, and Zichri, and Zabdi. And Elienai, and Zillethai, and Eliel.
21 And Adaiah, and Beraiah, and Shimrath, sons of Shimi.
22, 23 And Ishpan, and Eber, and Eliel. And Abdon, and Zichri, and Hanan.
24, 25 And Hananiah, and Elam, and Antothijah. And Iphdeiah, and Penuel, sons
of Shashak.
26, 27 And Shamsherai, and Shehariah, and Athaliah. And Jaareshiah, and
28 Elijah, and Zichri, sons of Jeroham. These were heads of fathers in their
generations, chiefs ; these dwelt in Jerusalem.
2. The House of Saul: vers. 29-40.
29 And at Gibeon dwelt Abi-gibeon ; and his wife's name was Maachah.
30 And bis first-born son was Abdon, and Zur, and Kish, and Baal, and Nadab.
31, 32 And Gedor. and Ahio, and Zccher. And Mikloth begat Shimah : and these
also, beside their brethren, dwelt in Jerusalem with their brethren.
33 And Ner begat Kish, and Kish begat Saul, and Saul begat Jonathan, and
34 Malchi-shua, and Abinadab, and Esh-baal. And the son of Jonathan was
35 Merib-baal ; and Merib-baal begat Micah. And the sons of Micah : Pithon,
36 and Melech, and Tarea, and Ahaz. And Ahaz begat Jehoaddah ; and Jehoad-
37 dah begat Alemeth, and Azmaveth, and Zimri; and Zimri begat Moza. And
38 Moza begat Binah : Bapha his son, Elasah his son, Azel his son. And Azel
had six sons ; and these are their names : Azrikam, Bocheru,2 and Ishmael, and
39 Shehariah, and Obadiah, and Hanan ; all these were the sons of Azel. And
the sons of Eshek his brother : Ulam his first-born, Jeush the second, and
40 Eliphelet the third. And the sons of Ulam were valiant heroes, archers, and
had many sons and sons' sons, a hundred and fifty ; all these were of the sons
of Benjamin.
1 Instead of a proper mme ITIK, the Sept. read VHK, as they render I i,tn.tpls a-lroZ. The conjecture of Ber-
theau, that the appellative is the original sense, and that the name Elpaal, which from ver. 18 we expect here, haa
fallen out before this lTIKi so that the text was originally ptWl VT7X 7S)B7N1, is very plausible. See Exposition
2 For VIDj (with the closing « of proper names, comp. }D£^3, Neh. vi. 6) the Sept. (<rpatroT6xo! otvrotj) and some
Hebrew mss. read i"llD3, incorrectly however, as six sons of Azel are announced.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — This full supple-
ment to the shorter genealogy of Benjamin in
vii. 6-1 1 appears in its whole plan and form to
have been taken from another document, when
we regard the frequent occurrence of Tpin, the
collection of many families in vers. 6-28, without
expressing their relation with the nearest im-
mediate descendants of Benjamin ; and lastly,
the termination of the whole genealogy, in a
register of the house of Saul, reaching down
nearly to the exile (or perhaps quite beyond it,
as Bertheau will have it). The latter phenomena
remind us of ch. iii. and iv. in relation to eh. ii.,
and show that the Chronist had before him genea-
logical accounts of the tribe of Benjamin, and the
royal house descending from it, of the same ex-
tent and exactness as of Judah and the royal
house of David.
1. Families of Benjamin : vers. 1-28. — a. Sons
of Benjamin and Beta : vers. 1-5. — For the rela-
tion of the five sons of Benjamin here mentioned
to those of the parallel list, see on vii. 6. Keil is
perhaps right in supposing that only those sons
are mentioned here who founded families of
Benjamin. That Ahrah = Ahiram, Nam. xxvi.
38, and also = Ehi, Gen. xlvi. 21, appears certain.
It is possible that the not otherwise occurring
names Nohah and Rapha correspond to the She-
phupham and Hupham of the parallel list, Num.
xxvi., or at least denote descendants of these two
sons of Benjamin. — Ver. 3 ff. And the sons of
Beta were Addar, and Oera, etc. The suspicion
that the list of the sons of Bela contains several
errors of transcription, is raised by the recurrence
of the name Gera. Tntf also appears to be a tran-
scriptive error for tix, Gen. xlvi. 21, ISIQB' for
DSffiB', an|i DTin possibly for QSirii Num. xxvi.
39. At any rate, several are found among these
six sons of Bela, that appear in Gen. xli. 21 and
Num. xxvi. 38 f. among the sons of Benjamin ;
in particular, the first of the two Geras is like the
Gera there; and Naaman there appears again
here. Only Abihud, Abishua, and Ahrah occur
exclusively here as sons of Benjamin.
b. Sons of Ehud : vers. 6, 7. — And these are
the sons of Ehud. As Ehud ("nnx, union, from
inx) is radically different from Ehud ("NilX,
mild, from Tnx, to be mild), the well-known
judge Ehud, the son of Gera, Judg. iii. 15, ha»
82
I. CHRONICLES.
nothing to do with the person here named. — These
arc the heads of the fathers to the Inhabitants oj
Geba. These words, with the following notice of
the removal to Manahath, are a parenthesis ; the
names of the sons of Ehud, Uzzah and Ahihud,
follow at the close of ver. 7. For Geba, that is,
"Geba of Benjamin," now Jeba, a Levitieal city,
comp. vi. 45 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 3, 16. The place is
the same as " Gibeah of Benjamin," 1 Sam. xii.
2, 15, xiv. 2, 16 (comp. Knobel on Isa. x. 29).
For Manahath, a place of uncertain situation, of
which the inhabitants were partly from Judah,
see on ch. ii. 52 (Hazi-hammenuhoth). The sub-
ject-to cttPI is the three men named in ver 7,
of whom, as the sing, ^n shows, the last must
have been the proper originator of the removal.
Whether this Gera was the first or the second of
the sons of Bela so named, is as uncertain as the
other details of this old historical event.
c. Descendants of Shaharaim : vers. 8-12. —
Arni Shaharaim begat in the field of Moab, etc.
This Shaharaim,and his connection with the genea-
logy of Benjamin, are quite unknown. That he
was the same as Ahishahar, vii. 10, or Shechariah,
ver. 26, or that he lies hid under -inX (= "intjO,
— all these are uncertain conjectures. Neither do
we know the ground of his coming to the field of
Moab, or of his tarrying there. — After he had
sent tltem away, (namely) Htishim and Baarah,
his wives, inji^ VO. literally, "from his send-
ing;" irTCN inf. Piel, retaining the i and re-
jecting the Dag. f. (Ew. § 238, d). The surf,
in DniN mav> though masc, refer only to the
two wives whose names are appended (comp. Ew.
§ 309, c). The construction is thus more loose
and negligent than in vers. 6, 7, since to the
prefixing of the verb is added an enallage generis.
Moreover, the first of the two names has not a
feminine form (D'E^Cl), and is only known as
such by the following VIM- — Ver. 9. And he
begat of Hodesh his wife, namely, his third, after
the dismissal of the two above named; perhaps a
Moabitess, as the names of some of her sons have
a Moabitish sound, particularly N(£"q (comp. the
king of Moab, jjb»o, 2 Kings iii.), 03^)3 (name of
the idol of Ammon and Moab, Jer. xlix. 1, 3),
etc. For p T^in, comp. on ii. 18.— Vers. 11,
12. Here follow the descendants of Shaharaim
by Hushim, and these are certainly, in contrast
with those Moabites, genuine Israelitish and cis-
jordanic, as the reference of the places Ono and
Lod, west of the tribe of Benjamin, to one of them
(probably to Elpaal, to whom the ^in appears
to apply; shows. Ono, without doubt adjacent
to Lod, occurs also in Ezra ii. 33, Neh. vii. 37,
xi 35, as a place in West Benjamin (properly by
situation in Dan), and Lod is certainly Lydda,
afterwards Diospolis, now Ludd or Lidd, north of
Ramleh, near the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem.
In vers. 17, 18 follows a further series of sons of
an Elpaal, whose identity with the present one is
uncertain.
d. Benjamite Heads of Families ofAijalon, ver.
13, and of Jerusalem (see ver. 28) : vers. 13-28. —
A nd Beriah and Sliema, etc. There is no visible
genealogical connection of these and the next
following with the foregoing names. On the
contrary, a partly genealogical connection seems
to exist between the five heads of families in
vers. 13 and 14 and the following names in vers.
15 27. For in vers. 15,. 16 are "sons ol Berian "
enumerated, in vers. 'J2 -25 "sons of '■'hashak ''
(see ver. 14) ; and if we may umne.i "' the sjns
of Shimi " iu vers. 19-21 with Shema, ver. 13
(because JJOC* and ■'VDE' look like two forms of
the same name), and discover in "the sons o
Jerohain," vers. 26, 27 (by assuming an error of
the pen), descendants of Jeremoth, ver. 14, it
will be still more natural to combine " the sons
of Elpaal," vers. 17, 18, with the fifth of the
heads of families in ver. j.3 f., and supjrase
"Ahio," ver. 14 = Elpaal, read , riK, with the
Sept., instead of VflX, an(l supply ^JJgpX befors
it (according to Bertheau's proposed emendations ;
see Crit. Note). Many doubts, however, remain
in force against this hypothesis, especially the
circumstance that both ver. 13 and ver. 15
(where the descendants of Beriah, the first of
the five heads of families, are enumerated) begin
with a mere ) instead of a more distinct formula
of introduction (such as in ver. 6, '131 npKl).
— Tliese were the heads of fathers for the in-
habitants of Aijalon . . . Oath. A historical
notice in parenthesi, like that in vers. 6, 7.
Aijalon, now Jalo, lay west of Gibeon, in the
earlier district of D.m, where also Ono and Lod as
Benjamite colonies were situated (comp. on ver.
12) ; see Josh. x. 12, xix. 42. Because Beriah
and Shema are here named as conquerors of the
inhabitants of Gath, Bertheau thinks we may
infer an identity of the present fact with that
mentioned vii. 21 ff., that the Benjamite family
Beriah, after the defeat there recorded (in which
Ezer and Elad fell), came to the help of Ephraim
against the Gathites, overcame and chastised
them, in gratitude for which they were admitted
by the Ephraimites into their community, whence
Beriah is there represented as a late-born son of
Ephraim. That this is a mere fancy is manifest
from the impossibility of understanding the
account of Ephraim and his sons in vii. 21 ff.
otherwise than literally (see on the passage).
Besides, the name Beriah is by no means so rare
that the identity of these persons and events can
be inferred from it alone (comp. for example,
Asher's son Beriah, vii. 30). And "'W might
not Gath, in the long period of emmet between
Israel and the Philistines, have been the obj«ct of
repeated attacks by Israel? — Vers. 15, 16.' Ami
Zebadiah, and Arad, and Eder, etc. Of these
six sons of Beriah nothing further is known,
though their names almost all occur elsewhere :
Zebadiah, ver. 17, among Elpaal's sons, and also
xii. 7, Ezra viii. 8, x. 20 ; Michael still oftener,
etc.— Vers. 17, 18. And Zebadiah, and Mefhul-
lam, and Hizki, etc. Of these seven sons of
Elpaal, Bertheau will identify three, Meshullam,
Heber, and Ishmerai, with the three sons of
Elpaal in ver. 12, Misham, Eber, and Shemer, to
make the identity of the Elpaal in both places
probable. But this assumption is the more un-
certain, the more doubtful it is whether that
earlier Elpaal family that dwelt in Ono and
Lydd can, by a supposed migration, be con-
CHAP. VITI. 19-40.
83
uected with the present family in Jerusalem (see
vcr. 28).— Ver. 19 ff. Ou Shimi, Shashak, and
Jeroham, and their probable identity with Sheraa,
Shashak, and Jeremoth, vers. 13, 14, see above.
Of the sons of these three heads of families
given as far as ver. 27, nothing is known else-
where, although their names mostly recur. — Ver.
28. These were heads of fathers in their genera
tions, chiefs. The repetition of D'tJ'KT serves
scarcely (as the Vulg. , principes inquam, and some
older expositors will have it) to lay stress on the
idea of heads, which would be here quite unmean-
ing. The sense rather appears to be, " that the
persons named in the genealogical lists are cited as
heads (of houses) ; and this appears to be noted,
that those cited as sons of such and such persons
may not be taken for individual members of
houses" (Keil). — These dwelt in Jerusalem, not
merely the heads, but their families, who cannot
be supposed to be separate from them.
2. The House of Saul : vers. 29-40 (comp. ch.
ix. 35-44, where this section, with the exception
of vers. 39, 40, recurs). — a. Saul's Ancestors :
vers. 29-32. — And at Gibeon dvielt Abi-gibeon ;
and his wife's name was Maachah. The plur.
H3EJ1 refers also to the sons of Abi-gibeon, to be
named in the following verse. Gibeon is now
el Jib, two and a half hours north-west of Jeru-
salem; comp. Rob. ii. 351. The here appellatively-
named Abi-gibeon, that is, father (founder) of
Gibeon (comp. the like remarks in ii. 42 If.),
bears in ix. 35 the name Jeiel or Jeuel (?{<1j;i ;
Kethib ">N!)J)i). His descent from Benjamin is
not given, and he occurs only here ; and so it is
with Maachah his wife, whose name, however, is
of frequent occuirence (comp. on ii. 48). — Ver.
30. And his first-born son was Abdon, etc. In-
stead of the eight sons of Abi-gibeon here named,
ch. ix. 36 f. enumerates ten ; and, in fact, the
names of two seem to have fallen out of our
passage, namely Ner (between Baal and Nadab)
and Mikloth (at the end of the series, ver 31), for
their descendants are given in the following
verses. It is doubtful whether the names pj;3
and 21} at the close of our verse are to be com-
bined into one, 31j;>j?a (as Wellh., Text d. B.
Sam. p. 31, will have it). In chap. ix. 37 we
find Zechariah in place of the present "Of. — Ver.
32. And Mikloth begat Shimah. In ix. 38 he is
called Shimam. — And these also, namely Shimah
and his family, beside their brethren, dwelt in
Jerusalem with their brethren. " These also "
perhaps points only to Mikloth's family as like-
wise dwelling in Jerusalem. The "brethren "
of these descendants of Shimah are the remaining
Benjamites, in the first phrase ("beside their
brethren ") perhaps those dwelling outside of
Jerusalem to the west and north, and in the
second (" with their brethren ") those settled in
Jerusalem itself.
b. The Family of Ner, and the House of Saul :
Vers. 33-45. — A nd Nir begat Kish, and Kish begat
Saul. As in 1 Sam. ix. 1, xiv. 51, the father of
Kish is called Abiel, Ner is an earlier ancestor,
perhaps the father or grandfather of the Abiel.
Possibly, indeed, there was originally in the
text, "And Ner begat Abner (comp. 1 Sam. xiv.
51), and Kish begat Saul ;" for it is scarcely con-
ceivable that the celebrated general J^bner, the
uncle of Saul, should be originally wanting in
this genealogy (comp. Berth, and Kamph.). — And
Saul begat Jonathan . . . and Eshbaal. In-
stead of these four sons of Saul, 1 Sam. xiv. 49
names only three — Jonathan, Ishui, and Malchi-
shua. But Ishui is, as appears from 1 Sam.
xxxi. 2 and 1 Chron. x. 1, only another name for
Abinadab ; and thus the three, who are the
three that fell with Saul, quite agree with the
first three of those here named. But Eshbaal
is no other than Ishbosheth, the well-known
rival of David 2 Sam. ii. 8 ff. The change of
the second element of this name (^JQ) into
riE'il, "shame, idol," expressing abhorrence and
contempt, may be compared with Jerubbaal,
Judg. vi. 32, changed into Jerubbesheth
(nE>aT), 2 Sam. xi. 21, or with the name of
the son of Ishbosheth, who is here called Merib-
baal (so, with a slight difference in orthography,
i>iD"'HD, ix. 40), but in 2 Sam. iv. 4, xxi. 7,
Mephibosheth (or perhaps flK'h'l"iD, as at least
• t
Berth, thinks ; but comp. Wellh., Der Text d.
B. Sam. p. 31). — Ver. 35. The sons of Mieah,
the son of the lame Meribbaal, are four in num-
ber, the same as in ix. 41, 42, only that the last
but one is called Tahrea (ynrffl) instead of
Tarea (jHNn). — Ver. 36. And Ahaz begat
Jehoaddah. The descendants of this Ahaz are
traced through ten generations. For rHJflP-
(mjJii) stands in ix. 42 mjr, by a mistake of
^ for "7. Of the two following names, Alemeth
occurs (with a slight variation) in ix. 45 as a
Benjamite place, and Azmaveth twice, xi. 3S
and xii. 3, as a Benjamite person. — Ver. 37.
Instead of Kapha (nS"0, the parallel ix 43 has
T T
the longer and more original form Eephaiah
(rpai)- — Vct- 38. For the name Bocheru, the
second of the sons of Azel, eomp. Crit. Note. —
Ver. 40. And the sons of Ulam were valiant
heroes, archers. For the expression, comp. v. 18.
For the thing, namely, the warlike prowess of the
tribe of Benjamin, comp. Judg. xx. ,16, Gen.
xlix. 27.— And had many sons and sons' sons, a
hundred and fifty. For D^BID, properly "mul-
tiplying" sons, comp, vii. 4, Lev. xi. 42. As
grandsons of Ulam and grand-nephews of Azel
(who was the thirteenth in descent from Saul),
the hundred and fifty here mentioned were the
fifteenth generation from Saul. If we reckon lor
every generation a maximum average of thirty
years, the resulting sum of 450 years from the
time of Saul (1095-1055) would terminate in the
middle or second half of the 7th century B.C.,
and therefore in the time before, the exile.
Against Bertheau's attempt to assign the sons and
grandsons of Ulam to the time after the exile,
Keil justly remarks on the whole : " This reckon-
ing is too high. Sixty years cannot be allowed
for Saul and Jonathan, as Jonathan fell in the
year 1055, and his son Meribbaal was then only
five years old, and therefore born in 1060. In
the following generations also not more than
84 I. CHRONICLES.
tioned vers. 8-10 with the "princes in Moab "
(3600 fins) named in Ezra ii. 6, viii. i, x. 30,
Neh. iii. 11, vii. 11, the form naa correspond-
twenty-five years on an average (?) can be allowed.
Accordingly, the grandsons of Ulam's sons, who
were the twelfth generation from Micah (son of
Meribbaal), may have come into the world about
760 B.C., have grown into the host of 150 grand-
sons of Ulam about 760-700. But even if thirty
years be reckoned for each generation, the last- ber 150 with the numbers cf some families in
ing with ins&i, tne near agreement of the num-
named generation of 150 grandsons and great
grandsons of Ulam would have lived in the
period from 660-600, and therefore before the
exi'.s, at least before the first great deportation of
the people under Jehoiachin, 599 B.C." More-
over, the traces of a representation of the relations
of the tribe of Benjamin after the exile which he
has endeavoured to show in our chapter, — for
example, the occurrence of several names of
places and persons of our section in the histoiy
of the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, the connec-
tion of the Benjamites in the land of Moab men-
Ezra and Nehemiah (comp. Ezra ii. 18-30, viii.
3 fT. ), etc., — would only render it probable that
the present genealogical account extends beyond
the exile, if we were entitled to suppose that a
number of links had fallen out in the series of
generations from Saul to Ulam and his grandsons.
The possibility of such assumption is as un-
deniable as it is precarious to take it for granted
without any sufficient ground. — All these were of
the sons of Benjamin. " All these " goes back to
ver. 1, and includes the whole of the names in
our section.
/. The Inhabitants of Jerusalem till the Times of the Kings, with a Repetition
of the Genealogy of Saul. — Ch. ix.
1. The Inhabitants of Jerusalem: vers. 1-34.
Ch. IX. 1. And all Israel was registered; and, behold, they are written in the book
of the kings of Israel ; and Judah ' was carried away to Babel for his trans-
2 gression. And the former inhabitants, that were in their possession in
3 their cities, were Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the Nethinim. And in
Jerusalem dwelt, of the sons of Judah, and of the sons of Benjamin, and of
the sons of Ephraim and Manasseh.
4 Uthai the son of Ammihud, the son of Omri, the son of Imri, the son of
5 Bani,2 of the sons of Perez the son of Judah. And of the Shilonites :s Asaiah
6 the first-born, and his sons. And of the sons of Zerah: Jeuel and their
brethren, six hundred and ninety.
7 And of the sons of Benjamin : Sallu the son of Meshullam, the son of
8 Hodaviah, the son of Hassenuah. And Ibneiah the son of Jeroham, and
Elah the son of Uzzi, the son of Michri, and Meshullam the son of Shephatiah,
9 the son of Reuel, the son of Ibnijah. And their brethren in their generations,
nine hundred and fifty and six ; all these men were chiefs of their father-
houses.
10, 11 And of the priests: Jedaiah, and Jehoiarib, and Jachin. And Azariah
the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of
12 Meraioth, the son of Alii tub, a prince of the house of God. And Adaiah the
son of Jeroham, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malchijah, the son of Maasai,
the son of Adiel, the son of Jahzerah, the son of Meshullam, the son of
13 Meshillemith, the son of Immer. And their brethren, heads of the father-
houses, a thousand and seven hundred and sixty, able men for the work4 of
the service in the house of God.
14 And of the Levites : Shemaiah the son of Hashub, the son of Azrikam,
15 the son of Hashabiah, of the sons of Merari. And Bakbakkar, Heresh, and
Galal, and Mattaniah the son of Micah, the son of Zicri, the son of Asaph.
16 And Obadiah the son of Shemaiah, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun,
and Berechiah the son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, who dwelt in the villages
17 of the Netophathites.— And the porters : Shallum, and Akkub, and Talmon,
18 and Ahiman, and their brethren ; Shallum the head. And hitherto he was in
the king's gate eastward ; these are the porters for the camps of the sons of
19 Levi.— And Shallum the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah,
and his brethren, for the house of his father, the Korhites, were over the work
of the service of the keepers of the thresholds of the tents ; and their fathers
20 in the camp of the Lord were keepers of the entry. And Phinehas the son
21 of Eleazar was formerly prince over them; the Lord with him. Zechariah5
UHAP. IX. 85
22 the son of Meshelemiah was porter at the door of the tent of meeting. All
these that were chosen to be porters at the thresholds were two hundred
and twelve ; they were registered in their villages : David and Samuel the
23 seer had ordained them in their trust. And they and their sons were over
24 the gates of the house of the Lord, at the house of the tent, by wards. To
25 the four winds were the porters, to the east, west, north, and south. And
their brethren in their villages were to come in seven days from time to time
26 with them. For they were in trust, the four head keepers of the gates, these
Levites, and were6 over the chambers and treasuries of the house of God.
27 And they lodged around the house of God ; for on them was the charge, and
28 they had to open every morning. And some of them were over the vessels
09 of service, for they brought them in and out by tale. And some of them
were appointed over the vessels, even over all the holy vessels, and over the
30 flour, and the wine, and the oil, and the frankincense, and the spices. And
of the sons of the priests some were compounders of the ointment of the spices.
31 And Mattithiah of the Levites, who was the first-born of Shallum the Korhite,
32 was in trust over the baking in pans. And of the Kohathites their brethren,
33 some were over the shew-bread, to prepare it every Sabbath. And these the
singers, heads of the fathers for the Levites, were free7 in the chambers ; for
they were over them in the service day and night.
34 These are the heads of the fathers for the Levites, heads in their genera-
tions ; these dwelt in Jerusalem.
2. Register of Saul's Family repeated: vers. 35-44.
35 And in Gibeon dwelt the father of Gibeon, Jeiel;8 and his wife's name was
36 Maachah. And his first-born son Abdon, and Zur, and Kish, and Baal, and
87, 38 Ner, and Nadab. And Gedor, and Ahio, and Zechariah, and Mikloth. And
Mikloth begat Shimam ; and they also, beside their brethren, dwelt in Jeru-
salem with their brethren.
39 And Ner begat Kish, and Kish begat Saul, and Saul begat Jonathan, and
40 Malchi-shua, and Abinadab, and Eshbaal. And the son of Jonathan was
41 Merib-baal: and Merib-baal begat Micah. And the sons of Micah : Pithon,
42 and Melech, and Tahrea. And Ahaz begat Jarah ; and Jarah begat Alemeth,
43 and Azmaveth, and Zimri ; and Zimri begat Moza. And Moza begat Bina,
44 and Rephaiah his son, Elasah his son, Azel his son. And Azel had six sons ;
and these are their names : Azrikam, Bocheru, and Ishmael, and Sheariah, and
Obadiah, and Hanan ; these were the sons of Azel.
» The Sept., the Vulg., and Luther attach iffliH to the foregoing words (rSv famim "ltpxliX **) 'Uuix), with an
arbitrary interpretation of the following 'Ufl vJH (jutx t£> iwiwrKirm u; Bx^Xm«.,—translatique sunt in Babyl.).
* For the Kethib VS-JD^a"^ is doubtless to be read the Keri ^"[D H33"15 (comp. the name ^a in vi.
81, among the Merarites).
» For y^n, since ifyW (|vtP) is a city of Ephraim, must apparently have been read, according to Gen.
ixvl 20, 'jbtS'n (the Shelanit.es, descendants of Shelah, third son of Judah). The incorrect pointing ,p,t5>il
appears to have arisen from the tcriplio plena: Wtfrj. Comp. Neh. xl. 5, where, instead of 'JTW, we should
also perhaps point ^PCfrt-
* Before J10K7D a i5 (in consequence of the ? at the end of P^fl) seems to have fallen out. Comp. lit ify*rim
of the Sept., and ch. vii. 2, xii. 2J (also F. BMtcher, Ifeue txeg. krit. Aehrenlese, iii. 223).
• Before rTH3t a 1 seems to have fallen out.
• For ^m D'lWl On) the original text seems to have been VH D>l?n JD1 ! comp. ver. 14.
» Kethib: D^OS- Keri: D'HIDS-
■ So the Keri. The Kethib is 7N1JP-
8t
I. CHRONICLES
EXEGETICAL.
PRELlMrNAET Remark. — Of the two unequal
sections into which our chapter falls, the second,
vers. 35-44, coincides almost literally with viti.
29-38, and so presents only a repetition of the
register of Saul and his house there given, pre-
liminary to the narrative of the fall of his dynasty
following in ch. x. The first section, vers. 1-34,
presents in its first half, containing a list of the
heads of families dwelling in Jerusalem, vers.
4-17, several points of contrast with a similar
list in Neh. xi. 3-19. The plan of both lists is
at all events the same ; and if, with Bertheau, of
the three chiefs of Judah, vers. 4-6, we put Uthai
beside Athaiah (Neh. xi. 4), and Asaiah beside
Maaseiah (ver. 5) (so that only the third name,
Jeuel, has nothing corresponding to it in Nehe-
miah); if we consider the recurrence of the Benja-
mite chiefs Sallu and Hodaviah in Neh. xi. 7-9
(where, certainly, the remaining names are want-
ing); if we compare the six chiefs of the priestly
divisions with those corresponding in number and
mostly in name in the list of Nehemiah, and find
here (vers. 10-13) the series : Jedaiah, Jehoiarib,
Jachin, Azariah, Adaiah, Masai, there the series :
Jedaiah, Joiarib, Jachin, Seraiah, Adaiah, Ama-
shai; if we observe among the chief of the Levitts
two, Shemaiah and Mattaniah, verbally identical,
tvnd a third, Obadiah ( = Abda in Nehemiah),
approximately so; if, lastly, we perceive at least
two of the four chiefs of the porters, Shallum and
4kkub, common to both lists, — a pretty general
agreement even in names appears to prevail be-
tween the two registers. It seems natural, also,
either with Zunz (Oottesdiensll. Vortrage der
Juden, p. 31 ; also Herzfeld, Oesch. p. 298) to
conceive our list modelled after that of Nehemiah,
or both drawn from one source, and in like manner
referring to the inhabitants of Jerusalem after the
exile, as Movers (p. 234), Berth., Kaniph., etc.,
do. But if both lists are based upon one common
document, relating to the times of Ezra and Nehe-
miah, and arising from them, we should expect a
more complete agreement with regard to all the
names. The accordance of the names in only half
of the whole number given, and the resemblance
in place (giving first the sons of Judah, then the
sons of Benjamin, then the priests, and then the
Rentes and porters), are sufficiently explained by
supposing a general continuity of the inhabitants
of Jerusalem before and after the exile, and laying
the diversities of the two lists to the account of
the altering, disturbing, and partly destroying
effects of the exile, and the similarities to that of'
the endeavour of those returning with Zerubbabel
and Ezra to restore as fnr as possible the former
state of things. The following exegetical treat-
ment of the passage will provs that, with this
piesupposition, the assumption of the origin of
our present list before the exile, in contrast with
the obvious reference of Nehemiah 's list to the
times after the exile, has nothing of moment
against it, and is even demanded by ver. 2 and
other indications.
1. Vers. 1-3. Transition from, the Genealogical
Registers of the Twelve Tribes to the Enumeration
of the Inhabitants of Jerusalem. — And all Israel
was registered ; and, behold, they are written in
the book of the, kings of Israel; ami Judah was
carried away. By the Masoretic accentuation,
which plainly separates nWI from the fore-
going words, and makes it the subject of a new
sentence (comp. Crit. Note), the first sentence
appears to treat of Israel in the narrow sense,
that is, of the northern kingdom, and its kings
in particular (so Berth., Kaniph., etc.). But the
phrase "all Israel" makes it more natural here
to think of the people of the south as well as of
the north ; and it is also in favour of this, that
the expression : " the book of the kings of Israel,''
is in 2 Chron. xx. 34 manifestly of like import
with " the book of the kings of Judah and
Israel," or "Israel and Judah," as well as that
the universal sense of the term " Israel " is found
at the beginning of the second verse. Keil
therefore justly remarks ; " The antithesis of
Israel and Judah is analogous to that of Judah
and Jerusalem ;" that is, Israel denotes the whole
covenant people, Judah a part. To understand
the name Israel of the whole people is also
demanded by the position of our verse at the
end of the genealogies of all the tribes of Israel,
and not merely of the ten northern tribes. That
ver. 1 effects the transition from the genealogies
to the following enumeration of the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and so forms properly the close of
the genealogies in ch. ii.-viii., is so obvious, that
Bertheau has not been able to bring forward a
single tenable ground for his counter assertion,
that "the verse forms obviously a new begin-
ning." For the affirmation, that " we perceive in
it a brief introduction to the historical accounts
of the tribe of Judah, or of the Israelites after
the exile," can furnish no ground for this, be-
cause it not only contradicts the assertion that
Israel is to be understood of the northern king-
dom, but cannot be reconciled with the letter of
the verse (that begins with the connective l).
The same exegete justly declares against the
further assertion of Berth., that ver. 1 cannot be
written by our historian himself, but must have
been taken literally from his source, — an assertion
which is devoid of all solid ground. — For their
transgression .- so ch. v. 25 f., 41. — Ver. 2. And
the former inhabitants, that were in their posses-
sion in their cities. Movers, Berth., and Kamph.,
who find in the following list the inhabitants of
Jerusalem after the exile, in the time of Nehe-
miah, ^will understand by these "former inhabi-
tants" those citizens of Jerusalem who dwelt
there in the time of Zerubbabel and his imme-
diate successors, before Jerusalem was newly
peopled from the surrounding districts. It is
much more natural, with almost all old exposi-
tors, and with Keil, to refer D'^iE'Nin here to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem before the exile ;
for, in that case, "the inhabitants in their pos-
session in their cities" are in no way opposed
as former inhabitants of Jerusalem to the later,
but both appear so placed side by side that this
opposition is excluded. The parallel Neh. v. 15,
quoted by Bertheau, where the governors from
Zerubbabel to Ezra are opposed as ninBfl
D'Oi&'fcOH to Nehemiah as the later nriB, proves
indeed the possibility of understanding the pre-
dicate D'WNin in the sense of "before the
exile," but not the necessity. And from the
dwelling "in their cities" (comp. Ezra ii. 70,
Neh. vii. 23, xi. If.) nothing can be concluded
in favour of this interpretation.— Were Israel, the
priests, the Levites, and the Ncthinim. "Israel"
CHAP. IX. 3-13.
87
denotes here obviously the lay element of the
citizens, that which is otherwise designated by
DJJ beside pa (Isa. xxiv. 2 ; Hos. iv. 9). For
the notion and name of the Nethinim, properly
the "bestowed," that is, the temple ministers,
comp. Num. viii. 19 ; Josh. ix. 27 ; 1 Sam. i. 11 ;
Ezra ii. 43, viii. 17, 20, and elsewhere. — Ver. 3.
And in Jerusalem dwelt of the sons of Judah, etc.
These words are not a superscription of the list
of those dwelling ir Jerusalem "n contrast with
those living in other cities (as Berth., etc.).
The list rather begins with these words, so that
thus the verse serves to introduce the contents
of the greater part of our chapte- (to ver. 31),
and corresponds to ver. 35. This close connec-
tion of our verse with the following special enu-
meration of the families of Jerusalem (ver. 4 if.),
and the mention of "the sons of Ephraim and
Manasseh" as fellow-citizens with them in Jeru-
salem (comp. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 9), are against
referring the present list to the time after the
exile. The book of Nehemiah (xi. 3) announces
its list corresponding to ours in quite another
way, so that there no doubt at all remains of its
exclusive reference to conditions and relations
after the exile. Moreover, the circumstance that
the following list contains no names of Ephraim-
ites and Manassites in Jerusalem, is simply ex-
plained by this, that of the former only a very
few families dwelt in Jerusalem, while the Jews
and Benjamites formed the bulk of its popula-
tion. On the evangelical and theocratic import
of the association of Ephraim and Manasseh with
Judah, Benjamin, and Levi in the citizenship of
Jerusalem, comp. below, evangelical and ethical
principles, No. 1.
2. Vers. 4-17. Special Enumeration of the In-
habitants of Jerusalem, and first, of the Heads of
Families of Judah and Benjamin, of the Priests
and Levites : vers. 4-6. — Three heads of families
out of the three chief branches of Judah, those of
Perez, Shelah, and Zerah (comp. ii. 3, 4).
Utliai, the son of Ammihud . . . of the sons of
Perez. The name Uthai might be etymologically
equivalent to that of the Atliaiah (rpJIV) men-
tioned Neh. xi. 4 as a head of a family of the
sons of Perez ; for Vn]?=iTmjJ, " whom Jehovah
helps,'' might, if we regard the somewhat obscure
root nnj? ^ a by-form of ny;, have the same
meaning as nTlJ?- But to tne st^ diverse form
is to be added the quite different series of ances-
tors that connect Athaiah with Perez (Uzziah,
Zeehariah, Amariah, Shephatiah, Mahalalel, in-
stead of the present Ammihud, Omri, Imri,
Bani). It seems therefore very doubtful whether
Uthai be the same with Athaiah. For the defec-
tive reading concealing the name Bani, see 1he
Orit. Note. — Ver. 5. And of the Hhilonites, Asaiah
the first-born, etc. It seems pretty certain that
'ji'tS'n should be read here instead of ijp'gJn, as
in Neh. xi. 5. We expect to find the descend-
ants of Shelah (Num. xxvi. 20; comp. 1 Chron.
ii. 3, iv. 21) mentioned between the sons of Perez
and those of Zerah. Moreover, it is doubtful
whether the Shelanite Asaiah (rWJJ, " whom
Jehovah has made") is to he at once taken as
identical with the Maaseiah (n\E>J?D, " Jehovah's
work "), as both names are of frequent occurrence
(comp. for Asaiah, iv. 36, vi. 15, xv. 6, 11, 2
Kings xxii. 12, 14, and for Maaseiah, xv. 18, 20,
2 Chron. xxiii. 1, Jer. xxi. 1, xxix. 21). The
existence of an Asaiah as head of a house in the
family of Shelah before the exile does not preclude
the appearance of a Maaseiah, son of Baruch, son
of Col-hozeh, son of Hasaiah, etc., as head of thia
family after the exile. —Ver. 6. And of the sons
of Zerah : Jeuel and their brethren, six hundred
and ninety. This number refers, as the plur.
suff. in Dims shows, not to Jeuel alone, but to
the three chiefs named in vers. 4-6, and to their
brethren, the remaining heads of houses of sub-
ordinate import. So it is also with the number
956 in ver. 9. Moreover, the name Jenel (talJP)*
or its variant (i'X'iy,)i occurs elsewhere; for ex-
ample, v. 7, 2 Chron. xxvi. 11. In Neh. xi. no
descendants of Zerah are given. — Vers. 7-9. Four
Benjamite chiefs: Sallu, Ibneiah, Elah, Meshul-
lam, of whom the first (and, as here, the son of
Meshullam) occurs also Neh. xi., but the other
three not ; see the Preliminary Remark. — Ver. 9.
And their brethren, etc.; comp. on ver. 6 — All
these men were chiefs of their father-houses. This
remark, which naturally refers, not to the brethren
numbered, but to the chiefs named, applies to all
that are named from ver. 4, both Jews and
Benjamites. It serves thus to close the list of
family chiefs, and lead to the following one of the
priests and Bevites. —Vers. 10-13. The priests of
Jerusalem. — Jedaiah, and Jehoiarib, and Jachin.
The names of these three priestly classes dwelling
in Jerusalem (comp. xxiv. 7, 17) are found also
in the parallel list in Neh. xi. 10 ft', (supposing
that there, by a change of 3'lT,i,"|3 into fp"ViiV,
the true reading is restored). — Ver. 11. And
Azariah the son of Hilkiah . . . a prince of the
house of God. Instead of this prince or president
of the temple, Azariah ben Hilkiah, certainly the
same who, v. 40, was named as grandfather of the
Jehozadak who was carried to Babel (comp. also
2 Chron. xxxi. 13), Neh. xi. 11 names rather a
Seraiah son of Hilkiah. Yet the identity of this
Seraiah with the Azariah of our passage is pro-
bable, as the other ancestors of both up to Ahitub
(Meshullam, Zadok, Meraioth, Ahitub) are quite
the same. Seraiah might indeed be a descendant
of Azariah ben Hilkiah after the exile. — Ver. 12.
And Adaiah the son of Jeroham, etc. This
priestly chief Adaiah (belonging to the class of
Malchijah; comp. 1 Chron. xxiv. 9) is given in
Neh. xi. 1 2 in the same form and with the same
lii.e, up to Malchijah, as here. The following
Maasai ('tyj/o), belonging to the class of Immer
(1 Chron. xxiv. 14), is called in Nehemiah
Amashai (iDt."C>$j), and appears there connected
by another line with Immer. Another priestly-
chief given by Nehemiah, Zabdiel, son of Hagge-
dolim, who is designated the president or over-
seer of the last-named priestly family (that of
Amashai), is wanting here. — Ver. 13. And their
brethren, heads of the father-houses, 1760. This
number cannot possibly refer to the heads ; it
rather denotes (like the number 1 1 92 in Nehemiah)
that of the brethren or the heads of houses stand-
ing under the heads of the great complex of
families. The phrase appears thus inexact ; per-
86
I. CHRONICLES.
hape, "nth Keil, a transposition of the words is to
be assumed, in such a Way that " heads of father-
houdes" is placed before and drawn to ver. 12
as closing formula, while "and their brethren"
(DnTlK'l) is immediately connected with the
number 1760. Moreover, that all the priests
dwelling in Jerusalem, or the priestly families of
the six classes named, amount in our passage to
1760, and in Nehemiah only to 1192, tends to
confirm our view of the present list as belonging
to the period before the exile ; we expect for the
priesthood of Jerusalem after the exile, about 150
years after the restoration of the city and temple,
not so great a number as here. — Able men for the
work of the service in the house of God. Before
ri3N?D, which may not be a mere accusative of
reference ("able men with respect to the work "),
the word I'gjy (comp. xxiii. 24; Neh. xi. 12), or per-
haps a mere ■> (which might easily be overlooked
after pTl). appears to have fallen out ; see Crit.
Note. — Vers. 14-16. The Levites of Jerusalem. —
Shemaiah the son of Hashub, etc. This Merarite
Shemaiah, as the descendant of Asaph (therefore
Gershonite) Mattaniah named in ver. 15, recurs
in Neh. xi. 15, and with substantially the same
line of ancestors. Bakbakkar, Heresh, and Galal
(ver. 15a) are wanting there ; for the first name
would have to be identified with Bakbukiah, Neh.
xi. 17, of which there are grave doubts, as -|p2p3
( = "inn p3p3) seems to mean "destruction of
the hill;" but iTp3p3, "desolation from Jeho-
vah." And of the names of Levites in ver. 16,
only Obadiali can be identified with Abda, Neh.
xi. 17 (as Jeduthun appears as the ancestor of
both). Berechiah is wanting in Nehemiah ; and
the latter has two names, Shabbethainnd Jozabad,
which are foreign to our text. — And Berechiah,
the son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, and so a
Kohathite, as the name Elkanah is native in this
family; comp. vi. 18-23. — Who dwelt in the
villages of the Netophathites, thus near Beth-
lehem ; comp. Neh. vii. 26. This clause refers,
not to Berechiah, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem,
but to his ancestor Elkanah. It is impossible to
determine what the Kohathite so called in vi.
18 ff. was to this Elkanah.— Ver. 17. And the
porters : Shallum, and Akkub, and Talmon, and
Ahiman, and their brethren; Shallum the head.
The four here named (of whom, in Neh. xi. 19,
only two, Akkub and Talmon, recur) are to be
regarded, as appears from the particulars follow-
ing (vers. 24, 26), not as common porters, but as
captains of the four companies of porters, who
were to keep guard on the four sides and gates of
the temple : they are designated, ver. 26, as
" head keepers of the gates," a phrase reminding
us of the ffTpu.Twyo) tdv Upov in Luke xxii. 52.
The number of all the doorkeepers, which is
stated to be 172 in Neh. xi. 19, is wanting here,
where it would, like that of the priests, have been
considerably higher, because Jerusalem before the
exile must have had a much more numerous staff
of officers in every respect than that after the
exile, to which the catalogue of Nehemiah refers.
From all this, the correspondence of the two
similar lists in the personal matters is only
partial, and by no means such as to be inconsis-
tent with the origin of the one before the exile
and of the other after it. The resemblance and
even sameness of the names in two or threa
generations dcs not of itself prove the identity
of the persons, because we learn from the genea-
logy of Aaron (v. 29 ff.) that the series Amariah,
Ahitnb, Zadok repeats itself at different times
(comp. vers. 33 f. and 37 f.). In general, the same
names recur very often in genealogies, because it
was the custom to give the children the names of
their ancestors ; comp. Luke i. 59 ; Winer, Realw.
ii. 133 ; Havernick, Einl. ii. 1, 179 ff. But if the
likeness of names in the two lists furnishes no
necessary ground for the identity of the lists,
and in no way warrants us to identify the like
sounding names by the assumption of errors of
the pen, we must, on account of the great
diversity in all points, understand our list of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem before the exile, espe-
cially as the following remarks on the functions
of the Levites demand this, because they relate
throughout to the time before the exile.
3. Vers. 18-34. The Ministerial Functions of
the Levites, and first (vers. 18-26a), of the
Levitical porters. — And hitherto (he was, namely
Shallum, who is called in ver. 17 the head of the
porters) in the king's gate eastward ; that is, till
the present time the family of Shallum had to
keep the guard at the east gate of the temple,
that chief entrance to the inner court, by which
the king alone entered (comp. 2 Kings xvi. 18;
Ezek. xlvi. 1, 2). The "hitherto "scarcely gives a
hint of the time when the present list was com-
posed. It may point as well to a time before the
exile as after it, as Shallum is here obviously
named as a hereditary name of a house or col-
lective personality, which Keil contravenes un-
necessarily. For the circumstance that a pedigree
of Shallum is given, not yet in ver. 18, but at
length in ver. 19, shows that in this latter pas-
sage the person of the patriarch of the leading
house of doorkeepers is first distinguished from
his descendants ; see also after. — These are the
porters for the camps of the sons of Levi. This
expression, having an antique ring, and remind-
ing us of the wanderings of the people under
Moses (Num. iii. 21 ff. ), proves no more than the
many other designations of this kind ("tent,"
ver. 20 ; "tent of meeting," ver. 21 ; "house ot
the tent," ver. 23a) that our list was composed be-
fore Solomon or near the time of Moses ; comp.
"camp of Jehovah" of Solomon's temple, 2
Chron. xxxi. 2. — Ver. 19. And Shallum the son
of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah.
This reference of Shallum to Korah, the grandson
of Kohath (v. 7), comes so close upon the an-
cestry of Shelemiah or Meshelemiah, the Korhite
appointed by David over the east gate, 1 Chron.
xxvi. 1, 14, that the Shallum of our passage can
scarcely be different from him. It is also highly
probable that the name of SiD^X, the father or
ancestor of Korah, should be restored there (see Crit.
Note), so that the identity of the two persons and
the merely formal diversity of their names (DI^C'i
requital ; fl'D^D, whom Jehovah requites) is
almost certain ; and the Meshelemiah, ver. 21,
must be hold to be identical with the Shallum
belonging to the time of David : for there, as in
xxvi. 2, a son Zechariah is ascribed to him. Thus
the record goes back, as in ver. 20 to Phinehs*
the contemporary of Joshua, so in ver. 21 at
CHAP. IX. 18-26.
89
least to a contemporary of David ; and the guard
at the east gate (the king's gate), as it was
hereditary in the family, is referred to a nomi-
nation by King David. The then mentioned
brethren of Shallum, of the house of his father,
the Korhites, are the heads of the other three
families of porters, Akkub, Talrnon, and Ahiman,
living in the time of David, ver. 18.— Were over
the work of tlie service of the keepers of the
thresholds of the tent. This specifies the service
performed by these Levites at the temple ; they
were threshold or gate keepers ; comp. 2 Kings
xii. 10 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 4. The genit. " of the
tent " (here expressed by p before ?nk, because
the preceding word having the article cannot be
in the construct state) applies to the tent in
Jerusalem erected by David, without, however,
expressing any contrast to the temple of Solomon
(which, in ver. 23, seems clearly to be included
in the term "tent") ; comp. on ver. 18.— And
tht.ir fathers ill the camp of the Lord were keepers
of the entry, namely, in the time of Moses, to
which there is reference here as in the following
verse. ' ' In the Pentateuch there is no mention
of the Korhites keeping guard in the time of
Moses ; but as the Kohathites to whom they be-
longed were the first servants of the sanctuary,
Num. iv. 4 ff., and especially had the charge of
the tabernacle, it is in itself probable that they
had to keep the entrance to the sanctuary (comp.
Num. iv. 17-20); and therefore we cannot doubt
that our statement follows an old tradition"
(Berth.). — Ver. 20. And Phinehas the son of
Eleazar was formerly prince over them, over the
porters of the Korhite family. Phinehas cannot
have been invested with this oversight of the
Korhite porters when he was high priest, but only
under the high-priesthood of his lather Eleazar ;
as also Eleazar, as chief over the chiefs of Levi,
Num. iii. 32, under the presidency of Aaron, had
the oversight of the keepers of the sanctuary. —
'Hie Lord with him. This clause might be meant
as a historical remark, and so completed by a
iVD, "was," in which case the copula 1 was to
be expected before niiT, as in xi. 9. It is more
natural to see in the two words a blessing, " God
be with him," and to compare the German
phrases, " God bless him, " " Of blessed memory. "
We may remember also God's covenant of peace
with Phinehas and his posterity, Num. xxv. 11 ff.
[This goes to prove that the historical is the
correct meaning, and not one that is nearly
akin to an error of doctrine.— J. G. M.]— Ver.
21. Zechariah the son of Meshelemiah, that is,
Shallum ; see on ver. 19. The designation of
this Shallum (before whose name we miss the
copula i ; see Crit. Note) as porter at the door of
the tent of meeting lias something indefinite
needing explanation. But we can find nothing
either from the present passage or from ch. xxvi.
2 to clear up this difficulty, or account for the
prominence given to this Zechariah. — Ver. 22 re-
turns to the description of the service of the
porters, which was interrupted by the historical
digression, vers. 19-21. What is now stated be-
longs to the time of the author of the list, with
the exception of the remark applying to the
time of David, ver. 226.— All these, that were
chosen to be porters at the thresholds. On Qnna,
"chosen," comp. vii. 40, xvi. 41 ; for construc-
tion with "j, xxv. 1. The number 212 as the
total of the porters agrees neither with the time
of David, in which (xxvi. 8-11) 93 porters in
all officiated at the tabernacle ; nor with that of
Zerubbabel, for which Ezra ii. 42 gives the num-
ber 139 ; nor, lastly, with that of Nehemiah, for
which, Neh. xi. 19, the number 172 is set down.
But it suits the time before the exile, to which
also the numbers of the families and priests iu
vers. 6, 9, 13 most probably point. — They were
registered in their villages. They dwelt, there-
fore, in villages (□'HiTl, as vi. 41 ff.) around
Jerusalem, and came to it on the days of their
service, as the singers in the time after the exile,
Neh. xii. 29 f. — David and Samuel the seer
(ancient designation for prophet, S023 ; comp. 1
Sam. ix. 9) had ordained them in their trust.
DrU1DN3, " in their trust," official trust or duty ;
comp. the same term without suffix, vers. 26, 31 ;
2 Kings xii. 16, xxii. 7; 2 Chron. xxxi. 12. The
naming of Samuel with David (and after him,
against the order of time ; comp. Heb. xi. 32) the
Chronist no doubt found in his source, and it is
explained by the fact that the agency of Samuel
in the religious institutions of Israel prepared
the way lor the reforms of David, and were
therefore usually mentioned along with them.
And perhaps some arrangement regarding the
Levitical porters was made by Samuel which laid
the foundation for that of David, though we
have no information concerning this beyond the
present passage. — Ver. 23. And they and their
sons, the porters of the time of David and after
it. The following phrase also, ' ' at the house of
the tent " (comp. on vers. 18, 19), is chosen, be-
cause the present statement applies to both —
the tent-sanctuary before Solomon, and the stone
temple built by him. — Ver. 24. To the four
winds (quarters of the heaven ; comp. Job i. 19;
Matt. xxiv. 31) were the porters, ^[-p, that is,
according to the arrangement of David (xxvi.
14 ff.). — By wards, nilDE'D of persons, as Neh.
xii. 9, iv. 3, 16. — Ver. 25. Were to come in seven
days, the seventh day from time to time, that is,
on the Sabbath of the week, on which every
family was in their rank to perform the service
(^ in Niap, to denote obligation, as v. 1). —
With them (rfjX D5?), al°ng witn ^e heads or
chiefs of the divisions, ver. 17, who dwelt in
Jerusalem itself, and to whom the notice in ver.
26a refers. — For they were in trust, the four head
keepers of the gates; comp. on ver. 17. — Vers.
266-32 report on the duties of the other Levites
besides the porters. — These Levites, and were,
etc. It has been remarked in the Crit. Note
that for this we are most probably to read
(according to ver. 14), "And of the Levites were."
At all events, the duties enumerated in the fol-
lowing passage (exclusive of ver. 27) belong to
the Levites in common, and not to the porters.
Accordingly, the words D>^n Dili .must be re-
garded either as a suvscription to the whole pre-
ceding paragraph from ver. 14 (so Berth.), or
amended (with Keil) in the way indicated. —
90
I. CHRONICLES.
Over the chambers and treasuries of the house of
Ood. These chambers (ni^cS) and treasuries
(nilVX) were in the side buildings of the
temple, over which the Levites presided ; comp.
Ezek. xl. 17, xlii. 1 fl'.; Neh. x. 38 ; and Keil,
Bibl. Arch. i. pp. 121, 124.— Ver. 27. And they
lodged around the liouse of Ood. This notice,
referring again to the porters, with the sub-
joined statement, that they had to open every
morning (lit. "were set over the keys ; " comp.
nFIDD, Judg. iii. 25; Isa. xxii. 22), is strange in
the present place : it had its place perhaps
originally after ver. 26a. — Ver. 28. And some
of them were over the vessels of service, the more
valuable vessels of gold and silver, with the
sacrificial bowls (xxviii. 13 f. ; Dan. i. 2, v. 2 ff.),
which required careful keeping, and as they were
to be taken out of the treasuries for the public
worship an exact "tale." — Ver. 29. Over the
vessels, even over all the holy vessels, and over
the flour, and the wine, etc. Aa the term Q'P3
is used here as in ver. 28, the difference between
the vessels here and there mentioned seems to
depend on the articles which are here named in
connection with the latter, namely, flour (r6b,
Lev. ii. 1 ff.), wine, oil, frankincense, and spices
(D'Dba, as Ex. xxx. 23). They may be, there-
fore, the more ordinary, less costly vessels used
in the daily incense, meat and drink offering
(comp. on Ex. xxv. 6). For njDi "order,
appoint," in the Piel, comp. Dan. i. 5, 10, 11;
the partic. Pi. only here. — Ver. 30. And of the
sons of the priests, etc. To them belonged, Ex.
xxx. 23 ff. , the preparation of the holy anointing
oil, by the compounding of several spices. This
notice referring to the priests does not, strictly
taken, belong to the functions of tho Levites.
The division of things has here for the moment
overruled the division of persons. [The priests,
however, were Levites.] — Ver. 31. And Matti-
thiah of the Levites, who was the first-born of
Shallum the Korhite : thus an elder brother of
that porter Zechariah, ver. 21, if this is actually
to pass for the son of the Shallum here. But
certainly, in ch. xxvi. 2, Zechariah is directly
called first-born (liaa) of Meshelemiah ; and
hence, to maintain the identity of this Meshele-
miah with Shallum, we must assume "that in
our passage Mattithiah bears the honourable
title of first-born only in an improper sense,
because he ranks high among the descendants
of Shallum on account of his office" (Berth.).
■Nothing further is known to us concerning the
person or time of Mattithiah. — Was in trust over
the baking in pans. The term DTOnn, a baking
>. pans (comp. T)2tVS, an iron pan, Lev. ii. 5,
vi. 14 ; 1 Chron. xxiii. 29; Ezek. iv. 3), is used
only here.— Ver. 32. And of the Kohathites their
brethren, the brethren of the last-mentioned
Levites, at whose head was the Korhite Matti-
thiah. For the way of laying on the shew-bread,
see Lev. xxiv. 6 ff. — Every Sabbath. For the
phrase P2K' ri3K> (the first with Pattach in the
kst syllable, for euphony), comp. Bertheau. — Ver.
33. And these the singers, heads of the fathers
for the Levites, we*e free in the chambers. Thia
is usually regarded as a first subscription to the
foregoing, from ver. 14, to which a second still
more general subscription is added in ver. 34.
Yet in the mention of the singers (the families
of which had been reported in vers. 14-16), the
enumeration of the ministerial functions of the
several classes of the Levites, which had begun
ver. 2Gb, is rather continued ; and therefore,
instead of "these are the singers," the rendering
is rather "these singers, etc.," and thus a force,
extending to a rather remote point (ver. 14), is
to be assigned to the demonstrative (Kamph.
justly). The "being free" in their chambers is
set forth very naturally, because their exclusive
occupation with their art was to be indicated.
Comp. Eashi's and Kimchi"s interpretation oi
D'HItDB, immunes ab omni alio officio.— For they
were over them in the service day and night.
This literal rendering of the Masoretic text
(ri3xi>tS2 DiT^y) seems to express the sense ;
"they were placed over them, the subordinate
singers, had to superintend them" (Berth.).
But the comparison of the somewhat different
passage, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12, is insufficient tc
justify this view. It is more natural to take
DilvJ? to mean: "it lay upon them;" but ther
rON^Da would have to be changed into roX7E>i~
(ver. 27), and so the suitable sense restored : "for
by day and night their service, their singing
function, was incumbent on them." — Ver. 34.
These are the heads of the fathers for the Levites,
etc. Comp. the similar subscription, viii. 28.
Since this precedes the first genealogy of Saul,
as here the repetition of this genealogy imme-
diately follows, Movers (p. 82 f. ) conjectured
that it had its place here originally, but was
taken by an old transcriber erroneously for the
beginning of the following genealogy of Saul,
and therefore transposed with this (as he en-
deavoured to point out a more suitable place,
as he thought, for it at the close of the genealogy
of Benjamin, viii. 1-27) to that previous place,
and thereby somewhat altered. This assumption
would only be plausible if the double position oi
the genealogy of Saul must be regarded as resting
on a mistake, and contrary to the plan of the
writer, for which there is no manner of ground.
He rather repeated this genealogy intentionally
here to torn] a proper transition from his genea-
higical section to his following (introducing the
historical section) account of the fall of Saul's
house. This simple consideration removes all
that was formerly adduced in the way of doubts,
conjectures, and highly absurd and superfluous
reflections on the supposed ground of this repe-
tition, as, according to Mar Sutra in Tr. Pesa-
chim 62b, 400 (or in another report, 1300)
camel -loads of explanations are forthcoming on
this repetition and on the present section ; comp.
Herzfeld, Gesch. p. 299.
4. Repeated Genealogy of Saul: vers. 34-44. —
On the deviations of this list from viii. 29-39,
see on that passage, where it has been already
stated that our present passage seems to presenf,
the older and more correct text with respect to
the forms of the names.
CHAP, r.-ix.
91
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS ON
CH. I. -IX.
There is in many respects the impression of
wandering in a wilderness, of walking among
the stones in a graveyard, ranged in long rows,
and more or less weathered, remaining on the
mind after the exegetical examination of the
genealogical contents of these chapters. But as
in the wilds of Hauran, Idumaea, and Arabia
Petrsea, bristling with innumerable bare rocks,
there is, notwithstanding all the drought and
waste, a mysterious charm that acts with irre-
sistible attraction mi all Christian travellers
animated by the spirit of biblical research ; or
as, to use another but kindred figure, the laby-
rinthine windings of the old Christian catacombs
of Rome, with their thousands of sarcophagi,
and the ever-varying inscriptions and manifold
symbolic figures on them, prepare for the Chris-
tian antiquarian walking through them, not
weariness, but an inexhaustible charm and ever
new satisfaction ; even so do the seemingly so
dry and unrefreshing names of these nine chapters
act upon the searchers of Scripture, not only the
Jewish, but also the Christian. For it is from
beginning to end holy ground through which we
here pass. They are the grave-stones of the
people of God, the monuments of a thousand
years of the old covenant people, between the
rows of which the Chronist leads us. They are
the cities and places of the holy land, the origins
of which are here presented to us in greater or
briefer extent. And the same mysterious attrac-
tion that yearly impels thousands of Christian
pilgrims, of all countries and confessions, to that
land, in which not merely Israel after the flesh,
but also the confessors of Christ, have to seek a
right of home, insensibly influences every reader
of this section who is led by a Christian and
scientific interest. The same home-longing that
comes upon us on beholding every chart of the
country of the twelve tribes, on examining every
plan and picture of Jerusalem, ei'en on reading
the plainest and simplest of the innumerable
books of travels with which the present luxuriant
literature of Palestine constantly floods us, seizes
with irresistible power the biblical inquirer who
turns his attention to these opening chapters of
our work ; it sweetens in many ways the hard
labours that are occasioned by the deciphering
of the often illegible text, the pondering on the
import of so many isolated names, the reconciling
of so many contradictory statements concerning
places, persons, and genealogical lists. Considered
in detail, there are four chief aspects in which the
deeper significance of the history of salvation in
Our chapters is presented, and on which the
attention of the historical inquirer, moved by
higher motives than mere profane history and
criticism can yield, will be concentrated.
1. The grouping and arrangement of the genea-
logical material, with all the complication, seem-
ing inconnectior. and a bitrariness of the con-
siderations involved, ' is highly attractive, as it
affords a deep insight into the organic arrange-
ment of the tribes of God's people, and the parts
they are destined to perform in the history of the
theocracy. The fundamental principle of division
is neither purely genealogical nor politico-theo-
cratic, but has reference to all these relations.
The enumeration of the tribes is not arranged
genealogically, according to the ages of the twelve
sons of Jacob ; otherwise it would have begun
with Reuben and ended with Benjamin. It
proceeds not according to the political relations
of the time of the divided kingdom ; otherwise
Judah and Benjamin would have stood first, and
Ephrairn would have followed at the head of the
northern kingdom. It follows not exclusively
the geographical principle ; for if it starts with
Judah, the chief tribe of the south, and passing
over the seats of the Simeonites, extending far
to the south, bends round to the three eastern
tribes, and enumerates them from south to north,
in order to pass on to the remaining tribes of
middle and northern Canaan, in the enumeration
of the latter it abandons all geographical order,
as the southern Benjamin and probably Dan are
annexed to the northern Issachar, and then
follows, not Ephraim, the more southern of the
tribes of Joseph, but the more northern Manasseh,
next to Naphtali ; and lastly, after Ephraim and
Asher, Benjamin reappears. In the midst of
this not very geographical enumeration falls the
copious genealogical details of Levi, to whom a
definite territory was wanting, on account of its
distribution over all the tribes. And yet in this
apparently ungeographical and unhistorical order
there lies a deeper sense. The author, as a strict
theocratic legitimist, subordinates all the others
to the two chief tribes, Judah and Benjamin,
forming the kingdom of Judah, and adhering to
the legitimate national sanctuary, as well as the
tribe of Levi remaining in natural mutual con-
nection with them. As he otherwise ignores, as
far as possible, the northern kingdom, that had
revolted from the legitimate worship, and sub-
ordinates the tribes belonging to it, on every
occasion, to the orthodox tribes of the south,
and regards them as mere dependencies of tin)
latter (comp. ix. 3, where, along with Jew.i,
Beujamites, and Levites, those belonging to the
tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are named as
belonging to the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; also
the quite similar passage, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 9, and
our remarks on it), here also is all that does rot
belong to the kingdom of Judah treated as acces-
sory, and not only more briefly despatched (none
of the tribes belonging to the north is given as
fully as the tribe of Simeon belonging to Judah ;
some, as Dan and Naphtali, are almost wholly,
and one, Zebulun, wholly omitted), but pushed in
as subordinate, filling up between the tribes of
Judah, Levi, and Benjamin, forming the beginning,
the middle, and the end. What is especially
conspicuous and beautiful is the central, all-pei-
vading, embracing, and connecting position of
the priestly tribe of Levi. ' ' Over the whol-i
distribution of the tribes is spread out as a con-
necting network the uniformly- distributed tribe
of Levi, as the priestly mediator between God
and His people, in its forty-eight cities, that
belonged to all the tribes, but are not to be re-
garded as exclusively inhabited by Levites (comp.
our remarks on vi. 65); whereby, according to
Josh. xxi. (and our ch. vi. ), a peculiar crossing
of the families of Levi took place, partly in the
east and partly in the north of Palestine, so that
those akin in family appear removed as far asunder
as possible (Kohathites in Judah and Simeon, but
also in Ephraim and West Manasseh ; Merarites
in Reuben and Gad, but also in Zebulun, etc.).
It is as if this tribe, provided it remained at the
92
I. CHRONICLES.
height of its destiny, and the consciousness of
God's people clung to it, should represent the
Btrong sinews and muscles running through the
body of the people, which bind the members into
a living and moving whole" (Hoffmann, Blicke in
die frilheste Geschichte des gelobten Landes, p.
99 f.).
2. Prominent in this arrangement, with regard
to the history of grace, is the passing over of two
tribes in silence. That Dan is only indicated,
not named, in vii. 12. can only be conceived as a
critical judgment on this tribe, that early and
almost wholly fell into idolatry (see on the pas-
sage, and comp. xxvii. 16 ff., where there is not
so much an overpassing of the name as a trans-
position of it to the end of the twelve tribes, by
which the same theocratico-eritical judgment is
passed upon it). On the contrary, it may be
accidental that no mention is made of the tribe
of Zebulun in giving the genealogy of the twelve
tribes, though it occurs in the enumeration of the
Levitical cities (vi. 48, 62). Yet a certain signi-
ficance for the history of salvation cannot be
denied to this accidental omission, as it was
certainly the relative smallness of the tribe, the
low number of famous and populous families, that
occasioned its disappearance from the genealogical
traditions of the later time. Yet this so small
and obscure tribf ' it was that included Nazareth,
the dwelling - place of the earthly parents of
Jesus. Zebulun, with its neighbour Naphtali,
was, according to prophetic announcement (Isa.
ix. 1; Ps lxviii. 28), to prove to be "the people
walking in darkness," the land overshadowed
with heathen gloom, that was to see the great
light of salvation go forth from its midst. In
this contemporaneous omission, then, of Dan, the
tribe typically pointing to the Antichrist, and of
Zebulun, the tribe serving as the earliest scene of
the earthly living and working of the Saviour,
there is in our registers a certain significance for
the history of salvation, that even if it rests upon
accident, points to a higher guidance and a provi-
dential arrangement.
3. The investigator of all that is significant for
the history of salvation and the defence of the
truth, will take no less interest in the many
historical and archaeological notices that are inter-
woven in the genealogical text. With their now
scanty, now copious, contributions to the special
history of the tribe, their details, often truly sur-
prising by the epic grandeur and dramatic life of
the narrative (to which belong, in particular, the
records of the conquests of the Simeonites, the
successful raids of the three trans-jordanic tribes
against the north Arabian Beduin, and the slay-
ing of the two sons of Ephraim, Ezer and Elad,
by the primeval inhabitants of Gath), their highly
ancient colouring both in style and deed, which
prompts us almost to generalize the remark once
added by the author: " these are ancient things,"
and apply it to the whole of these accounts,2 these
notices delight us as petrifactions from the grey
1 That Zebulun, In the times of Moses and even David,
sent into the field an army of 50.000 men (see xii. 33), is not
in contradiction with its insignificance in the later times be-
fore and after the exile, and is historically quite conceivable.
' Thus J. Fliist (fVp-eA der bibl. Lit. i p. 318) conjec-
tures that the raid of Elad and Ezi-r, the sons of Ephraim,
Against (i; th, narrated vii. 21. Is prubably taken from "the
old accounts (D*phnj? DH3"l) mentioned iv. 22, which
the Chronist had before him," but without adducing any
direct proof for it.
foretime imbedded in the strata of genealogical
series ; they resemble scattered gems or medals of
antique stamp shining through the rubbish of
ages, that give us accounts of otherwise unknown
events of theocratic history, and open to us per-
spective views into remote epochs of the develop-
ment of God's people, on which the darkness of
absolute oblivion would otherwise have rested.
From each of these, now shorter, now longer,
documents concerning the older and oldest his-
tory of the tribe, goes forth the testimony of an
unusually rich and many-sided individual impress
of the Israelitish spirit, reminding us almost of
the German nation in the multiplicity of its tribes,
of a fresh but rude native power as a heritage
more or less proper to each of the twelve tribes,
and to each in peculiar modification, and thereby
of a divine providence guiding and governing the
life of the several tribes and of the whole nation
with uninterrupted fatherly love as well as judi-
cial integrity.
4. Of pre-eminent importance is finally the
appearance, more or less (dear in every jribe, of
a preponderating repute and influence of one
family over the rest. In the tribe of Judah, it
is the family of Hezron the son of Perez, and
grandson of Judah, that by its growth and
power casts all the rest into the shade. In the
tribe of Levi, the Kohathites predominate; in
that of Benjamin, it is the house of Jenel, or
Abi-gibeon, the ancestor of Saul (viii. 29, ix.
35 ft'.), that, obscuring all the rest, rises to
kingly worth and power, and even in its later
offshoots, especially the sons of Azel and the
bold archers of Ulam (viii. 38-40), remains great
and renowned. Among the Simeonites, Shimei,
the descendant of Shaul, the last of the five sons
of Simeon, becomes the ancestor of the most
flourishing family (iv. 26 f. ). Among the Eeu-
benites, the family of Joel is conspicuous (v. 4f.,
8 f. ) ; among the Gadites, that of Buz (v. 14) ;
among the Manassites, that of Machir the father
of Gilead (vii. 14 ff.); among the Ephraimites,
that of Resheph the ancestor of Joshua (vii. 25) ;
among the sons of Issachar, that of Izrahiah the
son of Uzzi, the son of Tolah (vii. 3) ; among the
sons of Asher, that of Heber the son of Befiah
(vii. 32 ff. ). It is obvious enough to explain this
remarkable phenomenon naturally, and regard it
as preservation and completion of the strong
families in "the struggle for existence," or, u
you will, as natural training. The statement of
Palgrave, the English traveller, regarding the
division of all the Arab tribes into two kinds of
families, the townsmen or peasants, and the
nomads or beduin, of which the former are the
stronger and more developed, the latter the
weaker, though patriarchally the more simply
constituted, and therefore better fitted for hand-
ing down faithfully their genealogical recollec-
tions, should perhaps be regarded as pointing to
a partial explanation of the present interesting
phenomenon.1 Neither of these two purely
'Palgrave, Centra! Arabia, i. p. 35: 'Arab nationality
is and always has been based on the divisions of families
and clans- These clans were soon by the nature of the land
itself divided each and every one into two branches, corre-
lative indeed, but of unequal size and importance. The
greater section remained as townsmen or peasants in the
districts best, susceptible of culture and permanent occupa-
tion, whvre they still kept up much of their original clannish
denominations and forms, though often blended, and oven
at times obligated, by the fusion inseparable from civil
and social organization. The other and lesser portion
CHAP. X.
98
natural attempts at explanation can be called
satisfactory. The last and deepest ground of
the rise of one family or tribe to a physically,
ethically, or intellectually distinguished pre-
eminence, and to an illustrious name, obscuring
kindred tribes or families, is the secret of the
divine election, that, without respect to charaoter
or conduct, raises and glorifies the one people or
family, and leaves the other to lowness and obli-
vion, according to the words, "Jacob have I
loved, but Esau have I hated;" and, "I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have com-
passion" (Rom. ix. 13, 15; Mai. i. 2 f . ; Ex.
xxxiii. 19). As in the life of nations, 30 is this
elective grace visible in the development of single
tribes, clans, and families, and often in a way
that directly contradicts the normal mode of
growth and self -development, especially the law
devoted themselves to a pastoral life. They, too, retained
their original clannish and family demarcations, bur un-
softeued by civilization, andunblended by the links of close-
drawn society; so that in this point they have continued to
be the faithful depositaries of primeval Arab triidition, and
cnnsiitute a sort of standard rnle for the whole nation
Hence, when genealogical doubts an<T questions of deccent
arise, as they otten do among the fixed inhabitants, recr>ur,-e
is often had to the neighbouring bedulns for a decision
unattainable in the complicated records of the town lite."
Wellhausen (De gentibus etfamiliis .hid,, etc., p. 24 f.), setting
out from the mainly correct presupposition, that these obser-
vations of Palgrave on the Arabs apply mutatis mutandis to
the tribes of ancient Israel, has described the family of
Caleb (ii. 18 ft, 42 ft.) as an example of a Jewish family
dwelling in towns and tilling the ground, and therefore
of the prevalence of the strong over the weak in
"the struggle for existence," and rather proceeds
according to the Pauline saying : "God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the
things which are mighty ; and base things of the
world, and things which are despised, htith God
chosen, and things which are not, to bring to
nought things that are, that no flesh should glory
in His presence" (1 Cor. i. 27-29). Above all,
in the development of the forefathers of Christ,
before David as well as after, in the times of the
rise as in those of the decline, this election by
grace has repeatedly asserted itself, and operated
as the proper principle and inmost motive of that
blessed historical process, embracing many thou-
sands of years, which, as the divine education of
the human race, is the counterpart of all natural
training, and the ideal archetype of all human
education.
widely spread, but certainly difficult to reduce to a genea-
logy; and, on the contrary, that of his brother Jerahmeel,
ii. 25-41, as an example of a ni mHd family, remaining cer-
tainly smaller snd less renowned, hut also provided with far
more precise and correct genealogical recollections Eteitim
casu non factum est, he thinks, with reference to ii. 26-41,
quod nusguam exculiior invenilur articula'io corporis ethno-
iogici, guam ajud Jerachmee'em Jmmo ut mo* il/e schemate
geneatogico depingendi res genWitias fiuxit primarie e tali
socie'ate, qux maynte familise erat similior guam artificiosx
ac contortx structures civiialis qux recte dicipotest, ita pottea
e/iam ibi sine dubio maxime viguit. ubi autiqua pat/iareharvm
Jidelius servabatur vitx consuetudo, sic quidem vt sanguinis
vis jungens et dirimens cetei is omnibus causis, quibus homines
Solent conciliari et abatienari. aul revi-ra prxvaleret aut cerit
secundum comcientiam popularem prmvalere judicaretur, etc
§ 2. HISTORY OF THE KINGS IN JERUSALEM FROM DAVID TO THE
EXILE. — 1 Chron. x.-2 Chron. xxxvi.
1. DAVID.— 1 Chron. x.-xxix.
a. Introduction : Fall of the House of Saul. — Ch. x.
Ch. X. 1. And the Philistines fought against Israel ; and the men of Israel fled
2 before the Philistines, and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. And the Philis-
tines pursued Saul and his sons ; and the Philistines smote Jonathan and
3 Abinaclab and Malchi-shua, sons of Saul. And the battle went sore against
4 Saul, and the archers found him, and he trembled for the archers. And Saul
said to his armour-bearer, Draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith,
lest these uncircumcised come1 and insult me ; but his armour-bearer would
5 not ; for he was sore afraid : and Saul took the sword and fell upon it. And
his armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, and he also fell on the sword and
6 died. And Saul died, and his three sons, and' all his house died together.
7 And all the men of Israel that were in the valley saw that they fled, and
that Saul and his sons were dead ; and they forsook their cities and fled, and
the Philistines came and dwelt in them.
And it came to pass on the morrow that the Philistines came to strip the slain,
and they found Saul and his sons fallen in Mount Gilboa. And they stripped
him, and took his head and his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines
around, to bear tidings to their idols and to the people. And they put his
armour in the house of their god, and fastened his skull in the house of Dagon.
11, 12 And all Jabesh-gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul. And
all the valiant men arose, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his
8
9
10
94
I. CHRONICLES.
sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in
Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
13 And Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD,
for the word of the Lord which he kept not, and also for asking a necromancer
14 to inquire.2 And inquired not of the LORD ; and He slew him, and turned the
kingdom to David the son of Jesse.
iKelhib: !)K3'1- KerU S^CP.
1 After BniT) 'he Sept. gives the superfluous Rddition : *«/ i*Hs/>;'»«T» airS X*,iuki$J. i xpafbnn. Comp. Sir. xlvi. 20
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — This account of the
downfall of Saul and his house agrees, except in
subordinate details, literally with 1 Sam. xxxi.
1-13 ; only the vers. 13, 14 are an addition of
the Chronist, designed to mark the history of the
fall of Saul's family as the transition to the fol-
lowing history of David, that forms the proper
centre of the whole work of our historian. For
to this history of David points all that precedes,
the whole of the genealogies in the first nine
chapters, with their emphatic elevation of the
tribe of Judah. And if these genealogies are so
disposed that they close with the register of the
Benjamite house of Saul, this serves to prepare
for the contents of our chapter, which on its part is
preparatory to the following special history of the
reign of David, the ancestor and founder of the
legitimate, line of kings.
1. Saul's Defeat and Death in the Battle with
the Philistines on Mount Gilboa : vers. 1-12
(comp. 1 Sam. xxxi. 1-12). — And the men of
Israel fled before tlie Philistines. The fuller
statement of the books of Samuel (1 Sam. xxix.
1 ; comp. xxviii. 4) shows that this flight of the
defeated Israelites was directed from the plain of
Jezreel, as the proper field of battle, to Mount
Gilboa, their former post. — Ver. 2. And the
Philistines pursued. Saul and his son* ; properly,
"clung to Saul," a fit expression for the incessant
and vehement pursuit (Sept. : ervvairrovvi 7u 2a.oi?.;
Luth. : "hingen sich an Saul"). The abridged
form upai'l, for Ip'STI, as in 1 Sam. xiv. 22,
xxxi. 2. On Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchi-
shua, see ch. viii. 33. — Ver. 3. And the archers
found him, overtook him (as ver. 8 ; comp. 1 Sam.
xxx. 11). — And he trembled for the archers, ^ITl,
fut. apoc. Kal of Tin, torqueri, tremere ; so
1 Sam. xxxi. 3 ; comp. ^nfl), Ps. xcvii. 4. The
present terror of Saul corresponds with that in
1 Sam. xxviii. 5. It is unnecessary here to
prefer the reading of the Sept. : *«i isriysru kvi tut
t'o^ojv (ivr'oviffiv, perhaps resting on a ?nsl, from
!"£n, <rtn"t), and so render (with Kamph.), "and
he was pressed by the archers." For the irpa.u-
p.a.ri<r>n, " he was wounded, " of the Sept. in the
parallel 1 Sam. xxxi. 3, comp. Berth, and
Wellh., Text der Biicher Sam. p. 147, who
perhaps unnecessarily assumes that the Chronist
may have read pn,1, "and he was wounded"
(Niph. of ?pn), and therefore omitted IXO, which
did not suit this verb. The omission of this
adverb is sufficiently acco luted for by the abbre-
viating habit of the author, on which also the
omission of the pleonastic D'tMR after D'Hton
(1 Sam. xxxi. 3) rests, as also that of itsy at the
close of ver. 5, etc. — Ver. 4. Lest these uncircum-
cised come and insult me. Before i^— ^pjjjjrini
(comp. Jer. xxxviii. 19; 1 Sam. vi. 6) the parallel
text in Samuel exhibits a »yip*n, which perhaps
did not originally stand in the text, but seems to
be repeated by mistake from the foregoing imper.
^Ipll, so that the word is rightly omitted by
the Chronist ; comp. Berth, and "Wellh. — Ver. 6
And all his house died together. Again an abbre-
viation for, "and his armour-bearer, and all his
men on that day together," in Sam. xxxi. The
design of this abbreviation was scarcely to remove
the strong " exaggeration " (Wellh.) contained in
VtMN'PB D3, on account of which the Sept.
perhaps left these words untranslated ; for the
irV3"731 of our author contains a like exaggera-
tion, as Saul's whole house did not fall in this
battle, as the author (ix. 35 ff. ) knew very well.
The expression is general and excessive, as the
longer one in 1 Sam. xxxi. also. — Ver. 7. And all
the men of Israel that were in the valley, or on
the plain. More exactly, 1 Sam. xxxi., "the
men of Israel that were beyond the valley and
beyond the Jordan," that is, that dwelt west and
east of Mount Gilboa. That our writer had a
defective text (Thenius) is not to be assumed ;
rather the same process of abbreviation is fruud
here, as immediately after, where the reqiired
subject ^SOK" T'JK is omitted after 3DJ 13. —
Ver. 9. And they stripped him, and look his head
and his armour. Instead of this, 1 Sam. xxxi. 9
has, " and they cut off his head and stripped off
his armour." The beheading, understood of itself
(comp. Goliath, 1 Sam. xvii. 54), our author leaves
unmentioned. — And sent into the land of the
Philistines around, namely, these trophies, Saul's
head and armour (comp. Judg. xix. 29 f.). Ac-
cordingly, the Sept. in 1 Samuel has translated xa)
otToff-TiXXoviriv u.vt&, where perhaps "messengers"
(D'TY, D'ntoe) is to be supplied ; see Then.
and Wellh. — To their idols and to the people.
For QrravjrriK (where nx=with, before), the
text in Samuel has 'vj? rP3, " in the house of
their idols," a reading not confirmed by the Sept.,
which seems to owe its origin to the following
verse (DrPrVJN-JVn).— Ver. 10. And they put his
armour in the liouse of their god ; according to
CHAP. XI. 1-9.
95
1 Sam. xxxi. 10, in the temple of Astarte. For
the Ashtaroth, the same deity as the "queen of
heaven" of the Canaanites, Jer. vii. 18ff., or the
Alilat of the Arabs, Herod, iii. 8 (perhaps also
^5 the Pheniciau mother of gods, Astronoe of
Damascius [vit. Isid. 302 ; comp. Dbllinger,
Judenth. p. 143], and the Spartan Venus hastata
, vktrix of Cythera), was the chief deity of the
Philistines, that 'AippeSirv Obpxvix whose ancient
and wealthy sanctuary at Askelon is mentioned
by Herodotus i. 108. We are perhaps, therefore,
to understand this Astarte temple at Askelon, as
the next named temple of Dagon, the second chief
divinity of the Philistines, will be that mentioned,
1 Sam. v. 3 ff. , at Ashdod, which was especially
frequented in the times of Saul (comp. Vaihinger,
Art. " Philister " in Herzog's Encycl. xi. 576 f.).
That "their god" and "Dagon" could not be
opposed, as Wellh. thinks, is too much to assert.
Rather was the Astarte of the Philistines a kind
of androgynous being, that formed with Baal a
syzygy or a supreme divine principle, and cer-
tainly one fundamentally different from the fish
god Dagon (because the latter was both younger
and lens esteemed). Comp. Dbllinger, p. 397 if. ;
Muller, A starte, a contribution to the mythology
of oriental antiquity, Wien 1861 (in which also
the Cretan Europa [ = ri3"l, the strong] is iden-
tified with Astarte), Vaihinger, as above. — And
fastened his skull in the house of Dagon. These
words are wanting in 1 Sam. xxxi., where, on the
contrary ( ver. 10), is found the following notice :
" and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-
shean. " Here we must choose between the as-
sumption, that our text arose from a corruption
of this reading of Samuel (Wellh.), and such
harmonizing attempts as that of Ewald and
Thenius, who assume that originally after the
words, " his skull in the house of Dagon," stood
the following, "and they fastened his body to the
wall of Bethshean," but they fell out on account
of the similarity of irbl1?! J1K1 and irPU TltH ;
or that of Bertheau, who explains the omission of
the notice of the fastening of the body to the
wall of Bethshean as an intentional one, that is
to be judged in the same way as the other abbre-
viations of our writer. The latter assumption is
the most probable, because in ver. 12 there is no
mention of fetching the body from Bethshean. —
Ver. 11. And all Jabesh-gilead : 1 Sam. xxxi. :
"and the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead." Accord-
ing to Berth., thei3tjn before &y came into the
text on account of the plur. siyoEH ; hut here,
again the easier supposition is that the Chronist
has abbreviated the tex' of Samuel. Besides, it
was gratitude for the deliverance wrought for them
by Saul (1 Sam. xi.) that moved the citizens of
Jabesh to this pious care for his burial. — Ver. 12.
And tool: the body of Saul. T\SM is a later
phrase, usual in Aramaic, occurring only here in
the 0. T. for the j-|s13 of Samuel. Whence the
body was fetched, and what was done with it (for
example, its incremation, 1 Sam. xxxi. 12), our
author, true to his abbreviating habit, omits.
2. Closing Reflection on the Fall of the Kingdom
of Saul: vers. 13, li.—And Saul died for hli
transgression. Wherein this transgression (?JJD,
unfaithfulness, apostasy; comp. v. 25, ix. 1; Lev.
v. 5) consisted, is added — 1. In not following the
word of the Lord, that is, His command to destroy
Amalek (1 Sam. xv. 11; comp. xxviii. 18); 2. In
inquiring of the necromancer. — For the word of
the Lord which he kept not. Besides 1 Sam. xv.,
we are to understand here, also, that earlier case
of disobedience in 1 Sam. x. 8, x ii. 13, and also
1 Sam. xxii. 18 f. — And also for asking the necro-
mancer to inquire, to seek an oracle, a revelation ;
comp. 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, where {JHT is used in the
same pregnant sense. On the quite superfluous
gloss of the Sept., comp. Crit. Note. — Ver. 14.
And inquired not of the Lord, sought not informa-
tion. This is not inconsistent with the fact that,
1 Sam. xiv. 37, xxvi. 6, Saul had inquired of the
Lord, but without effect (because the Lord had
departed from him, xxviii. 15). It rests rather
on the certainly correct and historical presupposi-
tion, that Saul had neglected to seek the favour of
Jehovah with the proper zeal, and then inquire
of Him. Comp. Starke : "he sought Jehovah not
uprightly and in due order, and put not his trust
in the Lord, in the order of true repentance ; —
he did not continue his inquiry of the Lord,
when God refused him an answer on account of
his sins, to the confession and entreaty for pardon
of which he had not brought himself, but betook
himself forthwith to the soothsayer." — And He
slew him (in the battle, after Samuel's spirit had
announced to him his doom, 1 Sam. xxviii. 19),
and turned the kingdom to David. On aD'l,
comp. xii. 23; 2 Sam. xiii. 12. On the signifi-
cance of the present small section for the history
of salvation, comp. the evangelical and ethical
reflections on ch. x.-xxxix., No. 1.
b. David's Elevation to the Kingdom; Fixing of his Residence at Jerusalem; Wars
and Numbering of the People.— Ch. xi.-xxi.
a. The Anointing of David in Hebron, and his Removal thence to Jerusalem: ch. xi. 1-9.
Vn. XI. 1. And all Israel gathered to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy
2 bone and thy flesh. Also heretofore, even when Saul was king, thou wast he
that led Israel out and in ; and the Lord thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt
3 feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over my people Israel. And
all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron ; and David made a cove-
nant with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David over
Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel.
i And David went and all Israel to Jerusalem, that is, Jebus ; and there
96 I. CHRONICLES.
5 the Jebusites were the inhabitants of the land. And the inhabitants of Jebus
said to David, Thou shalt not come hither ; and David took the castle of
6 Zion : this is the city of David. And David said, Whosoever smiteth the
Jebusites first shall be chief and captain ; and Joab the son of Zeruiah went
7 up first, and became chief. And David dwelt in the castle ; therefore they
8 called it the city of David. And he built the city around, from Millo to the
& circuit ; and Joab repaired the rest of the city. And David became greater
and greater ; and Jehovah Zebaoth was with him.
/3. List of Davids Heroes: ch. xi. 10-47.
10 And these are the chiefs of the heroes of David, who held fast to him in
his kingdom, with all Israel, to make him king, by the word of the Lord con-
11 cerning Israel. And this is the number of the heroes of David: Jashobam
son of Hachmoni, the chief of the thirty;1 he lifted his spear against three
12 hundred slain at one time. And after him Eleazar son of Dodo2 the
13 Ahohite ; he was among the three heroes. He was with David at Pas-dam-
mim, and the Philistines were gathered there for battle,3 and there was a
plot of ground full of barley ; and the people fled before the Philistines.
14 And they stood in the midst of the plot, and defended it, and smote the
Philistines ; and the Loed granted them a great salvation.
15 And three of the thirty chiefs went down the rock to David, to the cave
of Adullam ; and the camp of the Philistines was in the valley of Rephaim.
1 6 And David was then in the hold, and a post of the Philistines was then at
17 Bethlehem. And David longed, and said, Who will give me drink of the
18 water of the well of Bethlehem, that is at the gatel And the three brake
through th" camp of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Beth-
lehem, at the gate, and took and brought it to David ; but David would not
19 drink it, but poured it out to the Lord. And said, My God, forbid it me
that I should do this thing ; shall I drink the blood of these men at the risk
of their lives'! for at the risk of their lives they brought it: and he would not
drink it ; these things did the three heroes.
20 And Abshai, JoaVs brother, he was chief of the three ; and he lifted up
his spear against three hundred slain, and had4 a name among the three.
21 Above the three he was honoured among the two, and was their captain; but
22 he attained not to the three. Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, son of Ish-hail
great in deeds, from Kabzeel ; he smote two [sons] of Ariel of Moab, and he
23 went down and smote a lion in a pit in a snowy day. And he smote the
Egyptian, a man of stature,6 of five cubits ; and in the hand of the Egyptian
was a spear like a weaver's beam, and he went down to him with a staff and
plucked the spear from the Egyptian's hand, and slew him with his 'own
24 spear. These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and had a name among
25 the three heroes. Before the thirty, behold, he was honoured; but he attained
not to the three ; and David set him over his guard.
26 And the heroes of war were Asahel the brother of Joab, Elhanan the son
27, 28 of Dodo of Bethlehem. Shammoth the Harorite,6 Helez the Pelonite. Ira
29 the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite, Abiezer the Antothite. Sibbechai the Husha-
30 thite, Ilai the Ahohite. Maharai the Netophathite, Heled the son of Baanah
31 the Netophathite. Ithai the son of Ribai of Gibeah, of the sons of Benjamin,
32 Benaiah the Pirathonite. Hurai of Nahale-gaash, Abiel the Arbathite.
33 34 Azmaveth the Baharumite, Eliahba the Shaalbonite. The sons of Hashem
35 the Gizonite, Jonathan the son of Shageh the Hararite. Ahkm the son of
36 Sacar the Hararite, Eliphal the son of Ur. Hepher the Mecherathite Ahijah
37, 38 the Pelomte. Hezro the Carmelite, Naarai the son of Ezbai. Joel the
39 brother of Nathan, Mibhar the son of Hagri. Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai
40 the Berothite, the armour-bearer of Joab the son of Zeruiah. Ira the Ithrite
4], 42 Gareb the Ithrite. Uriah the Hittite, Zabad the son of Ahlai. Adina the
son of Shiza the Reubenite, a chief of the Reubenites, and thirty with him.'
CHAP. XI. 1-4.
97
*3, 44 Hanan the son of Maachah, and Joshaphat the ivfithnite. Uzziah the
45 Ashterathite, Shama and Jeiel the sons of Hothan the Aroerite. Jediaei
46 the son of Shimri, and Joha his brother, the Tizite. Eliel the Mahavim,8 and
47 Jeribai and Joshaviah the sons of Elnaam, and Ithmah the Moabite. Eliel,
and Obed, and Jasiel of Hammezobaiah.9
1 For the Keri D'B'vB'n, the KetMb D^iPt^H is to be retained; comp. vers. 15, 25, xii. 4, 18, xxvlt. 6.
* For ^liT)3 the Sept. seems to have read '"ll V|3 ; comp. xxvii. 4.
* For the not unimportant gap here, see Exeg. Expl.
* For tOI is to he read 171, one of the fifteen cases in which this form occurs in the Masoretic text, as Ex. xxi. 10
Ua. Ixiii. 9, etc.
s For niD must apparently be read, with the Sept. (£>?/>« i><xr»»), ilNlD-
e Instead of '"iVlfin read, 2 Sam. xxiii. 25, '"HI"!!}, and, as there, supply H*lPin NpvX- For the furthei
conjectural corruption of the text till ver. 41, comp. Exeg. Expl.
' The Sept. and Vulg. appear to have read CBWn Ivjfl, like the Masoretic text, but the Syr. CBOB'n ?J/|
for it renders thus: " and even he (Adina) was a prince over thirty heroes."
* For D^nDn the Sept. gives a M<W, tho Vulg. Mahumites. The corruption of the name, under which, perhaps,
''D^riTSn is concealed, seems indubitable.
9 iTDVDn is at all events corrupt. Sept. a Ms<r«/3,'w, Vulg. de Sfasobia ; comp. Exeg. Expl.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — In the history of
David, tho author dwells chiefly on the bright
and prosperous side of the Davidic kingdom ; the
troubles and disorders of his glorious career,
occasioned by misfortune and his own guilt, he
passes over as much as possible (comp. Introd.
§ 4, p. 11). Hence the mention of his anointing at
Hebron, vers. 1-3, and yet the entire omission of
the rival kingdom of Ishbosheth at Mahanaim,
to which there is not even an indirect allasion in
stating the seven years' duration of David's resi-
dence at Hebron. An account of the taking of
Jerusalem, and the valour of Joab therein dis-
played, vers. 4-9, is then followed by a list of
the other famous warriors of David, vers. 10-47,
wherein again a shadow in the bright picture,
the unprincipled and barbarous conduct of Joab
(the murderer of Abner, Uriah, Absalom, etc.),
is passed over in silence. And after this list, the
appendix in ch. xii., containing the heroes de-
voted to David during the reign of Saul, and the
proceedings in his elevation to the throne at
Hebron, makes no reference to the rival kingdom
of Ishbosheth, though many occasions of doing so
were presented ; so that it appears almost as if the
statement in x. 6, that Saul and all his house
together had fallen in the battle of Gilboa, were
meant by the author to be literally true. But
besides the conscious tendency to glorify as much
as possible the kingdom of David, as the proto-
type of all theocratic excellence, his propensity
to communicate long lists and mere enumerations,
his statistical rather than historical mode of re-
presentation, also contributes more or less to the
one-sidedness of his narrative. This method leads
him to place the list of heroes, which in the books
of Samuel (at least in its greater part ; see 2 Sam.
xxiii. 8-39) stands at the end of David's histoiy,
at the very head of it. Besides, not only this
list, of which the closing verses only (41-47)
are peculiar to Chronicles, but also the account of
the anointing at Hebron, has its parallel in the
books of Samuel, 2 Sam. v. 1-10. The agree-
ment between the two is tolerably exact ; comp.
vers. 1-3 with 2 Sam. v. 1-3, and vers. 4-9 with
2 Sam. v. 6-10. Yet the note of the length of
David's reign, 2 Sam. v. 4, 5, is wanting in our
text, not from an oversight of the Chronist
(Then.), but because he preferred to introduce it
at the end of his report, xxix. 27.
1. The Anointing of David at Hebron : vers.
1-3. — And all Israel gathered to David unto
Hebron. The phrase "all Israel" (comp. Ezra
ii. 70) includes the northern and trans-jordanic
tribes ; it is therefore not the earlier anointing
of David in Hebron by the tribes of Judah only,
2 Sam. ii. 4, which is here reported, but that
which was performed after the deaths of Abner
and Ishbosheth by all the tribes together, 2 Sam.
v. 1 ff. , to which there is a still fuller referenca
in xii. 23 ff. — Behold, we are thy bone and thy
flesh, thy relatives by tribe and blood ; comp.
Gen. xxix. 14. — Ver. 2. Also heretofore, literally,
"yesterday and ere yesterday," that is, a long
time since ; comp., besides 2 Sam. v. 2, also Gen.
xxxi. 2 ; 2 Kings xiii. 5. — That led Israel out and
in, out to the battle, and home after the victory ;
comp. 1 Sam. xviii. 13, 16. — And the Lord thy
God said unto thee, by the mouth of Samuel the
prophet; comp. 1 Sam. xvi. 1-3 ; 2 Sam. iii. 9, 18,
etc. — Ver. 3. And all the elders of Israel came, as
the representatives of the people, to establish the
rights of the kingdom (1 Sam. viii. 11, x. 25) by
contract (by making a covenant or elective
treaty). — According to the word of the Lord by
Samuel. These words, wanting in the corre-
sponding place in 2 Sam. v. 3, appear to he an
explanatory addition of our author ; for it is not
probable that they originally stood in the text of
Samuel, and fell out by ifismrix. (PKIK"1 — PNIDC);
comp. ver. 10 with 2 Sam. xxiii. 8 (against
Then.). On the absence of the date here ap-
pended in the parallel text 2 Sam. v. 4 f. as in-
tentional on the part of the writer, who reserves
it for xxix. 27, comp. Preliminary Remark.
2. The Taking of Zion, and the Change of Re-
sidence to Jerusalem: vers. 4-9. — To Jerusalem,
that is, Jebus ; and there the Jebusites were the
inhabitants of the land. For this circumlocution
9H
I. CHRONICLES.
2 Sam. v. 6 gives more briefly : " to Jerusalem, to
the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land."
That the. latter reading has been obtained by cor-
ruption of the text from the former (Berth.,
Then.) it is by no means needful to assume ; the
DW N'D after D^SWT seems rather to be an
addition of the Chronist, serving a.3 a transition
from "Jerusalem" to the Jebusites, which then
further necessitates the insertion of the notice :
" and there the Jebusites were " (properly, the
Jebusite was) ; comp. Wellh. p. 162 f. — Ver. 5.
And the inhabitants of J 'ebus said to David, Thou
skalt not come hither. Only the close of this
threat, given in full in 2 Samuel, is here recorded,
after the abbreviating manner of the author. —
Ver. 6. Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first.
Only these first words of David's speech occur
in 2 Sam. v. 8, where something quite different
is given as spoken by him. "The highly peculiar
account in 2 Sam. v. 8, clearly resting on strictly
historical recollection, is obviously the more
original and exact. It may well be conceived
that in other accounts of the conquest of Jebus,
the great captain of David, Joab (in like manner
is Othniel, Judg. i. 12 ff. , in the conquest of
Kiriath-sepher), was mentioned ; and a celebrated
Baying of D.ivid in the siege was referred to Joab,
not from clear recollection, but from a conjecture
which might rest on the account of Joab in ver.
8. Thus two different accounts of this saying
might arise ; the simpler, presenting apparently
no difficulties, found its way into Chronicles."
Such is Bertheau's view, at all events more,
probable than that of Then, on 2 Samuel, who
makes the Chronist complete a critically corrupt
text on the ground of tradition by conjecture. —
And Joab the son of Zeruiah (comp. ii. 16) went
up first and became chief. That this " becoming
chief " is only a confirmation of Joab in his pre-
vious office is shown by 2 Sam. ii. 3. — Ver. 7.
And David dwelt in Hie castle. 1¥D, the same as
miVD in ver. 5 ; comp. xii. 8, 16. — Therefore they
called it the city of David. According to 2 Sam.
v. 9, David himself gave it this name ; but the
one does not exclude the other. — Ver. 8. And he
built the city around, from Millo to the circuit, be-
ginning from Millo, and returning to it in a cir-
cuit. Somewhat different is 2 Sam. v. 9 :
"around from Millo and inward ; " that is, from
the circumference to the centre. For the fortress
Millo, situated probably on the north-west corner
of Zion, comp. Thenius and Bahr on 1 Kings
ix. 11. The name xi?0 signifies filling ; that is,
probably not wall or sconce, but a strong tower
(bastion, castle) ; comp. xi^D 1T3, 2 Kings, xii.
21 and 2 Chron. xxxii. 5. — And Joab repaired
the rest of the city, properly, " quickened, made
alive ; " comp. jvn in the same sense, Neh. iii.
14, as the similar expression "heal," 1 Kings
x/iii. 30. On account of the supposed trace of
ancient style contained in the use of nsn f°r
H33, "rebuild, "Wellhausen, p. 164, declares
this addition peculiar to the Chronist regarding
Joab's co-operation in the building of Jerusalem,
especially it? fortification, to be not even histori-
cally credible. Eut that jvn in this sense
occurs only here and in Nehemiah does not prove
the lateness of this usage ; and the circumsta ;,--•>
that David's field-marshal took part in the forti-
fication of the capital is so far from being im-
probable, that the statement seems a genuine
trace of ancient history. Wherefore Kennicott's
emendation, accepted by Thenius, is unnecessary :
T'JJH "1e6 iTfV 3KVV "and Joab became governor
of the city." — Ver. 9. And David became greater
and greater. The construction, -vith qpn is like
that in Gen. "iii. 3, 5, xii. 9, xxvi. 13, Judg. iv.
24 ; comp. Ew. § 280, 6. On b, comp. ix. 20.
The general remarks of the verse prepare very
suitably for the for owing list of the numerous
heroes of David.
3. List of David's Heroes : vers. 10-47 ; and
first of Jashobam, Eleazar (and Shammah) : vers.
10-14. — And these are the chiefs of the heroes oj
David. By these words, peculiar to the Chronist
(the parallel text 2 Sam. xxiii. 8 opens the list
merely with the clause: "and these are the names
of the heroes of David "), the communication ot
the following list is justified, as standing in rela-
tion with David's elevation to the kingdom and
confirmation in it. Hence the designate n :
"chiefs of the heroes," chief heroes, heroes of
the first rank. — Who held fast to him in his
kingdom, who stood bravely by him (in common
with him) during his reign. Qj; p^/lffi"!, as in
Dan. x. 21. — To make him king. Rightly Keil-
"i3vDn? is not to be limited to the appoint-
ment to the kingdon, but includes also confirma-
tion in it ; for of the men named, heroic deeds
are mentioned, which they performed in the
wars which David as king waged with his foes,
to maintain and extend his sway." — By the word
of the Lord concerning Israel. Comp. on vers. 2
and 3 ; for the same word of God in and by
Samuel is meant here also, as there. — Ver. 11.
And this is the number of the heroes of David.
In 2 Sam. xxiii. 8 : " and these are the names of
the heroes of David." The term 1BDD instead
°f DIDB' is not surprising, especially after the
plur. rfpH- If "ISDD De the original, the ex-
pression must mean: "that these heroes at first
formed a corps definite in number (the thirty) "
(Keil). Moreover, Bertheau's conjecture, "irDO
for ISDD ("and this is the choice, the Mite, of
the heroes "), deserves all attention. — Jashobam
son of Haclimoni, the chief of the thirty. After the
perhaps right reading here is to be eccrected the
corrupt ijearin n3B>3 3tJ", 2 Sain xxiii. 8. It
remains doubtful, however, in this respect, that
Jashobam in xxvii. 2 is called son of Zabdiel, not
of Hachmoni, and that the mss. of the Sept
differ surprisingly in the vriting of the name,
inasmuch as cod. Alex, presents 'U^aifs. (or
'l<r/W,u, xxvii. 2), but Vatic., the S't! _ime, xi. 11,
'l£i7-«/3aSa, the second time, xxvii. 2, 'loiS'*?.
Hence Wellhausen (p. 212) might possibly be
right in his conjecture, that the true name
may have been " Ishbosheth the Hachmonite "
Oitonn nK'3Ki'1). and that the uyyp* of oui
verse is corrupted from ^yae'i, the well-known
by-form or rather primitive form of the name
Ishbosheth. The " head of the thirty " tse«
CHAP. XI. 12-20.
99
Crit. Note) is given as an epithet to Jashobam as
leader of the thirty heroes of second rank who
are set down by name in ver. 26 ff. — He lifted his
spear against three hundred slain at one time.
The same heroic deed is recorded, ver. 20, of
Abshai ; whence Thenius, Keil, and Wellh.,
starting from the supposition that Jashobam was
a greater hero than Abshai, wish to correct our
passage after 2 Sam. xxiii. 8, where the number
of those slain at once by Jashobam is set down
as 800 (otherwise Ew. Oesch. ii. p. 603, who
defends the number 300 for both places ; while
Bertheau gives no decision).— Ver. 12. Andafter
him Eleazar son of Dodo the Ahohite. Tlinxn
-: t
is the correct reading, as appears from xxvii. 4,
not ifinx J3, 2 Sam. xxiii. 9. Whether the
name iiir] is to be changed, with the Sept. (as in
ch. xxvii. 4), into i-|n appears less certain.— He
was among the three heroes, among the three
warriors of the first rank, Jashobam, Eleazar, and
Shamma, of whom the name of the third has
fallen out of the middle of ver. 13, as the
parallel 2 Sam. xxiii. 11 shows. On the sur-
prising but still grammatically admissible com-
bination D"H3an HE'ii'K'3 instead of ]"l£6ti>a
'jH (comp. v. 19), see Berth., who justly re-
jects as unnecessary the emendation of Thenius :
n^aar! ''EV'PtJ'a, " among the knights (Shali-
.shim) of the heroes." — Ver. 13. He was with
David at Pas-dammim, and the Philistines.
These words refer still to Eleazar ; see 2 Sam.
xxiii. 9. Pas-dammim, or Ephes-dammim, 1
Sam. xvii. 1, is a place between Socho and
Azekah, not otherwise known ; in 2 Sam. xxiii
the name is wanting, from the great corruption of
the text, which is otherwise fuller than our text
here, as it describes more exactly the heroic deed
of Eleazar. It is there said, vers. 9, 10, at the
close of the sentence : " and the Philistines were
gathered there for battle:" "and the men of
Israel were gone away (to the mountain, fleeing
before the Philistines); and he stood and smote
the Philistines, until his hand was weary and
clave unto the sword ; and the Lord wrought a
great victory that day ; and the people returned
after him only to spoil. And after him was
Shammah the son of Age the Hararite ; and the
Philistines were gathered for battle," etc. This
not inconsiderable gap in our text, by which that
which follows in ver. 136 and ver. 14 seems to be
a description of a heroic deed, not of Shammah,
hut of Eleazar, appears to have been occasioned
by the eye of the transcriber wandering from
DC' 1DDX3 D,nE'i'S3, 2 Sam. xxiii. 9, to i|SDXsl
D'TISv'S, ver- 11- — And there was a plot of
ground full of barley. For barley (D'l"lij?E')> in
2 Sam. xxiii. 11, the plot is said to be full of
lentiles (Q'tSHlO ; which is the original reading
it is hard to decide, but it may be a mere slip of
the pen (Movers, Wellh.). — And they stood in the
midst of the plot. More correctly 2 Sam. xxiii.:
"and he stood," namely, Shammah. The two
following verbs also, "defended" and "smote,"
•re to be changed into the sing. , as, according to
2 Samuel, the one Shammah clearly achieved the
successful defence of the plot. The three plurals
have come into our text after the lines referring
to Shammah had fallen rat.
4. Continuation. The Three Ht.-oes who fetched
Water to David from Bethlehem : vers. 15-19
(comp. 2 Sam. xxiii. 13-17). — And three of the
thirty chiefs went down: three other than those
already named. The thirty chiefs or captains are
those mentioned ver. 11 and given by name in
ver. 26 ff. — The rock to David, to the cave of
Adullam. This cave must have been either in
the rock itself or in its immediate neighbour-
hood. On the rock itself, however, stood the
hold (miVD) mentioned ver. 16. The valley
of Rephaim (valley of giants, xmxi; tZ» Tiy&r
r<a» ; Joseph. Antiq. vii. 4. 1), mentioned as the
camping ground of the Philistines, lie*, according
to Robinson, "between the present convent Mar-
Elias and Jerusalem ; is wide, bounded on the
north by a small ridge of rock, that forms the
margin of the valley of Hinnom, and sinks
gradually to the south-west" (Winer, RealwOrterb.
ii. 322); comp. Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 16; 2 Sam. v.
18, 22. — Ver. 16. And a post of tlie Philistines
was then at Bethlehem, which is therefore to be
conceived as not far from Adullam and the valley
of Rephaim. — Ver. 17. Of the well of Bethlehem, at
the gate. On the dried-up cistern situated one-
quarter hour north-east of Bethlehem, which
tradition gives as the well of our passage, see
Robinson, ii. 378, and Berth. —Ver. 18. And the
three brake through the camp of the Philistines,
namely, not through the main camp, but that of
the post before Bethlehem. — But poured it out to
the Lord, made a libation to God by pouring it on
the ground; comp. 1 Sam. vii. 6. — Ver. 19. My
God forbid it me. The same construction as in
1 Sam. xxiv. 7, xxvi. 11, 1 Kings xxi. 3, etc. —
Shall I drink the blood of these men at the risk of
their lives, literally, "in their souls;" comp. Gen.
ix. 4; Lev. iii. 17, vii. 26, xvii. 10 ff., xix. 26 ff.,
especially xvii. 14. "As blood and soul are here
made equal, the blood as the seat and bearer of
the soul, the soul as moving in the blood, so
David, according to our report of his words,
makes the water which those heroes had brought
at the price (or risk) of their souls equal to their
souls, and the drinking of the water brought by
them equal to the drinking of their souls, and the
souls equal to the blood, in order to express his
abhorrence of such drinking. So that we may
express the meaning thus : Should I drink in the
water the souls, that is, the blood, of these men :
for they have fetched the water at the price of
their souls?" (Keil). Moreover, DJliK'Qia ap-
pears to be put down twice only by an oversight ;
in the parallel 2 Sam. xxiii. 17 it stands only
once, which is perhaps the original form of the
text. That David pours the water out instead
of drinking has its ground in this, that it was
become blood in his eyes ; for blood, if it cannot
be put on the altar, must be "poured on thu
earth as water," Deut. xii. 16 (Berth.). With
the Levitical prohibition of the use of blood, the
saying of David has evidently nothing to do.
5. Abshai and Benaiah: vers. 20-25 (comp. 2
Sam. xxiii. 18-23). — And Abshai, Joab's brother,
he was chief of the three. Abshai or Abishai
(2 Samuel), one of the three sons of Zeruiah
(ii. 16), is here designated as chief, and in the
100
I. CHRONICLES.
following verse as captain, of the three, while it
is said of him: "but he attained not to the three."
This enigmatical saying has been explained in
various ways : 1. So that two groups or classes
of three are distinguished : those mentioned vers.
15-19, whose head or ruler Abshai may have
been and the three heroes, Jashobam, etc., men-
tioned before in vers. 11-14, to whom he was not
so related (so in particular the ancients, and
Starke). 2. So that it is sought to unite both, the
being chief of the three and standing after them
(in bravery), as possibly co-existent, though the
same three, Jashobam, Eleazar, and Shammah,
are still referred to; that is, Abshai has taken,
along with Joab the field-marshal, the first place
among David's captains ; is therefore, as having
a higher command, the chief and leader of the
three heroes, while they excel him in personal
bravery and famous deeds (Keil). 3. So that
ntJ^K'n i" vers. 20 and 21 is taken in two diffe-
rent senses, in that of the number three (so ver.
21), and in this of the abstract substantive, "body
of thirty, Sheloshah-company " (so the three first
times), — a sense that necessarily results from the
comparison of ver. 21 with ver. 25, and of 2 Sam.
xxiii. 19 with 2 Sam. xxiii. 23 (Berth. ). We shall
have the choice between these three modes, unless
we prefer the three first times (ver. 20 and ver. 21a)
to read the pi. DW^H for ntJ'Wn, as Well-
hansen (supported by the numerous cases in which
these like numbers are exchanged; see pp. 20, 81,
214 ff. of his work) declares to be necessary in the
parallel 2 Sam. xxiii.— And he lifted up his spear
against three hundred slain ; comp. on ver. 11. —
Ver. 21. Above the three he was honoured among
the two. These enigmatical words in the present
form can neither be explained, with the Vulg. :
"Of the three of the second class "(inter tres
secundos), nor, with the Sept.: "Of the three,
above the two was he honoured" (&?ra ra>v rpiuv v-rlp
reus Siio hZo&f). If the D'Wa is t0 be retained
as genuine, it must be taken, with Ewald (Lehrb.
§ 269, b) and Keil, in the sense of "twofold,
doubly," and so rendered: "above the three
doubly honoured, he became their chief" (Keil).
Or we may read, with Berth., inn for D,3K»3,
according to 2 Sam. xxiii. 19 (comp. 2 Sam. ix. 1;
Gen. xxvii. 36, xxix. 15), and render: "Among
the Sheloshah-company certainly hewas honoured,
and became their captain." — Ver. 22 if. Benaiah's
Heroic Deeds (comp. xviii. 17, xxvii. 6). — Benaiah
the son of Jehoiada, the son of Ishliail. So, if
we retain )3 before ^rrt>"N. There is much,
however, for its erasuTe (Berth. , Wellh. , Kamph. ),
in which case the sense comes out : ' ' Benaiah the
son of Jehoiada, a valiant man of £reat deeds."
For the home of this Benaiah, KaDzeel in the
Bouth of Judah, comp. Josh. xv. 21; Neh. xi. 25.
— He smote two (sons) of Ariel of Moab, the king
of Moab, who bore the epithet ^S01K> "lion of
God," as a title of honour. Before ^WHK is to be
inserted, with the Sept., ^32 ; comp. Then, and
Wellh., 2 Sam. xxiii. 20. — And he went down
and smote a lion. This feat of Benaiah, which
happened on a snowy day, and therefore in winter,
may have been performed during the great war of
David with the Moabites, 2 Sam. viii. 2.— Ver.
23. And he smote the Egyptian, a man of stature,
or probably, according to the Sept., "a man ol
repute." The following particulars of the suc-
cessful combat of Benaiah with the giant nearly
coincide with those of the conflict of David with
Goliath, though the differences are not to be
overlooked (there a Philistine, here an Egyptian ;
there a stature of six cubits and a span, here of
five cubits ; there the weapons are a staff and a
sling, here only a staff ; there the slaying of the
fallen with his own sword, here with his own
spear). If, with the Sept., in 2 Sam. xxiii. 21 be
substituted for the weaver's beam a "bridge-
beam " (£i/X»v 'Sia.fialpa.s), as an object of comparison
to show the thickness of the spear, the difference
of the two narratives would be still greater. But
even without this, the similar feats are only so
related as Shamgar's heroic deed to that of
Samson (comp. Judg. iii. 31 with xv. 15), or as
Jashobam's valiant deed (with the right reading
800 in ver. 11) to that of Abshai. — Vers. 24, 25.
For " among the three heroes" and "above the
thirty " Berth, would in both cases read " among
the Sheloshah-company;" comp. on ver. 20. — And
David set him over his guard, literally, "over
his obedience," that is (abstr. pro concr.), over
his obedient, his trusty men ; comp., besides
2 Sam. xxiii. 23, also 1 Sam. xxii. 14; Isa. xi. 14.
According to Bertheau's not improbable conjec-
ture, by this guard of David is meant the corps of
the Cerethi and Pelethi (see 2 Sam. viii. 18),
from which, however, a second troop of guards,
that of the 600 Gibborim (or Gittites, 2 Sam.,
xv. 18), 2 Sam. xvi. 6, xx. 7, etc., were no doubt
different. Commander of the former was Benaiah,
according to our passage and 2 Sam. viii. 18 ;
over the 600 Gibborim, on the other hand, may
have been placed the often named thirty, so that
one of the thirty was leader to every twenty of
the 600. This assumption of a difference of the
Cerethi and Pelethi from the Gibborim is not
certain ; for as Benaiah, 2 Sam. viii. 28, appears
as commander of the Cerethi and Pelethi, he is
also, 1 Kings i. 10, connected with the Gibborim
(Benaiah and the heroes).
6. The Forty-eight Warriors: and first the
thirty-two enumerated in 2 Sam. xxiii. : vers.
26-41a. On the sixteen added by the Chronist,
vers. 416-47, see No. 7. — And the heroes of war
were, or more precisely: "And heroes of war
were ; " for the phrase D^TIH '"toil without
the article is a general superscription. The article
before Qiyn constitutes no real difference from
a^n "niaj, vii. 5, 7, 11, 40, or from ^n '3,
vers. 2, 9, etc. [?] Here, as there, are meant:
"heroes in action, valiant heroes," not "leaders
of the divisions, " as Berth, (appealing to 2 Kings
xv. 20, 1 Chron. xii. 8, etc.) thinks.— Asahel
the brother of Joab. For him, comp. ii. 16 ; for
his murder by Abner, 2 Sam. ii. 19 ff. The
parallel text 2 Sam. xxiii. 24 adds to his name
D,b6b'3, "among the thirty." — Elhanan the son
of Dodo, different from Elhanan son of Jair,
xx. 5. — Ver. 27 Shammoth the Harorite. In
2 Sam. xxiii. this hero is called " Shammah the
Harodite," but in 1 Chron. xxvii. 8, "Shamhuth
the Izrahite." In the gentilic. i-fl-inn there ap-
CHAP. XI. 28-46.
101
pears at all events to be an error, which is to he
corrected hy ■H'lnn of Samuel ; for in Judg. vii.
1 a Jewish place "nn is expressly mentioned.
After the name of this Harodite Shammoth must
have fallen out that of a second Harodite Elika
(Np^N), as 2 Sam. xxiii. 25 shows — Uclez the
Pelonite. So xxvii. 10, whereas in 1 Sam. xxiii.
26 this Helez is originally designated as a Paltite
(of Beth-pelet, D^Q IV3, Josh- xv- 2'> Nen- x'-
26). — Ver. 28. Ira and Abiezer; comp. xxvii. 9, 12.
— Ver. 29. S'Meckai the Hushathite. By the name
'33D the suspicious ^30 °f 2 Samuel must be
corrected. Inversely, Ilai (i">'Jj) mlls* De amended
after the jiDpX of Samuel.— Ver. 31. Jlhai the
son of Ribai of Gibeah, of the sow of Benjamin.
For the situation of this Gibeah of Benjam n (near
Kamah), comp. the expositor on Josh, xviii. 28
and on Judg. xiv. 19 ff. ; for that of the follow-
ing Pirathon (that occurs also, Judg. xii. le-15,
as the home of Ahdon), Zeitschr. der Deutxchen
morgenl. Gesellsch. 1849, p. 55, and particularly
Sandreczky in Ausland, 1872, No. 5, p. 97 M'. —
Ver. 32. Hurai (so read also 2 Samuel for «jn)
of Nahale-gaash. This place, occurring only here
(and 2 Sam. xxiii. 30), properly, "valleys of
Gaash," is at all events to be sought near Mount
Gaash in the Ephraimite range, not far from
which was Joshua's grave ; comp. Josh. xxiv. 30;
Judg. ii. 9. — Abiel the Arbathite, of Beth-haara-
bah, Josh. xv. 6, 61, xviii. 18, 23. The name
?J03K is in 2 Samuel jia^JT'QK, wn'ch form
Berth, takes without ground to be original, while
Wellh. rejects both forms, and makes the original
to be ^wasj. — Ver. 33. Azmaveth the Baha-
rumite, that is, he of Bahurim (read Win3n);
comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 5, xix. 17. — The following
gentilic. ijbpjfE'n is Lo ^e referred to D'SPyC',
Judg. i. 35, 1 Kings lv. 9 (or pa^Wi Josn- xix-
42), and so to be written i}'3^j;^n. — Ver- si-
The sons of Hashem the Gizonite. 133 before
Dt^n appears to owe its origin to a repetition of
the last three consonants of the foregoing gentilic.
^apJJETI ; and thus originally there was only
Hashem the Gizonite, after which 2 Samuel is to
be amended : likewise in the following word the
corrupt reading there is to he altered into our
"Jonathan the son of Shageh the Hararite;"
comp. Wellh. p. 216. — Ver. 35. Eliphal the son
of Ur. 2 Sam. xxiii. 34: "Eliphelet the son of
Ahasbai. " The original was perhaps (comp.
Then, and Berth, on the passage): "Eliphelet the
son of Ur." — Ver. 36. Hepher the Mecherathite ;
perhaps the Maachathite (2 Samuel) ; as also
" Ahijah the Pelonite" (comp. ver. 27) must
perhaps be changed, as in 2 Samuel, into "Eliam,
son of Ahithophel ithe Gilonite." — Ver. 37.
Naarai the son of Ezbai. For >-|j)j 2 Samuel
has »tjjq ; for ^3fN"|3, *3-|fc{n, which is perhaps
to be preferred on account of 31X, Josh. xv. 52.
—Ver. 38. Joel the brother of Nathan. Ii
Nathan the propl^t were meant, the iflS,
"brother," by the side of the usual -n, would
lose its strangeness. But in 2 Sam. xxiii. 36 we
find a Nathan of Zobah. Hence ifiS is perhaps
to he changed into p ; and ?ny might, possibly
be more original than our ?{<i''- — Mibhar the son
of Hagri. For these words 2 Sam, xxiii. 36 has
" Bani the Gadite." 1H3D niay have there fallen
out ; but it may also have been corrupted from
rnlfO- In '"OH (if this, and not i-ijn, is to be
it ad) may possibly lie the name of the prophet
Gad (Wellh.), so that here two relatives of pro-
phets, a brother (son ?) of Nathan and a son of
(lad, may be named together. — Ver. 40. Ira t>te
ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite. The family of the
Ithrites was enumerated, ii. 53, among those of
Kiriath-jearim. — Ver. 41. Uriah the Uittite, the
husband of Bathsheba, 2 Sam. xi. 3 ff. Here
follows in 2 Sam. xxiii. 39 the closing subscrip-
tion: "thirty and seven in all," as, according to
the correct text, actually thirty-seven heroes are
there enumerated, namely, twenty-nine others
besides the eight mightiest heroes named in vers.
8-23 (Jashoba.ni, Eleazar, Shammah, etc.). These
twenty-nine should in the view of the author of
the books of Samuel represent those thirty warriors
(named in 2 Cliron. xi. 25); whence he breaks off
his enumeration after Uriah (or perhaps after
Gareb, as Wellh. seeks to render probable),
although most probably the same list, containing
forty-eight names in all, lay before him, which
our author has continued from this verse to the
end. Moreover, for the criticism of both lists
running parallel as far as our verse, the facts
brought out by Wellh. (p. 215 f.) are to be con-
sidered : — 1 . ' ' That the heroes are placed in pairs,
and often every two from the same city (two
Bethlehemites, ver. 26, two Netophathites, ver.
30, two Ithrites, ver. 40); 2. That the adjective
of descent is always added, but not regularly the
father's name, to the name of the hero ; 3. That
thorough corrections are only possible, if we have
first collected the whole material of the proper
names in the O. T. along with the variants in
the Sept., and then elaborated thein." The last
rale applies also to the criticism of the following
names preserved by the Chronist alone, which in
this arrangement have no parallel.
7. The last Sixteen of the Forty-eight War-
riors, whom the Chronist alone enumerates :
vers. 416-47. — Ver. 42. Adina . . . a chief of the
Beubenites, and thirty with him, or besides him.
So, according to the Masoretic reading, VP^l ; but
Berth, prefers that of the Syriac version (see Grit.
Note), and so gets the sense : "leader of the Reu-
benites over thirty," that is, commander of the
thirty captains or heroes of the Reubenites, to
which may be compared the thirty leaders of the
Benjamites, xxii. 4. — Ver. 44. Uzziah the Ash-
terathite, from Ashteroth (Karnaim) or Beth-
Eshterah, a city of East Manasseh, vi. 56.
Whether the "Aroerite" points to Aroer in the
tribe of Reuben (Josh. xiii. 16), or in that of
Gad (ver. 25), is doubtful.— Ver. 46. Eliel the
Mahavim. We should probably read " the
S02 I. CHRONICLES.
Mahanairaite " (Josh. xiii. 26) ; comp. Crit.
Note. — Ver. 47. Eliel, and Obed, and Jasiel of
Hammezobaiah. The unmeaning rP2¥T3n, that
hy its form cannot be a genlilic. , is either to be
changed by omitting the article and the penult
consonant into ri35fO, "from Zobah" (comp.
2 Sam. xxiii. 36) (so Bertheau), or to be regarded
a] corrupted from a longer rume, such as ?1JD
JOIJDV (a place, according to Rabbinic tradition,
not far from Hebron), not, however, as a contrac-
tion or abbreviation of this name, as Reland (Pal.
p. 899). Moreover, the Rabbinic Migdol Zebuiah
could scarcely be contemplated, because almost
all the sixteen names of our section, from ver.
416 on, belong to heroes from the east of Jordan.
The Syrian Zobah would suit better in this con-
nection.
y. Supplementary List of Brace Men who held to David during the Reign of Saul :
ch. xii. 1-22.
Ch. xit. 1 And these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while banished from
Saul the son of Kish ; and they were among the heroes, helpers of the war.
2 Armed with bows, using both right hand and left with stones and with
3 arrows on the bow : — Of the brethren of Saul of Benjamin. The chief Ahiezer
and Joash, sons of Hashmaah the Gibeathite ; and Jezuel1 and Pelet the
4 sons of Azmaveth ; and Berachah, and Jehu the Antothite. And Ishmaiah
the Gibeonite, a hero among the thirty, and over the thirty ;2 and Jeremiah,
5 and Jahaziel, and Johanan, and Jozabad the Gederathite. Eluzai, and Jeri-
6 moth, and Bealiah, and Shemariah, and Shephatiah the Haruphite.3 Elkanah,
7 and Ishiah, and Azarel, and Joezer, and Jashobam, the Korhites. And
Joelah and Zebadiah the sons of Jeroham of Gedor.4
8 And of the Gadites, separated themselves unto David at the hold in the
wilderness, valiant heroes, men of the host for battle, handling shield and
spear,8 with faces like lions, and like roes on the mountains for swiftness.
9, 10 Ezer the chief, Obadiah the second, Eliab the third. Mishmannah the
11 12 fourth, Jeremiah the fifth. Attai the sixth, Eliel the seventh. Johanan
13 the eighth, Elzabad the ninth. Jeremiah the tenth, Machbannai the
1 4 eleventh. These were of the sons of Gad, heads of the host : one for a
15 hundred, the least, and the greatest for a thousand. These are they that
went over Joidan in the first month, when it had overflown all its banks;6
and they put to flight all the valleys to the east and to the west.
16 And there came of the sons of Benjamin and Judah to the hold unto David.
17 And David went out before them, and answered and said unto them, If ye
be come peaceably unto me to help me, my heart shall be at one with you ;
but if to betray me to my enemies, with no wrong in my hands, the God of
18 our fathers look on and rebuke it. And the spirit came upon Amasai the
chief of the thirty,7 Thine are we, David, and with thee, son of Jesse ; peace,
peace be to thee, and peace to thy helpers ; for thy God helpeth thee ; and
David received them, and made them captains of the troop.
19 And of Manasseh some fell to David, when he came with the Philistines
against Saul to battle ; but they helped him not : for on advisement, the
lords of the Philistines sent him away, saying, At the peril of our heads he
20 will fall to his master Saul. When he went to Ziklag, there fell to him of
Manasseh, Adnah, and Jozabad, and Jediael, and Michael, and Jozabad, and
21 Elihu, and Zillethai, captains of the thousands of Manasseh. And they
helped David against the troop ; for they were all valiant heroes, and they
22 became captains in the host. For day by day they came to David to help
him, until the camp was great, like a camp of God.
8. Supplementary Data concerning the Number of the Waniors who made David
King in Hebron : vers. 23-40.
23 And these are the numbers of the heads of those armed for the host who
came to David to Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to
24 the word of the Lord. The sons of Judah, bearing shield and spear, were
25 six thousand and eight hundred, armed for the host. Of the sons of Simeon.
26 valiant heroes for the host, seven thousand and one hundred. Of the sons of
CHAP. XII. 1-7.
103
27 Levi, four thousand and six hundred. And Jehoiada was the leader of the
28 Aaronites, and with him three thousand and seven hundred. And Zadok, a
29 valiant young man, and his father's house twenty and two captains. And of
the sons of Benjamin, brethren of Saul, three thousand ; for hitherto the
30 most part of them kept the ward of the house of Saul. And of the sons of
Ephraim, twenty thousand and eight hundred valiant heroes, famous men of
31 their father-houses. And of the half-tribe of Manasseh, eighteen thousand,
32 who were expressed by name, to come to make David king. And of the sons
of Issachar, men having understanding of the times, to know what Israel had
to do, their heads were two hundred, and all their brethren were at their
33 command . Of Zebulun, those going to the host, ordering the battle with all
weapons of war, fifty thousand, arraying themselves8 with a single heart.
34 And of Naphtali, a thousand captains, and with them, with shield and spear,
35 thirty and seven thousand. And of the Danites, ordering the battle, twenty
36 and eight thousand and six hundred. And of Asher, those going to the host
37 to order the battle, forty thousand. And beyond the Jordan, of the Reu-
benites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, with all weapons
of war for the battle, a hundred and twenty thousand.
38 All these men of war, keeping rank,9 came with true heart to Hebron to
make David king over all Israel; and all the rest10 of Israel also were of one
39 heart to make David king. And they were there with David three days eat-
40 ing and drinking ; for their brethren had prepared for them. Moreover,
they that were nigh them, even to Issachar, and Zebulun, and Naphtali,
brought bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, bread of
meal, fig and raisin cakes, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep abundantly;
for there was joy in Israel.
* Km: Jezlel (^NT1).
« With D^EvE'n ?JJ1 the fourth verse closes in the mss. and older editions, even that of R. Norzl, so that the whole
chapter contains forty-one verses.
•iTeri:" the Hariphite" (ifi'lPin) ; comp. Ppnn '33, Neh. vii. 24.
4 For nnjn is certainly to be read 1113 H; comp. iv. 4.
8 For riDII the Bibl. Venet. Rabb. has pD} • so some old prints, but not the mss.
"The Kethib VTl^S, if correct, would be the plur. of rTH3, and occur only here. With the Keri Vrflil corny
Josh. iii. 15, iv. 18 : Isa. viii. 8.
' Kethv, : D^'wH J Ken, as usual : D'E^E*!-!. The Sept. and Vulg. agree with the Kethib.
• For 11J/P1 nine mss., the Sept. (/SmjSwrai), and the Vulg. read "Vfj7 ?1.
8 Three mss. change ^YTJJ into ^"Vy unnecessarily. See Exeg. Expl.
10 JTHE^, defective for JTHXE^, occurring only here; hence some mss. have the ser.plena.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Eemark. — The whole of the
twelfth chapter is peculiar to the Chronist.
Standing after that which is related in xi. 4 ff.,
it has th nature of an appendix, in the form of
several military lists referring to the force of
David before and at his accession to the sole
sovereignty. The first of these lists consists pro-
perly of three smaller ones — a. That of the Benja-
mites and Jews that came to David during his
residence at Ziklag : vers. 1-7 ; 6. That of the
Gadites and some other men from Judah and
Benjamin who passed over to him during his
residence in the hold : vers. 8-18; c. That of the
Manassites who joined themselves to David
shortly before the battle with the Philistines,
and the death of Saul at Gilboa: vers. 19-22.
To these lists referring to the Sauline period is
then subjoined that of the contingents from all
the tribes present at the anointing in Hebron :
vers. 23-40.
1. The Benjamites and Jews who came to Zik-
lag : vers. 1-7. — And these are they that came to
David to Ziklag. Ziklag, belonging to the tribe
of Simeon (iv. 30; Josh. xix. 5), assigned by Achish
to David as a residence, was in a site not certainly
determined. The sojourn of David there until
his anointing at Hebron lasted (1 Sam. xxvii.
7) a year and four months. — While banished
from Saul ("UXS? "lijO, that is, while his return
to Israel as king was still hindered by Saul :
inter Israelitas publice versari prohiidtus (J. H.
Michaelis). — And they were among the heroes,
helpers of the wars. They belonged to the heroes
104
I. CHRONICLES.
who served and stood by him in his earlier wars ;
comp. vers. 17, 18, 21, 22. — Ver. 2. Armed with
bows, or "aiming with the bow;" not really
different from bending the bow ([3EJ>p 'DTI.),
viii. 40 ; comp. 2 Cliron. xvii. 17 and Ps.
lxxviii. 9. — Using both right and left with stones
(in slinging, Judg. xx. 16) and with arrows on
the bow, namely, to shoot and surely hit with
them. — Of the brethren of Saul of Benjamin.
The second restriction serves to explain the lirst :
7lKK'",n{< do not mean near or blood relations.
Comp. Gibeath-Saul, 1 Sam. xi. 4, Isa. xv. 29,
and as denoting the same place, Gibeath-Beiija-
min, 1 Sam. x. 16, xv. 34, or Gibeah of the sons of
Benjamin, 1 Chron. xi. 81. — Ver. 3. Sons of Hash-
maah the Gibeathite, from the Gibeah of Benja-
min just mentioned. —Ver. 4. And Ishmaiah the
Gibeonite. That this Gibeonite (this Benjamite
of Gibeon ; comp. viii. 29, ix. 35, with 2 Sam.
xxi. 2 11'.) Ishmaiah is described first as a hero
among the thirty, and then as a leader over the
thirty, may be explained by assuming a tempo-
rary command over this company. The absence
of his name in ch. xi. must be explained by this,
that he was no longer alive at the time when this
list was composed, and was therefore among the
earliest members of the corps of the thirty. — And
Jozabad the Gedcrathite; perhaps from Gederah
(now Ghedera, one hour south-west of Jabneh), a
Jewish locality in the Shephelah, Josh. xv. 36.
That Jozabad, though coming from Gederah, be-
longed to some family of Benjamites dwelling
there, is an unnecessary assumption of Keil. The
following verses, especially the Geder, ver. 7,
rather show that those here enumerated were
by no means exclusively Benjamite. — Ver. 6.
Elkanah . . . the Korhites. To think of another
Korah as the ancestor of the Korhites than the
known descendant of Levi is unnecessary ; these
may be Korhitic Levites settled in Benjamin
who are here in question; and the names Elkanah
and Azarel having a genuine Levitical ring, make
it very probable that they are such ; comp. Keil
on the p. and Del. Psalter, p. 300. Yet it is
possible that they may be descendants of the
Jewish Korah mentioned ii. 43 (so Berth. , Kamph. ,
etc.). — Ver. 7. And Joelah . . . of Gealor, with-
out doubt the Jewish city mentioned iv. 4, south-
west of Bethlehem ; so that here also non-Benja-
mites are included in the series, notwithstanding
the announcement, ver. 2, which leads us to
expect only Benjamites Whether this contra-
diction between the announcement and the con-
tents of the list arises from the whole series of
names being greatly abridged and composed out
of two originally distinct lists, one of pure Benja-
mites, and another containing Jews, as Berth,
thinks, appears doubtful ; comp. Keil, p. 134.
2. The Gadites and some other Jews and Benja-
mites who joined themselves to David while in the
Hold: vers. 8-18. — a. The Gadites: vers. 8-15. —
And of the Gadites (that is, of those belonging to
the tribe of Gad, while the others adhered to
Saul) separated themselves unto David at the hold
in the wilderness. This was during the first year
of his flight before Saul, 1 Sam. xxii. ff. — -|Se6
n"l3"ip (fo pointed for 'o "IVd!?, on account of
the close connection of the two following words)
denotes properly : "to the hold towards the
wilderness. " A definite single hold ("7XD =
mWOi comp. xi. 16) is here as little intended
as in ver. 16, but rather the greater number of
those holds of the wilderness of Judah (comp.
nilVQB "131132, 1 Sam. xxiii. 14, xxiv. 1) in
which David dwelt at that time ; thus T2D is
here general, as rVHXD,! Sam. xxiv. 23. — Men of
the liostfor battle, practised in war ; comp. vii. 11.
On the following "handling ('Dlj)) shield aud
spear,'' comp. ver. 24 ("bearing shield and
spear") ind Jer. xlvi. 3 ; for the comparison
of the warriors with lions and roes, 2 Sam. i. 23,
ii. 18. "The expressions in the description of
their power and fleetness, ver. 8, remind us of
such as are used in the historical books of heroes
in the time of David, and are without doubt
drawn from the source which our author here used"
(Berth.). — Ver. 13. Machbannai the eleventh, liter-
ally, the eleven; comp. xxiv. 12. — Ver. 14. Heads
of the host (so ver. 216), that is, chief warriors, not
leaders. — One for a hundred the least, and the
greatest for a thousand. The smallest of them
was equal to one hundred other warriors, and
the strongest to a thousand, — an expression of
manifestly poetical colouring, reminding us oi
Lev. xx vi. 8 and of 1 Sam. xviii. 7, xxi. 11,
which our author certainly found in his source.
The Sept. and the most of the older Rabbis rightly
understood the passage, but the Vulg. wrongly :
novissimus centum militibus p-raerat et maxima?
mille, for which pjj instead of p, and anothe'
order of words, should be expected. — Ver. 15.
These are they that went over Jordan, at the time
when they separated themselves from the other
Gadites of the host of Saul, and were forced to
break through this to reach David. Their flight
fell "in the first month," that is, in the spring,
when the Jordan was greatly swollen, and had
overflown its bank. So much greater was the
heroic deed. — And put to flight all the valleys to
tlie east and to the west, on both sides of the river,
just as if its overflowing waters were not present.
OV^y, properly "valleys," here inhabitants of
the valleys, Hitzig (Gesch. lsr. p. 29) conceives
to be the name of a people, that occurs also Jer.
xlix. 4 (comp. xlvii. 5), and is identical with the
Anakim, Josh. xv. 14, and with the Amorites—
with the latter really, with the former even in
name (?). See, on the contrary, Keil on Jer. p.
480. — b. The men of Benjamin and Judah : vers.
16-18. — And there came of the sons of Benjamin
and Judah. The names of these other followers of
David when persecuted by Saul the Chronist
does not give, either because his source did not
contain them, or because they may ha-»e been
included for the most part in the 'lists aheady
communicated in ch. xi. Amasai only, the leader
of this troop, is named. — Ver. 17. And David
went out before them, or to meet them; comp. xiv.
8. — My heart shall be at one with you, *|It6 2^,
a phrase occurring only here, not essentially
different from inx lb, ver. 38 (comp. ver. 83).
— But if to betray me to my enemies. nt3"l, with
accus. of the object, means, "to practise fraud on
anyone." For the following, compare, on the
one hand, Job xvi. 17, Isa. liii. 9; on the other
CHAP. XII. 18-31.
105
hand, 2 Chroii. xxiv. 22. For the phrase : "theGod
of our fathers, " namely, of the patriarchs Abraham,
etc., comp. Ex. iii. 13; Ezra vii. 27; 2 Chron. xx.
6; Matt. xxii. 32. — Ver. 18. -i4nrf(the) Spirit came
upon Amasai the chief of thirty. Here, as in the
parallel Judg. vi. 34, the Spirit of God is meant
(comp. 2 Chron. xxiv. 20), as the principle of
higher inspiration to great and bold deeds. The
Amasai of our passage is perhaps not different
from Amasa (with fc? instead of i at the end) the
son of Abigail, sister of David, ii. 17, who, at a
later period, in the time of Absalom, performed
a not unimportant part as commander (first under
Absalom, and then under David), till Joab mur-
dered him (2 Sam. xvii. 25, xix. 14, xx. 4 ff.).
Much less probable is the identity assumed by
others of this Amasai with Abshai the brother of
Joab (ii. 16, xi. 20).— Thine are we, David, to thee
we belong, and with thee, we hold. Notwith-
standing this simple and obvious completion,
the Sept. has whoDy misunderstood the words
"IDJVl Til *J?i and made of them th/husu xai I
Xui; <rov. — For thy God helpeth thee. This tj~i Ty
refers to the past aid which David had received
from God (1 Sam. xviii. 12 ff ), but also to the
further aid in prospect, which was to be imparted
to him in future. — And made tliem captains of
the, troop, appointed them leaders of the several
divisions of his army, — that army (Hflj) of all
kinds of people that had gathered about him;
comp. 1 Sam. xxii. 2, xxvii. 8, etc.
3. The Seven Manassites who joined themselves
to David before the Last Battle of Saul with the
Philistines: vers. 19-22. — And of Manasseh
some fell to David, isj; ^aj, as in 2 Kings xxv.
11; 1 Sam. xxix. 3; comp. ^>x ^>3J at the close
of the verse. For the historical situation, comp
1 Sam. xxix. 2-11. — For on advisement, nVJO
on consultation, as Prov. xx. 18. — At the peril
of our heads, literally, "for our heads, for the
price of them;" comp. 1 Sam. xxix. 4. — Ver.
20. When he went to Ziklag, and thus before
the great battle of Gilboa in which Saul fell ;
comp. 1 Sam. xxix. 11.— Captains of the thou-
sands of Manasseh, of the great military divisions
(regiments) into which the tribe of Manasseh was
divided ; comp. Num. xxxi. 14, 26, xxvii. 1, and
ch. xv. 25. — Ver. 21. And they helped David
against the troop, namely, his present foes, the
Amalekites ; comp. 1 Sam. xxx. 8, 15, where the
inj here used (for which the Sept. perversely
read a n. pr. Tii'&oip) appears more definitely as
the army of the Amalekites. Moreover, the
seven here named Manassites only are the imme-
diate and direct subject of the sentence, not all
the heroes named from ver. 1 to ver. 20 (as
Berth, thinks), though certainly the whole force
of David ^600 strong, 1 Sam. xxx. 9) was drawn
nut to fight with Amalek. But that by nani
only the seven Manassites can here be meant is
shown by the following words : "and they became
captains in the host," which cannot apply to the
whole troop. — Ver. 22. Until the camp was great,
like a camp of God; comp. Gen. xxxii. 2 and
phrases like mountains, cedars of God, Ps. xxxvi.
i Ixxx. 11. The phrase is " only rhetorical, not
idealizing or exaggerating" (Keil) ; it extends also
clearly beyond the time when David had only
600 followers to the time when thousands, and
then hundreds of thousands, followed him. The
following description seizes the moment nhen
out of the thousands of the first seven years of
his reign at Hebron came the hundred thousands
and more.
4. The Number of the Warriors who made
David King over all Israel : vers. 23-40. — And
these are the numbers (f the heads of those armed
for the host, or for military service (comp. Num.
xxxi. 5; Josh. iv. 13). The "heads of those
armed " are here not the captains or leaders
(Vulg. principes exercitus, Berth., etc.), but the
sums or masses of the warriors, as Judg. vii. 16,
20, ix. 34, 37, 44, 1 Sam. xi. 11, or perhaps
also the polls (Judg. v. 30) ; so that i^jo 1SDD
would be the number of polls. For it cannot be
proved (against Berth.) that only n?il73, ana not
also B>K"li can nave this sense ; and the following
is not a list of leaders, but a poll list, that also
originally bore this form, though the abbreviating
changes of our author make it difficult to prove.
— To turn the kingdom of Saul to him ; comp.
x. 14, and for the following, xi. 3, 10. — Ver. 24.
Tlie sons of Judah, bearing shield and spear ;
comp. on ver. 8. The enumeration begins with
the two southern tribes, Judah and Simeon ; next
gives the priestly tribe of Levi, whose chief force
lay at that time in and about Judah ; and then,
proceeding from south to north, names first the
other western tribes, and then the three eastern
ones. — Ver. 26. And Jehoiada was the leader of
the Aaronites, literally, "the leader of Aaron,''
that is, not the high priest (who was at that time
Abiathar, 1 Sam. xxiii. 9), but the head of the
family of Aaron. Perhaps this was Jehoiada the
father of Benaiah, xi. 22. — Ver. 28. And Zadok,
a valiant young man, perhaps that descendant of
Eleazar (v. 34) whom Solomon, 1 Kings ii. 26,
made high priest. That the house of this Zadok,
at the time of David's elevation, counted twenty-
two chiefs or heads of families, proves how flourish-
ing this branch of the Aaronites was at that time.
— Ver. 29. And of the sons of Benjamin, brethren
of Saul, three thousand. This number is indeed
surprisingly small, but certainly original. The
writer accounts for it also, first briefly, by the
characteristic addition 71XK' 'IIN, then more
fully by the remark, "for hitherto (nan lyi, as
ix. 18) the most part of them kept the ward ol
Saul's house;" that is, the most of them were
still devoted to the interest of the kindred house
of Saul (niDIPS IDE', a8 Num. iii. 38 ; comp.
1 Chron. xxiii. 32 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 6), so that
they turned to David only slowly, and when
Ishbosheth was dead. — Ver. 30. Famous men of
their father-houses, arranged according to their
father-houses. The Ephraimites, on the whole,
though their number was above 20,000, are
called celebrated, famous men (comp. Gen. vi.
4), perhaps because they were distinguished by
their warlike bravery, and had not merely a few
able heroes or leaders. — Ver. 31. Awl of the half-
tribe of Manasseh, the western half. The "being
expressed by name " (J-|iOC>3 UpJ, as Num- i- 17;
106
I. CHRONICLES.
1 Chron. xvi. 41) points to the formation of a list
by the tribe authorities, in which all those war-
riors of the tribe were entered who were chosen
to take part in the elevation of the new king at
Hebron. All the other tribes may have formed
similar lists for this purpose. — Ver. 32. And of
the sons of Issackar, men having understanding
of the times, to knotv what Israel had to do.
This applies, not to the whole tribe, but only to
the 200 heads of their forces ; and it denotes, not
every kind of activity in astronomical or physical
science (Chald., several Rabbis, Cleric), but only
that those leaders ' ' saw what was most advisable
to be done in the condition of the times" (Starke),
that they were prudentes viri, qui quid, quando
et quornodo agendum esset, varia lectione (?) et
usu rerum cognoscebant (L. Lavater). "Men un-
derstanding," literally, knowing judgment, 'jni11
TW2 ; comp. 2 Chron. ii. 12 and the similar
HIT! 'jniV Dan. i. 4. "To know what Israel
had to do," in the present case, means to whom
it had to apply as its king and supreme ruler.
These men of Issachar were not dull and narrow
"bony asses" (Gen. xlix. 14), but prudent
"judges of the signs of their time" (Matt. xvi.
3). — And all their brethren were at their com-
mand. DiTB ?]}, literally, "by their mouth,"
namely, guided ; comp. Gen. xli. 40 ; Num. iv.
27 ; Deut. xxi. 5. — Ver. 33. Ordering the battle
with all weapons of war, practised in the conflict
with all kinds of weapons ; comp. ver. 6. —
Arraying themselves with a single heart, literally,
" and to band together with not heart and heart. "
For "fry 71, with some critical evidence (see Crit.
Note), to read "ifiJnl is unnecessary and unten-
able, from the recurrence of "ilj> in ver. 38.
From this parallel passage, this verb must mean,
"to take rank for war, to stand in order of
battle.'' For yy\ 3?, to denote double-minded-
ness or a divided heart, comp. Ps. xii. 3 and ver.
38 ; dW 33^ and ir.R 3^.— Ver- 38. All these
men of war, keeping rank ; Sept. •x-ttpara.o-tTofMo,
Txfira.%11. The change of i-nj} into <3"ij) (see
Crit. Note) is unnecessary, and as little demanded
by rpy in vers. 33, 35, 36 as by n3"iyD ; comp.
on ver. 33. "All these" points naturally to the
whole troops enumerated from ver. 24 on. — And,
all the rest of Israel, etc. On -|nN zb, "one,
anited heart," comp 2 Chron. xxx. 12. — Ver. 39.
And they were there with David three days, eating
and drinking. Comp. the festivals described 1
Sam. xxx. 16, 1 Kings i. 25, 40, etc., and also
from the most recent oriental history; for example,
the enormous feast (100,000 sheep and wethers,
20,000 oxen, 40,000 gallons honey- wine, etc.)
that was given in connection with the elevation
of Kassai to be emperor (negus) of Abyssinia
(Feb. 1872). — For their brethren had prepared
for them (victuals), namely, the Jews about
Hebron. Comp. on this fori. Gen. xliii. 16 ;
2 Chron. xxxv. 14, etc. — Ver. 40. Moreover, they
that were nigh them (comp. Deut. xiii. 8), all the
neighbouring tribes of Judah on this side the
Jordan ; and not merely those immediately adja-
cent, but also the tribes in the middle, and some
of those in the north of Palestine. — Brought bread
(victuals) on asses, and camels, and mules, etc.
Observe the purely epical character of the repre-
sentation, that points to a very ancient historical
source used by the Chronist. — Fig and raisin
calces. For the masses of dried figs (D,73'l) and
raisins (D'pBX), as indispensable dainty additions
to feasts, comp. 1 Sam. xxv. 18, xxx. 12 ; Jer.
xl. 10, 12 ; Amos viii. 1 f. ; also Celsius, Hierobot.
i. 377 ft ; Winer, Realw., Art. " Feigenbaum '
Apologetic on Cu. xii. 23 ff.
With respect to the credibility of the numbers
of our section, it is to be remarked in general,
that the sum total of about 340,000 men,1 re-
sulting from the data relative to the military
contingents of the several tribes, agrees, on the
whole, with other known data concerning the
sum of the people of Israel equipped for war (for
example, the 600,000 men in the time of Moses,
the 800,000 Israelites and 500,000 Jews in the
census of David), as, indeed, a full call of all
those fit to bear arms ■ ould not be expected on
the present occasion. On the contrary, the re-
lation of the numbers in the several tribes
presents much that is surprising. The strength
of the th'ee eastern tribes (120,000), exceeding a
third of the sum total, and the likewise con-
siderable strength of Zebulun (50,000), Naphtali
(37,000), and Asher (40,000), seem to contrast in
a manner scarcely conceivable with the small
contingents of Judah, Simeon, Levi, and Benja-
min. But — 1. With regard to Benjamin, the
ground of his only small share in the festivities at
Hebron is expressly stated, and in a way entirrly
sntisfactory, and admitting of no further objec-
tion. 2. The number of the Levites is, in vers.
27, 28, not fully given, inasmuch as of the
third division of them, the house of Zadok, only
the number of the chiefs (22) and not that of the
common order is stated (as in Issachar only tha
■ Namely, from Judah,
6,800 men.
„ Simeon,
7,100 „
i. Levi, ....
Also with Jehoiads, .
4,600 „
3,700 „ (v
From Benjamin, .
3,000 ,
„ Ephraim, .
20,800 „
„ Half-Manasseh,
18,000 „
„ Issachar, .
f „ ('
„ Zebulun,
. 60,000 „
„ Nnphtali, .
37,000' „ (i
ii Dm,
28,000 „
„ Asher,
40,000 „
From the three eastern Tribes,
120,000 „
Sum,
(with 22 chiefs ot the house of Zadok).
(200 chiefs " and all their brethren'').
(with 1000 chiefs).
839,000 men (with 1222 chiefs and heads).
CHAP. XIII.
10;
number of the chiefs or heads is expressed, ver.
82). 3. Of Judah and Simeon are certainly only
comparatively very small numbers given, for
this reason, that the warriors of this tribe had
long since, seven years before, ranged themselves
on the side of David, and therefore, in the
review on the occasion of the solemnities of his
anointing, did not need to be represented in
their full military strength (which would have
reached in itself to between 100,000 and 200,000
men). These warriors of Judah and Simeon had
rather to act as commissaries, to make provision
for the greater bodies of troops ; and mo<t of
them were to be sought, not among the 'E^fcO
nish p^nfl (vers. 24, 25 ff.), but among the
CJ'ODn DiTTIK- 4. Yet highly surprising is
the numerical relation of the middle and northern
tribes west of the Jordan, namely, the smallness
of Ephridm (20,800) beside Zebulun and Naph-
tali. " But if we consider that Ephraim, which
had 40,500 men at the first census under Moses
at Mount Sinai, had diminished to 32,500 at
the second on the steppes of Moab, this tribe
may not at this time have been very strong
in men-at-arms, as it may have suffered and
been weakened most of all the tribes in the
last wars of Saul with the Philistines, and
in the battles of Abner for the recovery of
the region occupied by the Philistines for Ish-
bosheth. Moreover, perhaps Ephraim, in his
jealousy of Judah, dating from the time of the
Judges, might not be altogether inclined to make
David king over all Israel. That, however,
Zebulun and Naphtali are here so numerously
represented, though they played no important
part in the history of Israel, is not enough to
cast suspicion on the numbers given. As
Zebulun under Moses numbered 57,400, and
afterwards 60,500, and Naphtali then 53,400,
afterwards 45,400 men-at-arms (comp. Num.
i.-iii. with Num. xxvi.), the former might send
50,000, the latter 37,000, men to David at Heb-
ron " (Keil). The subsequent smallness and in-
significance of thesn tribes (comp Evangelical-
Ethical Reflections on ch. i.-ix., No. 2, p. 92)
is simply explained by their only imperfect re-
storation after the destruction of the kingdom oi
Israel by Shalmaneser. — The credibility of the
data of our list cannot in general be doubted
according to all this, that is, irrespective of
particular conniptions of the text that are always
to be admitted as possible. It would much more
present matter for well-founded doubts if the
numerical strength of the several tribes attested
in it were exactly proportional to the data of
Numbers regarding the early relations of the
military divisions. The appearance of something
surprising in the present numerical data speaks
directly for their true historical origin, and im-
poses the greatest caution on the modern critic of
the contents of our chapter, that exhibit so many
traces of fresh originality and high antiquity.
This also may perhaps be urged as a proof of the
essentially unchanged transmission of the present
documents from the author, that the tribe of Dan,
which is elsewhere often omitted, as it seems in-
tentionally, by the Chronist, is here expressly
mentioned, and in no disparaging way ; comp.
ver. 35 with Introd. § 6, No. 1, p. 24, and with
the remarks on vi. 46 and vii. 12.
t. The Removal of the Ark from Kiriath-jearim : ch. xiii.
Ch. xiii. 1. And David consulted with the captains of thousands and of hundreds,
2 with every leader. And David said unto all the congregation of Israel, If it
seem good to you, and it be of the Lord our God, let us send quickly unto our
brethren remaining in all lands of Israel, and with them the priests and Levites
3 in the cities of their suburbs, that they gather unto us. And let us bring again
4 the ark of our God to us ; for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul. Arid
all the congregation said, We must do so ; for the thing was right in the eyes of
5 all the people. And David gathered all Israel, from Shihor of Egypt even unto
Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim.
6 And David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah, unto Kiriath-jearim, which be-
longed to Judah, to bring up thence the ark of God the Lord, that sitteth over
7 the cherubim, as He is called by name. And they carried the ark of God on a
new waggon from the house of Abinadab ; and Uzza and Ahio drove the
8 waggon. And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and
with songs and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and cymbals,
and trumpets.
9 And they came to the threshing-floor of Chidon ; and Uzza put forth his
1 0 hand to hold the ark ; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Uzza, and He smote him, because he put his hand to the ark ; and
11 he died there before the Lord. And David was angry, because the Lord had
i 2 made a breach upon Uzza ; and that place is called Perez-uzza to this day. And
David was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God to
13 me! And David removed not the ark to him to the city of David, but placed
14 it in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained in the
house of Obed-edom in his house three months : and the Lord blessed the house
of Obed-edom, and all that he had.
108
I. CHRONICLES.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark.— In the second book
of Samuel, where ch. vi. 1-11 corresponds to the
present section, the history of the transference of
the ark from Kiriath-jearim to the house of Obed-
edom (which is there related, irrespective of the
somewhat shorter introduction, almost word for
word as her.;; ooinp. 2 Sam. vi. 2-11 with vers.
6-14 of our chapter) is immediately followed by
the account of the removal three months later of
the ark from that house to Zion. Our author,
on the contrary, inserted (ch. xiv.) an account
of David's house-building, his family, arid his
victory over the Philistines, which in 2 Sam. v.
11-25'follows the narrative of the taking of Zion,
between the history of the removal of the ark to
the house of Obed-edom and its introduction into
Zion, and, moreover, on the ground of an old
Levitical document, has treated this latter part
of the history with vastly greater detail and ful-
ness (see ch. xv. and xvi. ). The more circum-
stantial introduction of our chapter, vers. 1-5, to
which there is only one verse parallel in 2 Sam.
vi., may spring from the same source as the
following full detail in ch. xv., xvi.
1. Description of the Assembly in which the
Keinoval of the Ark from Kiriath-jearim was
resolved upon : vers. 1-5. — And David consulted
(comp. 2 Chron. x. 6, xxx. 2) with the captains
of tlwusands and of hundreds (comp. xv. 25),
with every leader. (s before T23~?3 serves here
for the brief recapitulation of the fore-mentioned,
thus, "in short, namely;" comp. Gen. xxiii. 10.
— Ver. 2. And David said unto all the congrega-
tion of Israel, that is, to those princes as the
representatives of the community (to the ecclesia
reprazsentativa); comp. 7^\) in Lev. xiv. 3; Deut.
xxxi. 30, etc. — If it seem good to you, properly,
"if it be good with you;" comp. Neh. ii. 5, 7;
Esth. i. 19, iii. 19. For the following; "and it
be of the Lord our God," comp. Gen. xxiv. 50;
Acts v. 39. — Let m send quickly, properly, "let
us break through (J*"IB) and send," that is, with
all diligence, and instant suppressing of all hesita-
tion ; comp. 1 Sam. xxviii. 23. Less certain is
the interpretation, flowing from the notion of
spreading out (so JHD, for example, Isa. liv. 3):
' ' send far and wide. " — Unto our brethren remain-
ing in all lands of Israel, in all lands of the several
tribes; comp. niTIXfba in Gen- xxvi- 3> i>
2 Chron. xi. 23, xxxiv. 33. The preposition pjj
before !QsnX, because in the sending is implied
at the same time the commanding (comp. pj; rwi).
After DffiDJ? ("with them," that is, here, "like-
wise, besides"), this ?y, or even ^j; nni>BO, is to
be repeated. — Ver. 4. We must do so, literally,
"to do so ;" p FliK'jta the infin. with *>, as iir
v. 1, ix. 25. — Ver. 5. All Israel, from Shihor of
Egypt even unto Hamath, that is, not all the
individuals, but a large representation of the
whole people (according to 2 Sam. vi. 1, a select
number of "0,0.00). "From Shihor of Egypt
even unto Hamath" means essentially the same
is "from Dan to Beersheba," namely, Palestine
from the south to the north border ; comp. Judg.
xx. 1; 2 Sam. iii. 10, xvii. II. D^SO lilTE' «
abbreviated for D'lSD ''iB'^V ItTN "lin*!?, Josh.
xiii. 3. It means the small stream between
Palestine and Egypt, which is otherwise called
the river of Egypt ('VO bm, Josh. xiii. 4, 47;
1 Kings viii. 65; 2 Chron. vii. 8, etc.), the
Rhinokorura of old, and the Wady el Arish of
the present. The Nile certainly bears the name
"lilK', that is, "black water" (Isa. xxiii. 3; Jer».
ii. 18); yet smaller waters are also so named, as
Josh. xix. 26, the shihor Libnath, in the tribe of
Asher, which, however, casts no doubt on our
interpretation. On riDH Kl^b, to denote the
northern border of Palestine, comp. Num. xxxiv.
5, 8; 2 Kings xiv. 25. Hamath, on the river
Orontes, on the southern slope of Antilibanus or
Hermon, an old Canaanitish colony (Gen. x. 8),
which the prophet Amos (vi. 2), in the 9th
century ii.c, designated " the great " (non
nai), and which still, in the Seleucidic and
Roman times, when it was called 'En f mux,
belonged to the most considerable Syrian cities,
was in David's time the seat of a king friendly to
David, but independent of him, and tolerably
powerful ; see xviii. 9 f . ; 2 Sam. viii. 9 ff.
2. The Execution of this Resolve ; vers. 6-14.
— And David went up, and all Israel. By "all
Israel" is undoubtedly to be understood here, as
well as in the foregoing verse, that assembly of
select representatives of the people from every
tribe, which amounted, 1 Sam. vi. 1, to 30,000
men. Neither the assumption that here, in
the fetching of the ark, the participation of
a much greater number is presupposed than
in that preparatory assembly, nor the hypo-
thesis that 2 Sam. vi. 1 originally conveyed the
sense : "And David multiplied all the men of
war in Israel, the Sheloshim and the captains
of thousands" (instead of 30,000), is neces-
sary (against Berth.), as the indefinite "all
Israel " would suit even a smaller number of
representatives than 30,000. — To Baalah, unto
Kiriath-jearim. For S JVIp 7N WTO3 might
be expected, from Josh. xv. 9, perhaps nfli>S3
tt-:t
' p NT! ; for Baalah is the older Canaanitish
name for Kiriath-jeariir, which is also called
Kiriath-baal (Josh. xv. 60, xviii. 14). Yet the
thing is expressed intelligibly enough; the "to
Baalah " is sufficiently explained by the addi-
tion, "unto Kiriath-jearim." F r the addition,
"which belonged to Judf.n. ' cjmp. ;n Judg.
xviii. 12, and for the situa:;on of Kiriath-jearim,
the present Kureyet el Enab, on the way from
Jerusalem to Ramleh and Lydda (three" hours
from Jerusalem), comp. Rob. Pal. ii. 589. — That
sitteih over the cherubim, as He is called by name.
ie*K, here i>s, "as" (comp. Ew Lehrb. §333, a);
the ace. of reference QtJ' belongs not merely to
nin\ but to Duron 3B» mn\ and designates
the whole phrase as a usual epithet of God in
religious worship; comp. Isa. xxxvii. 16; Ps.
lxxx. 2. Others would refer -|jj»K to (iix, &a^
CHAP. XIV.
109
change Q{j» into Q£>3 (Kamph. : "which is called
by the name"), or even change qb> into Q{^ (with
reference to 2 Sam. vi. 2, where also og> is once
to be read), and so get the sense: "who was there,
at the ark, addressed" (Berth.; comp. Then, on
2 Sam. vi.). See, on the contrary, and in favour
of our interp., Keil, p. 144. — Ver. 7. And they
carried . . .from the house of Abinadab. T lis
house lay oi. a hill in Kiriath - jearim (njJ333,
1 Sam. vii. 1), not in a place Gibeah, near
Kiriath-jearim, as the passage 1 Sam. vii. 1
seems to say in the faulty translation of the Vulg.
and Luther (comp. G. Hoffmann, Biicke in die
friih. Gesch. d. gelobten Land's, i. p. 156). Uzza
and Ahio, the drivers of the waggon with the ark,
are, 2 Sam. vi., expressly called the sons of Abina-
dab. — Ver. 8. WUh all their might, and with
songs, and with harps, etc. The parallel : ' ' with
all woods of cypresses," in 2 Sam. vi. 5, rests on
a corruption of the text, and is, as >> !#%ii of the
Sept. there shows, to be amended by our passage
(tjr?33) 1 comp. 2 Sam. vi. 14. For the in-
struments here named, particularly the harps,
psalteries, and cymbals, see on xv. 16. — Cymbals
and trumpets. The words presented instead of
nrrcrcrni nwxoa "» 2 Sam. vi. 5 : Drwyjoai
DWX31, " and with rattles and with cymbals,"
are perhaps more original ; at least the D'JJJJJJD
(Vulg. sistra), occurring nowhere else, might
easily have been suppressed by the alleviating
correction of a later hand (comp. Wellh. p.
167 f. ).
3. TJzza's Fall, and the Placing of the Ark in
tho House of Obed-edom : vers. 9-li.—And they
came to the threshing-floor of Chidon. The name
Hi3 is written, in 2 Sam. vi. 6, [133 (Sept. Hx%<ip),
a reading scarcely preferable to our own. — For tlie
oxen shook it, were on the point of upsetting it
(Sept. i%ixXiviv utirtit; Vulg. paululum inclinaverant
earn) ; the ark of itself supplies the subject to
lOOE*. Others give "the oxen let go" (Berth.),
or "stept aside" (Luther and many ancients), or
"flung on every side, " Ew., etc. — Ver. 10. And
the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza,
whose error might lie less in the accidental and
involuntary touching of the ark, as in his con-,
veying this sacred thing on an ox waggon, instead
of having it borne according to the law (Num.
vii. 9, x. 17); comp. what David afterwards did,
xv. 2. For the parallel text of Samuel to be
amended by our passage, comp. Thenius and
Wellhausen. — Ver. 13. In the Iwuse of Obed-
edom the Gittite; according to xv. 18, 24, this
Obed-edom was one of the Levitical porters ;
whence we are not to think of the Philistine
Gath, but the Levitical city Gath-rimmon (Josh,
xix. 45, xxi. 24), as his birth-place. — Ver. 14. In
the house of Obed-edom in Km house, in his own
tent, which was spread over it in the court of this
Levite (thus, in his dwelling-house, iiTS'Dj;).
This text appears more correct than that in 2' Sam.
vi. , which only states that the ark remained ' ' in
the house of Obed-edom the Gittite." — And all
that he had. For this 2 Sam. vi. has : "and all
his house." The various reading of our passage
"is well chosen, because, just before, iJV3 was
used of the tent of the ark" (Berth.). That the
blessing which God gave to Obed-edom consisted
chiefly in numerous offspring, appears from xxvi.
4-8. Yet, even during the three months men-
tioned in our passage, David must have clearly
perceived that the Lord's anger was sufficiently
appeased by the death of Uzza, and that the re-
moval of the ark to Jerusalem involved no danger,
but would be attended with blessed effects.
£. David's House-Building, Family, and Victories over the Philistines: ch. xiv.
Oh. XIV. 1. And Hiram1 king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar- wood,
2 and masons, and carpenters, to build him a house. And David perceived that
the Lord had confirmed him king over Israel; for his kingdom was lift up on
high, because of his people Israel.
3 And David took more wives in Jerusalem ; and David begat more sons
4 and daughters. And these are the names of those born to him in Jerusalem :
5 Shammua and Shobab, Nathan and Solomon. And Ibhar, and Elishua, and
6, 7 Elpelet. And Nogah, and Nepheg, and Japhia. And Elishama, and Beeliada,
and Eliphelet.
8 And the Philistines teard that David was anointed king over all Israel;
and aii the Philistines went up to seek David : and David heard it, and went
9 out against them. And the Philistines came and spread themselves in the
10 valley of Eephaim. And David inquired of God, saying, Shall I go up against
the Philistines, and wilt Thou give them into my hand 1 And the Loud said
1 1 unto him, Go up, and I will give them into thy hand. And they went up to
Baal-perazim ; and David smote them there ; and David said, God hath
broken my enemies by my hand, like the breaking of waters ; therefore they
12 called the name of that place Baal-perazim. And they left their gods there;
and David ordered, and they were burnt with fire.
1 3, 14 And the Philistines came again and spread themselves in the valley.2 And
David inquired again of God ; and God said unto him, Go not up after them ;
15 turn away from them, and come upon them by the bacas. And it shall bo,
when thou hearest the sound going on the tops of the bacas, then go out to
110
I. CHRONICLES.
the battle ; for God is gone out before thee to smite the camp of the Philistines.
16 And David did as God commanded him: and they smote the camp of the
17 Philistines, from Gibeon even unto Gezer. And David's fame went out into
all lands ; and the Loed brought his fear upon all nations.
1 Kethib' DTI"!- Keri: Dili"!, as always In Chronicles (Sept. Xtipifi, as ever).
* For BDJD the SeP1- snd sy- read D'SST pDJH, which ls perhaps original; comp. 2 Sam. v. 22
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — On the different posi-
tion of this section in 2 Sam. v. 11-25, namely,
before the history of the removal of the ark from
If iriath-jearim, comp. the Preliminary Remark on
eh. xiii. The motive of the Chronist for the
transposition is evidently the wish to represent
the preparations for the removal of the national
sanctuary to Jerusalem as the first undertaking of
the king after the taking of the capital, to exhibit
the building of his own palace as a work certainly
taken in hand soon after, but still standing behind
that all-important concern. To the history of the
beginning of the palace-building is attached in
the sources common to both historians a descrip-
tion of the blessing which attended David as a
father and a captain in the battles with the
Philistines. Our author took this description, in
the main unaltered, along with the notice of the
beginning of the palace-building, over into his
narrative, undeterred .by the appearance thence
irising of the events in question, especially the
two successful battles with the Philistines, having
fallen in the three months between the removal of
the ark to the house of Obed-edom and its intro-
duction into Jerusalem. This grouping is here,
as often in his representation of the history of
David, determined by the order of thought rather
than of time.
1. David's Palaee-building and Family: vers.
1-7. — The text of the older parallel, 2 Sam. v.
11-16, agrees in the main with the present, only
here and there more precise. — And cedar-wood,
and masons, and carpenters, literally, " and
timbers (beams) of cedars, and craftsmen of walls,
and craftsmen of timbers" (Vulg. artifices parie-
tum liynorumque). — Ver. 2. And David perceived
(concluded from the high honour which was con-
ferred upon him by this message from the Pheni-
cian king) that the Lord had confirmed him kin;/
over Israel, definitely transferred the kingdom to
him, established (" bestatigt," Luther) him as
king. — For his kingdom was lift up on high.
nNtW) if genuine, would be an irregularly formed
3 fern. perf. Niph. (not, as 2 Sam. xix. 43, an inf.
abs. Niph.) from jjSMi intensified by the i"6j)ol>,
"on high ;" comp. xxii. 5, xxiii. 17, xxix. 3-25.
But perhaps, as in 2 Sam. v. 12, the perf. Pie.l
j{tj>3 is to be read, and Jehovah taken as the sub-
ject: "and tnat He had exalted his kingdom."
For iPD$>DD, 2 Sam. v., our text presents the
later (occurring also xvii. 11, 14) form inota,
perhaps merely by a slip of the pen ; see Wellh.
p. 164. — Ver. 3. And David, took more wives in,
Jerusalem. Before Qigjj in 2 Samuel stands
D'SOTD. which mny have fallen accidentally out
of oui passage, as the concubines of David are
mentioned in iii. 9. Comp. on iii. 5-9, where
the names of the thirteen sons of David born in
Jerusalem, and the partly different spelling here
and there, are fully handled.
2. The First War with the Philistines : vera
8-12 (comp. 2 Sam. v. 17-21). — To seek David,
to attack, t^'pO?, sensu hostili, as in 1 Sam. xxiii.
15, 25, xxiv. 3, xxvi. 2. — And David heard it,
and went out against them, properly, " before
them;" comp. xii. 17. Into this general and
indefinite expression our author has changed the
more concrete, but also more obscure, statement
of Samuel: "and went down to the hold" (the
hold of Zion), perhaps designedly. — Ver. 9. And
spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim ;
comp. on xi. 15, 2 Sam. v. 18: "sat down in the
valley of Rephaim. " The perhaps more original
IB'tSHIi 2 Sam. v. 18, 22, the Chronist has here
and ver. 13 exchanged for the simpler and more
intelligible ^DE'B'V — Ver. 11. Like the breaking
of waters, like an outburst of water (q^D }'"IS3).
We may think of the rending or outbursting of
enclosing dams by rapid floods, perhaps after a
water-spout. The situation of Baal-perazim can-
not be exactly ascertained. Mount Perazim, Isa.
xxviii. 21, is not essentially different from it. —
Ver. 12. And they left their gods there. 2tSam.
v. : " their idols " (DiT2XJ7)- The present phra."*
is the stronger ; it yields, along with the follow-
ing statement regarding the burning of these gods,
a bitterly sarcastic sense. The burning took place,
moreover, on the ground of the divine command
in Deut. vii. 5, 25. The text of Samuel weakens
the statement in a strange way: " and David and
his men took them away." If the more concrete
and stronger statement of our author is a tradi-
tional expansion of that text, the tradition on
which it rests is at all events credible ; comp.
Movers, p. 224. By this victory, David wiped
out the old disgrace of Israel, which rested on the
people since Eli's time. " .is then Israel lost the
ark, 1 Sam. iv. 11, so now the sacred things of
the Philistines fell into the hands of the Israelites"
(Berth.).
3. The Second War with the Philistines : vers.
13-17 (comp. 2 Sam. v. 22-25).— And spread
themselves in the valley, that is, as the parallel
text (so as the Sept. and Syr.; see Crit. Note)
shows, in the same valley as above, ver. 9,
scarcely in another at Gibeon, as Movers, p. 243,
thinks. — Ver. 14. Oo not up after them, that is,
as Samuel shows: "go not directly towards them;
seek not to drive them before thee by a direct
attack." Perhaps also our text is somewhat
faulty, and to he amended, according to 2 Sam.
v. 23: Drp-lflN hit 3DH rbllT) t&, by the change
of DiTiriK iu onvy (Berth.). — And come upon
CHAP. XV.
m
them by the bacon, literally, over against the
bacas. These we must suppose, as the divine com-
mand implies a going round the Philistine army,
to be behind them. The baca, mentioned only
here and 2 Sam. v., and perhaps Ps. lxxxiv. 7, is,
according to Abulfadi (in Celsius, Hierobot. i.
839), a plant related to the balsam tree, and re-
sembling it, which, when cut, discharges a white,
sharp, and warm resin in the manner of tears, and
appears to have received its name from S33,
flare. The older expositors, wavering uncertainly,
render the term variously: Sept. Utiss, Vulg.
pyrus; Luther, after the Jewish expositors, mul-
berry tree. — Ver. 15. The sound going on the
tope of the bacas, namely, the rustling of their
leaves in the wind (Sept. : rhi tpcovh nii ev<r<m<rp.t>v
xiitSv), not the sound occasioned by the entrance
of God (supernatural, as in Gen. iii. 8). As the
baca has much larger leaves than the ordinary
balsam, the rustling of them may occasion a suffi-
ciently loud sound ; the rendering " baca trees "
(Kamph.) is therefore unnecessary. — Ver. 16.
And they smote the camp of the Philistines, from
Gibeon even unto Gezer. Two places of this name
lie to the north-west of Jerusalem, the former
(now el Jib) 2£, the latter 4J, hours distant from
it. If the battle-field is to be sought between the
two, in the region of Upper and Nether Beth-horon,
the valley, ver. 13, may still be the valley of
Rephaim ; only the site of it should be sought
not so far south, as Thenius and Bertheau suppose
(who also read for Gibeon in our passage, "Geba,"
according to 2 Sam. v. 25), and the battle must
be regarded as moving in a north-westerly direc-
tion from its starting-point (comp. Wellh. on
2 Sara. v. 25, also Ew. Gench. d. V. Isr. ii. 610).
— Ver. 17. And David's fame went out into all
lands ; and the Lord brought his fear upon all
nation*, literally, " gave his fear upon all
nations;" comp. Esth. viii. 17. A pragmatic
reflection of our author added to the original text,
as its absence in 2 Sam. v. 25 shows. Comp. the
similar reflections in 2 Chron. xvii. 10, xx. 29.
On Q{j> {$VS1 especially, comp. 2 Chron. xxvi. 15.
ij. The Removal of the Ark to Jerusalem, with the Solemn Hymn sung on this occasion:
ch. xv., xvi.
Ch. XV. 1. And he made him houses in the city of David, and he prepared a place
for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent.
2 Then David said, None should carry the ark of God but the Levites ; for
the Lord hath chosen them to carry the ark of God, and to minister to Him
1 for ever. And David gathered all Israel to Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of
4 the Lord unto its place which he had prepared for it. And David assembled
5 the sons of Aaron, and the Levites. Of the sons of Kohath : Uriel the chief,
6 and his brethren a hundred and thirty. Of the sons of Merari : Asaiah the
7 chief, and his brethren two hundred and twenty. Of the sons of Gershom : Joel
8 the chief, and his brethren a hundred and thirty. Of the sons of Elizaphan :
9 Shemaiah the chief, and his brethren two hundred. Of the sons of Hebron :
10 Eliel the chief, and his brethren eighty. Of the sons of Uzziel : Amminadab the
11 chief, and his brethren a hundred and twelve. And David called Zadok and
Abiathar the priests, and the Levites Uriel, Asaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and
1 2 Eliel, and Amminadab. And said unto them, Ye chiefs of the Levites, sanctify
yourselves with your brethren, and bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel
1 3 to the place I have prepared for it. For because ye were not at the first, the
1 4 Lord our God broke out upon us, because we sought Him not aright. And the
priests and Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of
15 Israel. And the sons of the Levites bare the ark of God, as Moses commanded
by the word of the Lord, upon their shoulders, with staves upon them.
16 And David said to the chiefs of the Levites, to appoint their brethren the
singers with instruments, psalteries, and harps, and cymbals, sounding, to lift up
17 the sound with gladness. And the Levites appointed Heman son of Joel; acd
of his brethren, Asaph son of Berechiah ; and of the sons of Merari their brethren,
18 Ethan son of Kushaiah.1 And with them their brethren of the second degree :
Zechariah,2 and Jaaziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, Eliab, and
Benaiah, and Maaseiah, and Mattithiah, and Elipheleh, and Mikneiah, and Obed-
19 edom, and Jeiel, the porters. And the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, with
20 cymbals of brass to sound aloud. And Zechariah, and Aziel, and Shemiramoth,
and Jehiel, and Unni, and Eliab, and Maaseiah, and Benaiah, with psalteries,
21 in the way of maidens. And Mattithiah, and Elipheleh, and Mikneiah, and
Obed-edom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah, with harps after the octave to lead.
22 And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites ; 3 for he instructed in bearing, for ho
23 was skilful. And Berechiah and Elkanah were door-keepers for the ark.
24 And Shebaniah, and Joshaphat, and Nathaneel, and Amasai, and Zechariah,
112 I. CHRONICLES.
and Benaiah, and Eliezer, the priests, blew4 with the trumpets before the ark of
God ; and Obed-edom and Jehiah were door keepers for the ark.
25 And David, and the elders of Israel, and the captains of thousands, were
going to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the house of Obed
26 edom with gladness. And when God helped the Levites bearing the ark of the
27 covenant of the Lord, then they offered seven bullocks and seven rams. And
David was clothed with a robe of byssus, and all the Levites bearing the ark,
and the singers, and Chenaniah the master of the bearing [the singers] ;« and upon
28 David was a linen ephod. And all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of
the Lord with shouting, and with sound of cornet, and with trumpets, and with
29 cymbals sounding, with psalteries and harps. And when the ark of the covenant
of the Lord came to the city of David, then Michal, daughter of Saul, looked out
from the window, and saw King David leaping and playing; and she despised him
in her heart.
Ch. XVI. 1. And they brought the ark of God, and set it in the tent that David had
pitched for it ; and they offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings before God.
2 And David made an end of offering burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and blessed
3 the people in the name of the Lord. And he dealt to every one of Israel, both
man and woman, to every one a loaf of bread, and a measure [of wine], and a grape
cake.
4 And he appointed before the ark of the Lord ministers of the Levites, to
5 record, and to thank and to praise the Lord God of Israel. Asaph the chief, and
next to him Zechariah, Jeiel,6 and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mattithiah, and
Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, with psalteries and harps ; and
6 Asaph sounding with cymbals. And Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests with
7 trumpets continually before the ark of the covenant of God. On that day then
David ordered for the first time to thank the Lord by Asaph and his
brethren.7
8 Thank ye the Lord, call on His name,
Make known His deed among the peoples.
9 Sing ye to Him, play ye to Him ;
Muse on all His wonders.
10 Glory ye in His holy name ;
Let the heart of them that seek the Lord be glad.
11 Seek ye the Lord and His strength,
Seek ye His face continually.
12 Eemember His wonders that He hath done,
His signs, and the judgments of His mouth.
13 0 ye seed of Israel His servant,
Ye sons of Jacob, His chosen.
14 He the Lord is our God,
His judgments are in all the earth.
15 Eemember His covenant for ever —
The word He commanded to a thousand a^es.
16 Which He made with Abraham,
And His oath unto Isaac.
17 And appointed it to Jacob for a statute,
To Israel for an everlasting covenant.
If) Saying, To thee I give the land of Canaan,
The line of your inheritance.
19 When ye were small in number,
Few, and strangers in it.
20 And they went from nation to nation,
And from one kingdom to another people.
21 He let m. man do them wrong,
And reproved kings for their sake.
22 " Touch not mine anointed,
And do my prophets no harm."
CHAP. XVI. 11
33 Sing ye to the Lord, all the earth ;
Proclaim from day to day His salvation.
24 Tell ye among the nations His glory,
His wonders among all the peoples.
25 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised ;
And He is to be feared above all gods.
26 For all the gods of the peoples are idols ;
But the Lord made the heavens.
27 Majesty and honour are before Him,
Strength and gladness are in His place.
28 Give unto the Lord, ye kindreds of the people,
Give unto the Lord glory and strength.
29 Give to the Lord the glory due to His name ;
Bring an oblation, and come before Him ;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
30 Tremble before Him, all the earth :
The world will also stand fast without moving.
31 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth, rejoice ;
And let them sing among the nations, The Lord reigneth.
32 Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof;
Let the field rejoice, and all that is therein.
33 Then shall the trees of the wood sing out
Before the Lord ; for He cometh to judge the earth.
34 Thank ye the Lord ; for He is good ;
For His mercy endureth for ever.
35 And say ye, Save us, 0 God of our salvation,
And gather us and deliver us from the heathen,
To thank Thy holy name,
To glory in Thy praise.
36 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
For ever and ever.
And all the people said, Amen, and praised the Lord.
37 And he left there, before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, Asaph ana
his brethren, to minister before the ark continually, for the day's work in its day.
38 And Obed-edom8 and their brethren sixty and eight; and Obed-edom, son of
39 Jedithun, and Hosah, to be porters. And Zadok the priest, and his brethren
the priests, before the tabernacle of the Lord, in the high place that was at
40 Gibeon. To offer burnt-offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt-offering con-
tinually morning and evening, and for all that is written in the law of the Lord,
41 which He commanded Israel. And with them Heman and Jeduthun, and the
rest that were chosen, who were expressed by name, to thank the Lord, that His
42 mercy endureth for ever. And with them, Heman and Jeduthun,9 were trumpets
and cymbals for loud sounding, and [other] instruments of God ; and the sons of
43 Jeduthun were at the gate. And all the people went every man to his house ;
and David turned in to bless his house.
1 ^iTdp, without variation, while in vi. 29 the name is HWj3> and so the Sept. read here K/<r«i'» (Vnlg.
Casqjx) .
2 )3 after 1HH3T has come into the text by a mistake of the pen, as the 1 before the next name shows. On the
contrary, the name IfPttJ? seems to have fallen out at the close of ver. 18 (see Exeg.).
' Xe'DS. So most editions, in the first place; whereas R. Korzi has KE5T33 even the first time.
* Kithib: D'HSYnD- Keri: D,_ISnD (partic. Siph.) The same variation recurs 2 Chron. i. 13, where, how-
ever, the Keri is to be read as partic. Pi. (D^SfllBP)-
H
!H
I. CHRONICLES.
» The words ff-nSTOn K&tSn l^n rVJMI are wanting in the ft,*. At least, D-yi^i? should apparent,
be erased as unmeaning (comp. Exeg.), though the S-pt, and Vulg. have it.
« Instead of btf"V after xv. 18 is certainly to be r.ad here, in the first place (after niCn'Dt."). WW-
' The variants in this song, from its parallel in the Psalter (Ps. cv., xcvi., cvi.',. see in Exeg.
» After D1X -QJ>, as the plur. suff. in DrTTtXl sho»-s must at least one name, probably HDHl (see the follow-
ing), have fallen out. v
» The names plJVlTl JOTl were not read by the Sept. (»»! ^r' «i™. MlrwB *"' xu^«x» "• «.*««.i-,
».r.X ), and appear to be repeated by mistake from the preceding verse, which also begins with DHByV
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — Instead of the brief
description of the parallel text 2 Sam. vi. 11-23,
our author gives a detailed account: 1. Of the
preparations for the solemn act of transferring the
ark into its new sanctuary in Jerusalem, xv. 1-24,
including a. The erection of the tent for the
reception of the ark, ver. 1 ; b. a conference of the
king with the priests and Levites, vers. 2-16; and
c. the selection of the Levites appointed for the
chief part in the solemnity (and therefore desig-
nated by name), vers. 16-24. 2. Then follows
the execution of the so prepared holy act itself,
xv. 25 -xvi. 3 ; at the close of which comes the
description of the first solemn service before the
ark in its new sanctuary on Zion, xvi. 4-43, in-
cluding the psalm of praise and thanks then sung,
vers. 8-36. This long closing section is (except
the last verse) peculiar to the Chronist. On its
credibility, and especially on the genuineness and
age of the psalm of praise and thanks, see at the
close of these expositions.
1 . The Preparation for the Removal ; and first,
a. The erection of the tent on Zion: xv. 1. — And
he -made him houses m the city of David. This
may be understood of the building of other houses
besides the palace built with the aid of Hiram of
Tyre, xiv. 1 (Berth., Kamph.); but as the verb
used is nK>5)> riot nj3, it appears rather to refer to
the internal finishing of a palace for the abode of
the king and his wives. — And he prepared a place
for the ark of God. This was probably in the
immediate neighbourhood of the king's house
adjoining it ; for here the one of the two existing
high priests, Abiathar the Ithamaride, who, since
the massacre at Nob, was constantly about David
(as it were his court or domestic priest, while
Zadok of the house of Eleazar officiated at Gibeon),
was to exercise his functions. — And pitched for
it a tent, we ma}7 suppose, after the model of the
old tabernacle still existing at Gibeon (xvi. 39 f.,
xxi. 29; 1 Kings iii. 4 ff.), but only as a pro-
visional sanctuary.
2. Continuation, b. The conference with the
priests and Levites : vers. 2-15. — Then David
said, namely, at the end of the three months,
xiii. 14. — None should carry, properly, " it is
not to carry. " With this confession of the sole
right of the Levites to carry the ark (comp.
Num. i. 50, iv. 15, vii. 9, x. 17), David acknow-
ledges that it was unlawful to convey it on a
waggon, xiii. 7. — Ver. 3. And David (fathered
all Israel, by its natural representatives, the
elders and captains of thousands ; see ver. 25, and
eomp. 2 Sam. vi. 15 : " all the house of Israel."
Of this summons to a previous consultation in
Jerusalem nothing further is reported, 2 Sam. vi.
— Ver. 4. And David assembled the sons of Aaron,
<wd the Levites ; he formed of these representa-
tives of the priesthood an inner circle in the
assembly of the people, to hear their counsel re-
garding the order of the solemnities. " The sons
of Aaron" are the high priests Zadok and Abia-
thar, ver. 11; the "Levites "are the six chiefs
named in vers. 5-10, with their brethren. — Ver.
5. Of the sons of Kohath: Uriel the chief ; see
vi. 9. The Kohathite chief is named first, be-
cause the ministry of the most holy, the carrying
of the most holy vessels of the tabernacle, belonged
to the Kohathites, the family from which Aaron
the high priest sprang, Num. iv. 4, 15, vii. 9
(Keil). — On the Merarite chief Asaiah, comp. vi.
15 ; on Joel, the chief of the sons of Gershom,
vi. 21. — Vers. 8-10 name the chiefs of three othur
Kohathite families, those of Elizaphan ( = Elza-
phan son of Uzziel, Ex. vi. 22), of Hebron (son
of Kohath, Ex. vi. 18 ; comp. 1 Chron. v. 28),
and of Uzziel. The last named is probably not
different from the Kohathite Uzziel, father of
Elizaphan, Ex. vi. 22 ; there are thus formed of
the sous of this Uzziel two houses, of which one
is named after Elizaphan, the other after Uzziel
himself, and not any of his other sons. There
are then in all four Kohathite houses, with one
Merarite and one Gershomite, here represented : a
strong preference of the house of Kohath, which
is not surprising, because the conveyance of the
ark specially belonged to them. — Ver. 11. And
David called Zadok (of Eleazar, v. 27 ff. ) and
Abiathar (of Ithamar), the high priests, who
then acted together ; see above on ver. 1, and
comp. xxiv. 3; 2 Sam. xv. 2411, xx. 25. — Ver. 12.
Ye chiefs of the Levites, literally, " ye chiefs of
the fathers of the Levites ;" comp. viii. 6, 10. —
Sanctify yowselves with your brethren, properly,
"ye and your brethren." The "sanctifying"
consisted in keeping from their wives, from con-
tact with unclean things, and also in washing the
body and the clothes ; comp. Gen. xxxv. 2 with
Ex. xix. 10, 15, also 2 Chron. xxx. 3. — To (the
place) / have prepared for it, \p Tli3''3ii"?8-
The same elliptical construction (with omitted
1^, or immediate connection of the relative,
sentence with the preposition) see in 2 Chron. i. 4 ,
comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 3; 2 Chron. xvi. 9, xxx. 18;
Neh. viii. 10 (Ew. § 333, 6).— Ver. 13. For because
ye were not at the beginning, or "ye were not
those who bare the ark." " At the beginning,"
on the former occasion, when three months before
the ark was brought from Kiriath-jearim, xiii.
On the peculiar construction njiE'SOSD? (from
nth aTi<i raiwia), comp. na&no = nj6rrrro,
Mai. i. 13, and Ew. § 91, d. no!> in this com-
pound signifies "for this, that," "beoau»e;"
CHAP. XV. 15-22.
Ah
*>mp. Ew. § 222, a, 353, a.— The Lord our God
broke out upon us (xiii. 11), because me sought Him
not aright, because we approached Him not in the
manner prescribed by law, had neglected to testify
eur reverence to Him by keeping the legal regula-
tion, that only Levites should bear the holy things
— Ver. 15. And the sons of the Levites bear the
ark of God. An anticipation, occasioned by that
which was said in the verse before of the imme-
diate execution of the order for the purification
of the Levites. See the particulars, ver. 25 ff. —
Upon their shoulders, with staves upon them, upon
their shoulders. On nt21D (from [31D, "waver"),
the pole, comp. Num. xiii. 23 (also Lev. xxvi. 13;
Ezek. xxxiv. 27). In the Pentat. the poles are
besides called D^a, Ex. xxv. 13 ff., etc.
3. Close, c. The appointment of the Levitical
singers for the solemnity: vers. 16-24. — To ap-
point their brethren the singers with instruments,
properly, "with instruments of song, " that is, to
accompany the singing. Such thjJ i|j3 (comp.
Neh. xii. 36) are now named in three classes : 1.
D^23, $**-*ifiB (Sept.), or nablia (Vulg.), guitar-
like instruments, consisting of an oblong chest
with flat bottom and convex sounding board, over
which strings of wire were stretched, called by
Luther, in accordance with the Sept. (and the
Arab, santir), psalteries, by others "harps" or
nablia ; 2. ni"l])3 (Sept. xhufm, Vulg. lyras), harps
or lute:like instruments, rendered by Luther not
unsuitably, " harps," though lutes would perhaps
be more correct [rather should the former be
called lutes] ; 3. DViPXD (equivalent to the older
term D'i^V, 2 Sam. vi. 5; Ps. cl. 5), here more
fully defined by the epithet D^'DBfo, " clear-
«ounding" (making to hear), which belongs neither
to all the three instruments (Berth.), nor to the
too remote "their brethren the singers" (Kamph. ),
but, as in vers. 19, 28, and xvi. 5, 42, only to
DwXD ; comp. Bbttch. Neue exeg. -krit. Aehrenl.
hi. 223 f. (who, however, assigns to the term the
unsuitable meaning, "beating time"). — To lift up
the sound with gladness, to express or signify joy;
uomp. ver. 25; 2 Chron. xxiii. 18, xxix. 30. This
telic clause refers not merely to the clear-sounding
cymbals, but to the chief sentence. — Ver. 17. And
the Levites appointed Heman son of Joel. That
this Heman was of the family of the Kohathites,
and Asaph of the Gershonites (comp. vi. 18, 24),
is not here stated ; only of the third song-master
Ethan is his family, or his descent from Merari,
expressly mentioned. On the name of Ethan's
father, Kushaiah, see Crit. Note. — Ver. 18. And
with them their brethren of the second degree.
On QiJsj'tSn, "the second in rank," comp. the
Bmg- rUK'Bn, 2 Kings xxiii. 4 and 1 Chron. xvi.
5. — Zechariah and Jaaziel. For the certainly
spurious |3 after }iT>"OJ, see Crit. Note. The
here named Jaaziel is certainly identical with the
Aziel, ver. 20, and with the Jeiel, xvi. 5, or rather
these names are to be changed into the present
one. — And Obed-edom and Jeiel the porters.
The office of doorkeeper does not exclude thnir
acting also as musicians, as ver. 21 shows. After
Jeiel, as the same verse teaches, the name Azaziah
must have fallen out, so that originally there were
not thirteen but fourteen persons named as musi-
cians of the second order. After these singers
and musicians have been mentioned by name (and
in two orders or ranks, vers. 17 and 18), they are
again brought forward, vers. 19-21, divided into
three choirs, after the musical instruments or.
which they played. — Ver. 1 9. The Cymbal Players:
-Heman, Asaph, and Ethan. — With cymbals of
brass to sound aloud, they were bound, had this
to do. The cymbals were wholly of brass; comp.
1 Cor. xiii. \: xa.\*is n%>**, and Joseph. Anti</.
Vll. 12. 3 : Kv{*.$a.).a. T6 h* •jrXa.r'ia. Ktti ftiyaXu.
£aXxs«. The " loud-sounding " (jpotPn) of the
three cymbal players was designed to beat time or
direct ; for in ver. 17 they are placed before as
leaders. — Ver. 20. The Players on Psalteries or
Nablia : Zechariah and Seven Others. Of these,
who are here repeated with slight changes from
ver. 18 (instead of Jaaziel, the second is here called
Aziel ; and at the end of the first series stands here
Maaseiah before Benaiah, there inversely), it is
here stated that they played with psalteiies in the
way of maidens. ni07JT/>J? is certainly the name.1
of that tone, which sounds in a high, clear voice,
that is, the soprano, as the following r),3,OB'n",?I?,
"after (or on) the octave," is equivalent to "on
the bass," al ottava bassa. Comp. Del. on Ps.
vi. 1, xlvi. 1. —Ver. 21 . The Harp or Lute Players :
Mattaniah and Five Others. — With harps after
the octave to lead. How this leading or directing
expressed by HV3 is distinct from that which is
expressed, ver. 19, by JJiDt^n. we can no longer
define ; at all events, it was not such directing as
could belong only to the music-master. Comp.
Delitzsch on Ps. iv. 1. — Vers. 22-24 bring forward
the other Levites engaged in the solemn procession.
— And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites, for bearing.
KfetD3 (or as perhaps is to be read, with E. Norzi,
NtJ>?33) is scarcely to be understood of any presid-
ing or overseeing action of Chenaniah (as the
Sept. i Hfx"' *»' <f$av, Vulg. prophetiae prceerat
ad prmcinendam melodiam ; Luth. "toinstructin
singing;" L. Lavater, supremus musicus ; Kamph.
and others, " the leader in execution," etc.).
The phrase is rather to be referred to the bearing
of the ark, which, according to ver. 23 f., is here
in question (comp. also xtJ'D 'n 2 Chron. xxxv. 3
and Num. iv. 19). With this agrees, rightly
conceived, ver. 27, as well as the later mention of
Chenaniah in xxvi. 29, where he is placed over
the outward business of the Levites (rightly
Berth, and Keil ; undecided Kamph.). — In-
structed in bearing; for he was skilful, acquainted
with the ritual, experienced in the ceremonial
relative to the bearing of the ark. "Whether we
take -|'d< as inf. abs. Kal in the sense of the
verb. fin. ID'S "instruct" (J. H. Mich., Gesen.,
etc.), or as imperf. of -nD = "nB', " te cnief»
command" (Berth., etc.), or as a subst. in the
sense of "instructor " (Keil), the meaning of pre-
siding, directing, leading, is at all events ex-
no
I. CHRONICLES.
pressed by the word. — Ver. 23. And JBerechiah
and Elkanah were doorkeepers for the ark, who
were to guard not so much the doors of the ark
itself as those of the tent that gave access to it ;
thus, in general, to guard the ark. As these two
at first, and then at the close of the following
verse, Obed-edom and Jehiih also, are named as
doorkeepers of the ark, we must regard the former
two as going before the ark during the solemn
procession, and the latter tw3 as following after.
Close by the ark, however, either immediately
before it or on the two sides, the seven priests
blowing trumpets, ver. 24, may be supposed to go.
— Ver. 24. And Shcbaniah . . . blew with trumpets
before the ark of God. Whether the Ketldb
D'lV'VHO (denom. from niViTl) or the Keri
Qi-lYrtD (Hiph, of isn) is read does not affect
the sense. The blowing of trumpets here is ac-
cording to the prescription, Num. x. 1-10, and
the example of the compassing of Jericho, Josh,
vi. 4-6. — And Obed-edom and Jehiah were door-
keepers for the ark. Of these, Obed-edom was a
son of Jeduthun, xvi. 38, and so perhaps different
from him of the same name among the singers,
vera. 18, 21 (though he also, ver. 18, is called a
doorkeeper). Perhaps also the Jehiah named with
him is not to be identified with Jehiel there
(vers. 18 and 21) named with Obed-edom (against
Raschi, Berth., etc.). It is plain that according to
all this the whole procession included the follow-
ing divisions : — 1. The singers arranged in three
choirs ; 2. Chenaniah the captain of the bearers
(as it were marshal) ; 3. Two doorkeepers ; 4.
Seven priests blowing trumpets close by the ark ;
5. Two doorkeepers. After these followed, ver.
25, the king, with the elders and captains of
thousands.
4. The Execution of that which was .resolved in
the Assembly : xv. 25-xvi. 3. — AndDavidand the
elders of Israel, and the captains of thousands
(commanders over the thousands, chiliarchs). ipji^
* :r
'\y\ TIT connects this with ver. 3, after the details
concerning the preparations have intervened. The
parallel 2 Sam. vi. 12 wants this connecting ippl
and does not mention the elders and chiliarchs
along with David. — Ver. 26. And when God
helped the Levites, permitted them without danger
or harm to convey the ark, thus to escape the
fate of Uzza. The offering of seven bullocks and
seven rams seems to have been made at the close
of the procession, after he conveyance had been
successfully conducted. Otherwise 2 Sam. vi.
13, where (at least in the Masoretic text) David,
after the bearers of the ark had made the first six
steps, offered a sacrifice. It is probable that both
accounts are original, and that the two must be
harmonized and combined. — Ver. 27. And David
was clothed with a robe of byssus. Instead of
these words (pa ^yp3 ^3"12D Till), 2 Sam.
vi. 14 presents ftrioa ~>3"}3D Till (with the
tddition rrtiT iish)- That tanao is corrupted
from naiab, and pn ijiyoa from tJT^3
(Berth., etc. ; also Bottcher, Neue Aehrenlese,
iii. 224), might be assumed, h the flUT *}*&,
wanting in our text, did not create a difficulty.
For this assumption, according to which the
Chronist shall have thought it unbecoming to
speak of David (and, with Berth., the Levites
also) dancing, though in ver. 29 and xiii. 8 he
states, or at least implies, this fact quite freely,
it is at all events easier to regard both texts as
abbreviations of one and the same narrative con-
tained in the common sources of our author,
which, besides the dancing of David (which the
Chronist merely presupposes, while the author of
2 Samuel gives it prominence), contained full
reports of the clothing of David, and of the
Levites around him. It is accordingly to be
supposed that the Chronist has taken only these
latter reports in full, " because the statement
concerning the clothing of the king and the
Levites appeared more important for the purpose
of describing fully the religious aspect of the pro-
cession, as this import of it was more conspicuous
here ; for the dress which the king wore had a
priestly character" (Keil ; coinp. Movers, p. 168).
That the verb ?3"I3, "to be wrapt up," belongs
to the later usage of speech, or rather, is properly
Chaldaic (Dan. iii. 21), can scarcely bring into
question the justice of this harmonistic assump-
tion (against Bottch.). — And all the Levites . . .
and the singers, and Chenaniah. To these also
obviously applies the being ' ' clothed with a robe
of byssus," which is first said of David. All
these, who are here in apposition with David, are
described as adorned with priestly attire, with
the meil of byssus (comp. the byssus attire of
the Levites and singers in the dedication of the
temple by Solomon, 2 Chron. v. 12, and for the
meil, the upper garment of distinguished persons,
1 Sam. ii. 19, xv. 27, xviii. 4, xxiv. 5 ; Ezra ix.
3 ; Job xxix. 14). The closing sentence, "and
upon David was a linen ephod, " first names the
distinguishing part of the clothing of the king as
the sovereign of the priestly people (comp. 2 Sam.
vi. 14). The designation of Chenaniah as "the
master of the bearing" (NJPBn ")|T1 with the
double article ; comp. Ew. § 290, d) is to be
understood according to ver. 22 ; the unmeaning :
"the singers," after N5?t2n, appeal's spurious (see
Crit. Note) ; even if we understood NJ«>o of musi-
cal performance, this addition would be disturb-
ing.— Ver. 28. With shouting, and with sound of
cornet, etc. Shorter and simpler 2 Sam. vi. 15,
without naming the several instruments. — Ver.
29. Then Michal . . . saw King David leaping
and playing. Instead of pnE>D1 TptO, 2 Sam.
vi. 16 has liTUDI MBO- This brief reference to
the well-known history, fully reported in 2 Sam.
vi. 16, 20-23, of the dispute between David and
Michal, shows sufficiently that the Chronist did
not wish to be silent concerning this matter from
dogmatic or aesthetic considerations. Moreover,
ver. 29-xvi. 3 agrees in all essentials with 2 Sam.
vi. 16-19a.— Ch. xvi. 3. To every one a loaf of
bread (arp 133, the more usual phrase for the
rarer '•> npn used in 2 Sam. vi. 19), and a measure
(of wine), and a grape cake. The IBtJ'N, occur-
ring only here and 2 Samuel, is explained by the
Vulg., Chald., and Syr., and by several Kabbis
and modems (Ew., Berth., Kamph.), as "apiece
CHAP. XVI. 4-27.
117
of flesh" (roast), as if from 13, ox, and jji'x, fire,
or rather from -|B{j> = epjv, " to burn. " But the
reference of the word to -|3CJ», in the sense of the
Aethiopie safara=metiri, " to measure, " is better
ascertained, according to which, n3B>N (with ^
prostliet.) signifies a portion of drink, a measure
of wine (de Dieu, Gesen., Rbdiger, Keil, etc.).
On n^t^X, "grape or raisin cake" (from £>£'&{,
to make firm, press), comp. Song ii. 5, Hos. iii.
1, and the equivalent D'plDVi xii. 40.
5. The First Solemn Service before the Ark in
Jerusalem, and the Institution of Divine Service
in, general: vers. 4-43. — a. The Levites appointed
for service by David: vers. 4-6. — And he appointed
(properly, "gave;" comp. ver. 7) before the ark
of the Lord ministers of the Levites, namely, as
the addition "to record, etc." shows, singers and
players for the purpose of sacred singing, Levi-
tical ministers {\uroupyi>uvTu.s, Sept.). — To record,
and to thank, and to praise. T3Ti"l!>, literally,
" to bring to remembrance, to pray at the m3TK
of the meat-offering " (Lev. ii. 2 ; comp. Ps.
xxxviii. 1, lxx. 1, and Del. on the first passage),
fining, properly, "to confess" (Sept., llopeXe-
yilvSxi), refers to the singing of psalms that pro-
minently confess and express thanks to God, as
yprb refers to the praises of the hallelujah songs.
— Ver. 5. Asaph the chief, and next to him
Zechariah, literally, "and as his second, his
next man (follower) ; " comp. Esth. x. 3. Of
the three song-masters and fourteen musicians
named in the list xv. 19-21, a part only are
named again : of the song-masters only Asaph,
and of the musicians only nine (namely, six of
the eight nebel-players and three of the six
kinnor-players), and also, ver. 6, of the seven
trumpet-blowers, only two, Benaiah and Jahaziel,
the latter of whom did not appear in xv. 24. As
we possess no parallel report to compare with the
contents of our section, nothing definite can be
conjectured of the relation of the present names
to those of the longer series, and it must be left
uncertain whether Jahaziel be identical with the
Eliezer named, ver. 24, along with Benaiah.
6. Continuation, b. The song of praise and
thanks by Asaph and his brethren : vers. 7-36. —
On that day then David ordered for the first time
■ . . by Asaph, etc. Properly, "then David gave
over ... by the hand of Asaph ;" "|vj m^ here
"to hand over, arrange." t^Xia, not "by the
chief, by Asaph," but "first, for the first time ; "
comp. t^xno, Isa. xl. 21. This is the first intro-
duction of the new c.ultus. Along with Asaph
are named " his brethren, " the Levites arranged
with (and under) him, enumerated in vers. 5, 6.
We may observe, moreover, how clearly this
verse, especially by its ^'xia, announces the fol-
lowing song as an ideal composition, characteriz-
ing onlyiv. general that which was to be sung by
the musicians, but not expressing a stereotype
form. Had the author wished to convey the
sense that the song was sung for all time so as
he communicated it, and not otherwise, he would
h.ive added, "and he commanded them thus to
sing," or, "to sing this song." — Ver. 8 ff. Thank
ye the Lord, call on His name, etc. Of the eight
strophes of the song, the first four (vers. 8-22)
correspond to the opening of Ps. cv. (vers. 1-15) ;
the next three (vers. 23-33) to Ps. xcvi. ; the
last (vers. 34-36) to the first and last two verses
of Ps. evi., with some unimportant variations
which are here to be noted. — First Strophe: vers.
8-11 ( = Ps. cv. 1-4) : Summons to sing praise to
the Lord and to seek His face. — Second Strophe ;'
vers. 12-14 ( = Ps. cv. 5-7) : Summons to think
of the wonders of the Lord and His judgments.
Here are the first variants, namely, ver. 12, iirva
instead of yig, and, ver. 13, ^{OB" JHt instead
of BiTON 't, of which the latter only is of any
consequence. On account of the parallelism with
the "sons of Jacob," the "seed of Israel " appears
the better reading. — Third Strophe : vers. 15-18
( = Ps. cv. 8-11) : Summons to think of the
covenant made by the Lord with the fathers. —
Remember His covenant for ever. Ps. cv. rather:
"He remembereth, etc." (ijf for TQT). Our
reading, corresponding better with the applica-
tion of the song to the end proposed in ver. 7,
appears to be substituted for the more original
one of the Psalm. — Ver. 16. And His oath unto
Isaac. For pnXv Ps. cv. 9 presents the weaker
form pribv (found also in Amos vii. 9 ; Jer.
xxxiii. 26), a critically unimportant variant, like
that in ver. 18a, where Jjjjg v-|tf stands for
"3~pKT)N.— Fourth Strophe : vers. 19-22( = Ps.
cv. 12-15) : Reason of the summons to remember
the covenant of the Lord with the fathers, because
the Lord has so truly and mightily protected
them according to His promise. — When ye were
smalt in number. Instead of MrtfV'3 Ps. cv.
12 presents QJIVna. To address the children of
Israel again corresponds better with the aim of
the Psalm ; this variant is thus similar to that
in ver. 15, but affords no presumption in favour
of the priority of this or that reading. —Ver. 20.
And from one kingdom. Ps. cv. omits the "and"
(l before rO;>DtDZ3) j critically unimportant, as
also the two following variants (ver. 21, K/'fO for
OIK, and, ver. 22, W2331 for Wa^i).— Fifth
Strophe: vers. 23-27 ( = Ps. xcvi. 1-6) : All the
world shall concur in praise of the greatness and
glory of God. — The first verse of this passage
seems compounded of the first two verses of Ps.
xcvi., the first members being omitted. Whether
this be an abbreviating process of the Chronist,
or an amplifying one of the Psalmist, it is hard
to determine ; much may be said for each of the
two assumptions (see Keil). — Ver. 27. Strength
and gladness are in His place (yopD3 mini;
comp. for this late, but in Aram, frequent, finn,
Ezravi. 16; Keh. viii. 10). On the contrary, Ps.
xcvi. 6 : " strength and beauty in His sanctuary"
(lEnpD3 mNQm)- — Sixth Strophe: vers. 28-30
(=Ps. xcvi. 7-9) : All nations shall worship God
118
I. CHRONICLES.
with offerings and confessions. — Ver. 29. Give, to
the Lord the glory due to His name, etc. Instead
of two, this verse has, to our surprise, three
members : the first two correspond to Ps. xcvi.
8 ; ver. 9 there to our ver. 29c and ver. 30a.
The disturbance of the parallel in our verse rests
on this, that after ver. 31a (=Ps. xcvi. 11a) the
verse-member Ps. xcvi. 10a is placed, but Ps.
xcvi. 10c is altogether omitted. Thus, in our
text, the verse beginning with ' ' give to the Lord
the glory;" on the contrary, in Ps. xcvi.; that
beginning with "say among the heathen " (ver.
10), forms the exception to the otherwise constant
bipartition of the verse. It is impossible, how-
ever, to arrive at a certain result on which side
the priority lies (see on ver. 31). — Bring an obla-
tion, and come before Him. Ps. xcvi. 86: "and
come to His courts" (milVnS for VJDp)- This
variant is similar to that in ver. 27, where "in
His sanctuary" of the Psalm is changed into the
more general "in His place," because the mention
of the "sanctuary" (as here of the "courts")
does not seem to comport well with the time and
aim of the present song, which was sung before
the erection of the temple. — Ver. 30. Tremble
before Him, all tlie earth. For n?h>0 Ps- xcvi.
9 has V3BD, an unimportant difference. — Seventh
StropheWevs. 31-33 ( = Ps. xcvi. 10-13): Even
the inanimate creation will exult before the Lord
of all nations coming to judgment. Ver. 31a
corresponds to Ps. xcvi. 11a, but ver. 316 to Ps.
xcvi. 10a. — And let them say among tlie nations,
etc., is in Ps. xcvi. 10a: "say among the nations"
CnDN instead of TOS^l). It is too much to say
that this summons, addressed to the Israelites
after tlie words " tremble before Him, all the
earth " (which there go immediately before, as
ver. 96), yields a "rather tame thought," and
speaks for the priority of the text of Chronicles
(Keil). The position of the present summons
among mere appeals to the representatives of
inanimate nature, as the heavens, the earth, the
sea, the field, may appear surprising and disturb-
ing. There is something excited and wavering
in the line of thought and mode of expression,
there as well as here. — Ver. 326. Let the field
rejoice, etc. For mfeM j6jJ* Ps- xc- 12a
presents Hjv f^iJJ1, in which the poetic and
archaic ilfo, instead of the prosaic rTtfeTt, seems
not without significance. — Ver. 33. Then shall
the trees of the wood sing out. For this Ps. xcvi.
126 has "all trees of the wood." The second
member of this verse corresponds to the first in
Ps. xcvi. 13, as far as the repetition of "for He
;ometh" (X2 13), which occurs only once here.
Ps. xcvi. 136, the close of the whole Psalm, is
wanting in our text, whi :h the defenders of the
priority of the latter explain thus : that when
the contents of our verses 23-33 were made a
distinct Psalm, it was found necessary to make
at the close a suitable addition ; whereas the
matter may as well be explained by the abbre-
viating habit of our author (as the later compiler
of the present song). — Eighth Strophe : vers. 34-
30 ( = Ps. cvi. 1, 47, 48) : Repeated summons to
thank God, and to pray ibr His further help, with
the closing doxology.— Thank ye the Lord; for
He is good, etc. This verse is found not merely
at the head of Ps. cvi., but also of Ps. cvii.,
cxviii., exxxvi. (comp. also Ps. cxviii. 29 and
Jer. xxxiii. 11) ; as an old and favourite litur-
gical form, it is not necessarily to be regarded as
taken from Ps. cvi. in particular. — Ver. 35. And
say ye, Save 11s, O God of our salvation. Similar,
but not verbally so, Ps. cvi. 47, where "and. say
ye" is wanting, and for " God of our salvation"
stands "the Lord our God." — And gather us and
deliver us from the heathen. For this Ps. cvi.
47 has : " and gather us from the heathen." The
two following members agree verbally with the
parallel verse of the Psalm. — Blessed be tlie Lord,
etc. This closing doxology, which recurs exactly
in Ps. cvi. 48, forms there the close of the fourth
book of the Psalter, together with the words :
"aud let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye
the Lord," which are here changed into the his-
torical notice : "and all the people said, Amen,
and praised the Lord" (rilOX'l for the jussive
-IDN1, and nj.T 9??) for pp ^n). Even in
these last deviations from the similar passages of
the Psalter there is nothing that could prove
with certainty the priority of our text, and a
partly imitative, partly devious, procedure of the
Psalmist. With regard to the doxology ^113
'131 niiTi which was originally nothing else than
the liturgical close of the fourth book (analogous
to those at the close of Ps. xli., lixii., and
lxxxix.), it is much more probable that our
author changed, for his own purpose, this doxo-
logical formula, which may have been attached
to Ps. cvi. long ago, from liturgical use. And
the more probable this must appear to the un-
prejudiced mind, the more clearly all the other
differences between our text and that of the cor-
responding Psalms appear as alterations, occa-
sioned by the revising and compiling habit of
the Chronist, of that which was before him in
the Psalter. Comp. the closing remarks.
7. Division of the Levites and Priests for Divine
Service (as continuation and close of the list of
Levitical singers and players in vers. 4-6) : vers.
37-43. — Asaph and his brethren. The 7 before
the accus. of the object, according to later usage. — •
For the day's work in its day, literally, "for the
matter of the day on its day," that is, according
to the service required for every day ; comp.
2 Chron. viii. 14, xxxi. 16.— Ver. 38. AndObed-
edom and their brethren sixty and eight. That
here should be read, according to what follows:
" and Obed-edom and Hosah and their brethren, "
see Crit. Note. If, indeed, in the next clause of
our verse : "and Obed-edom . . . and Hosah to
be porters," another Obed-edom were meant, as
the distinction of this as ' ' son of Jedithun" (pos-
sibly, xxvi. 4, a Korhite Jedithun, and not the
Merarite singer Jeduthun) appears to indicate,
some other name than that of Hosah must be
supplied along with the former Obed-edom. Even
in xv. 21, 24 there seem to be two different
Obed-edoms, a singer, ver. 21, and a porter, ver.
24. Yet the diversity of the two named in our
verse is by no means certain ; for in xxvi. 4-8, of
Obed-edom with his sons and brothers, sixty-two
men are mentioned as porters, which nearly agrees
with the present number sixty-eight, and seems
CHAP. XVI. 39-43.
119
to point to the identity of tlie first-mentioned and
the second Obed-edom. Ver. 42 of our chapter
also shows clearly enough the identity of the pre-
sent Jedithun with Jeduthun. In the notorious
defectiveness of the text, besides, we cannot attain
to a certain decision.— Ver. 39. And Zadok the
priest, a ,d his brethren the priests. 3tJ),1, ver.
37, still acts as the governing verb. Tor the
continued religious use of the sanctuary at Gibeon
under David, see on xv. 1. It is to be remarked
that Zadok is designated only as priest, not as
high priest, as he was made first by Solomon ;
see 1 Kings ii. 27, 35. — Ver. 40. To offer burnt-
offering/) to the Lord on the altar of burnt-offer-
ing. The mention here of burnt-offerings only at
Gibeon proves nothing against the assumption
that they were also offered in the sanctuary at
Jerusalem ; and ch. xxi. 26, 30 shows directly
and expressly that these offerings were made here
also, no doubt under the direction of Abiathar
(comp. xviii. 16). — Continually morning and even-
ing. Comp. the prescriptions of the law, Ex.
xxix. 38; Num. xxviii. 8, 6. — And for all (that
was prescribed besides the daily burnt-offering ;
comp. Num. xxviii. ) that is written. 3in3!"r|?3^,
briefly for '3ivi>3 T\S&\b. — Ver. 41. And with
them, etc., with Zadok and his brethren. This
refers to the singers at the sanctuary in Gibeon,
where Heman, Jeduthun (Ethan), and a number
of subordinates were appointed. The Chronist
points indeed to a list before him, in which the
Gibepnite singers were named (on niDK>2 12133,
comp. xii. 31), but does not specify them, because
the singers under Asaph at Jerusalem, who are
enumerated vers. 4-6, interested him most. —
Ver. 42. And with them, Heman and Jeduthun,
were trumpets and cymbals. So, according to
the Masoretic reading, which, however, appears
suspicious, from the absence of the names Heman
and Jeduthun in the Sept. (comp. Crit. Note),
and gives no very suitable sense. If we erase the
two names, the sense comes out : ' ' and with them
were, that is, they had trumpets and cymbals, " a
phrase somewhat strange, but still affording a
suitable sense, which is at all events to be pre-
ferred to the artificial and forced emendation of
Bertheau ("And Heman and Jeduthun were play-
ing aloud with trumpets and cymbals, and with
them the others chosen, with song-instruments of
God"). — For loud sounding, D^DE^- This
epithet belonging to the DTPXD defines the
cymbals as giving the tone, or intoning the
melody, and thus being a means of leading the
song for the song-masters Heman and Jeduthun ;
comp. on xv. 16, 19. — And (other) instruments of
God, other instruments of religious music besides
those named, especially psalteries and harps. —
And the sons of Jeduthun were at the gate; they
were appointed to guard the entrance of the
Gibeonite tabernacle. These are obviously Obed-
edom, Hosah, and their brethren, who had been
designated, ver. 38, as doorkeepers. — Ver. 43.
And all the people went every man to his house ;
essentially as in 2 Sam. vi. 19, 20, where this
closing verse of our chapter has its parallel in an
otherwise much more concise report. The narra-
tive there added, of David's altercation with
Michal (comp. xv. 29), our author omits as a
scene of a purely domestic character, unsuitable
to his purpose. — And David turned in to bless Ilia
house, on this festive day, as he had before (ver.
2) blessed the whole people in the name of the
Lord.
Appendix : On the Credibility of the Contents
of ch. xvi.
As ch. xii., notwithstanding its exclusive trans-
mission by our author, makes the impression of
the highest credibility, the statistical data aud
registers also of our section, just because they are
mostly of a concrete and detailed kind, afford
the warrant of a true rendering of the historical
facts. Important there as well as here is the
reference to greater and richer registers, that
must have served the Chronist as sources, without
being exhausted by him ; comp. the characteristic
niDK'3 UjM™IB>K, xii. 31, xvi. 41, and such
specifications of names as vers. 4-6 and ver. 38 ff.,
which clearly indicate in the author a process of
abstracting and contracting more copious lists.
It is manifest enough that he was in a position,
as belonging himself to the corps of Levitical
singers after the exile (Introd. § 3), to draw these
statements from the full fountains, and to depend
on copious written and oral traditions.
Only with respect to the song given in vers.
8-36, at the dedication, the assumption of strict
historical accuracy appears to be given up on
account of its relation to several parallel Psalms;
and an ideal composing process of the writer,
similar to that of Livy and Thucydides in their
speeches, is assumed as necessary. We know not,
in fact, what could stand against the admissi-
bility of this assumption, defended by Bertheau,
Kamph., Dillmann, Davidson, Ewald (Bibl.
Jdhrb. vi. 24), Delitzsch (Komm. zum Psalter, ii.
p. 93 f.), A. Kohler {Zeitschr. fur luth. Theol.
1867, p. 295 ff.), C. Ehrt (Abfassungszeit und
Schluss des Ps., Leipzig 1869, p. 41 ff.), Hupfeld,
and others. If, of recent scholars, on the one hand
Hitzig (Die Psalmen, 2 Bd. 1865, p. viii. ff.), on
the other Keil (Komm. p. 155 ff. ), — the former im-
pelled by a hypercritical zeal to show the Macca-
bean origin of those Psalms to be probable, the
latter by an apologetic motive in favour of the
Chronist, — have endeavoured to prove our form to
be original, and the passages of the Psalms cv.
1-15, xcvi. 1-13, cvi. 1, 47, 48, to be mere frag-
ments of the original song, against this the
following considerations remain still in force ; —
1. The constitution of both the texts, even it
the greater number of defects and corruptions
occur in the Psalms, and the text of Chronicles
be comparatively older and better, admits of no
certain conclusion with respect to the greater or
less age of the one or the other recension. For,
irrespective of the many cases in which Chronicles
most probably contains the later readings (for
example, ver. 27, nnn ; ver. 32, rnfetfl ; ver. 29,
Visb for vni-ixrfc; and again» Ter- 27> ioppa
for it^DD3). the more archaic form of the text
cannot of itself decide in favour of priority, as
younger mss., and certainly Hebrew as well as
Greek and Latin, often enough present a more
original text than older ones, and the text of thu
passages in the Psalms are not to be judged
according to their external written form. Foi
120
I. CHRONICLES.
"the text of the Psalms, while they were in
liturgical use, was more exposed to alterations
from the influence of the later speech than that
of a historical book ; and on this ground, more
ancient turns and phrases in Chronicles could not
be at once maintained as proofs that Chronicles
was original and the Psalms an imitation
(Berth.).
2. If we consider the matter and line of thought
in our song, and compare it with the correspond-
ing Psalms, the latter appear simple, well con
nected, and well-ordered wholes in a higher degree
than the former. The transition from strophe
four to strophe five of our song (see vers. 22, 28)
is abrupt and sudden. We expect that after ver.
22, either the agency of Jehovah in the early time
of Israel will be further depicted, as is done in
Ps. cv. , where complete connection and unity of
thought prevails, ' or at least, by a description of
His agency in the heathen world or in inanimate
nature (comp. Ps. civ. ), the way will be prepared
for the summonses contained in vers. 23-33. A
similar hiatus again appears between vers. 33 and
34 (or between strophes seven and eight), and also
after the section parallel with Ps. xcvi. For the
summons of ver. 34, as appears undeniable from
ver. 35, is to be regarded as specially directed to
Israel ; but Israel is not spoken of either in ver.
34 or in the whole preceding paragraph, vers.
23-33. If Hitzig thinks that here the end of the
song only returns to its beginning, he has not
sufficiently considered that petitions such as those
contained in ver. 35, for the deliverance and
gathering of Israel from the heathen, do not occur
at the beginning of the song, and that these
petitions come in here quite unexpectedly after
the previous line of thought in vers. 8-33; where-
as they are very well introduced in Ps. cvi. 47,
after vers. 40-46.
3. Decisive for the priority of the Psalter is the
transference of the closing doxology of the fourth
book of Psalms (Ps. cvi. 48) by the redactor of our
song ; see on this passage, and comp. Delitzsch on
the Psalm.
4. The manner in which the song is introduced
(see on ver. 7) points also to an ideal composing
activity of the author of it.
5. Our combining of a number of passages
1 For the picture of the benign swa}- of God over Abia-
ham, in vets. 10-1& of this Psalm, forms only the beginning
of that which is said in the further course of the same
picture, of Jacob, of Joseph and his brethren, of Moses, and
of the whole of God's people in the patriarchal and Mosaic
I from the Psalms into one whole should not be
regarded as a product of mere trifling and insipid
compilation, like the Homeric or Virgilian cantos
of the declining old classical poetry, because it
applies to a festal song to be used for a definite
liturgical purpose, and because nothing certain
can be opposed to the assumption, that not the
Chronist in the tim s after the exile, but the
writer of his source, the older report (certainly
before the exile) which he follows throughout
the section vers. 4-42, is to be regarded as the
author of the present composition.
6. Whether the present attempt to exhibit the
opening of the worship on Zion in Davidic strains
is to be considered older than the composition of
our book, or contemporary with it, we are not to
find an offence against the obligation of historical
fidelity in this ideal composition, which seeks to
reproduce the fundamental tone of the song sung
on that occasion. The author knew that in the
religious festivals of his people songs were sung of
the tone of Ps. xcvi., cv., cvi., from the oldest
times ; hence he puts in the mouth of the Leviti-
cal singers in David's time a song formed out of
these Psalms as a probable expression of the
spiritual thanksgiving presented to the Lord by
the community of that day, without in the least
making himself guilty of a falsehood. He ap-
pears on this ground as little a falsifier as the
author of the song of Mary, of Zacharias, or of
Simeon in the introductory chapter of Luke's
Gospel, the verbal recitation of which, according
to the form there given, need scarcely be insisted
on, and the harmony of which with so many
characteristic phrases of the Psalms and Prophets,
has its historical precedent in the relations of our
song to the Psalms in question.
[Ps. xcvi., cv., and cvi. are anonymous in the
Hebrew ; but on examination, there is no con-
vincing reason why they may not have been
composed by David. Ps. xcvi. is actually
ascribed to him in the Sept., with the following
remarkable addition: "when the house was built
after the captivity. " Here the captivity seems to
refer to the captivity of the ark when far from
tl i e sanctuary, 1 Sam. iv. , and the house to the
tabernacle which David erected on Zion. The
other two Psalms may be as old as David ; and
there is therefore no reason to doubt the historical
veracity of the statement made by the Chronist,
that David selected from these Psalms the piece
that was actually sung at the dedication of the
tabernacle on Zion. — J. G. M.]
6. The Purpose of Daoid to build a Temple, and the Objection raised by the Prophet Nathan.
ch. xvii.
Chap. xvii. 1. And it came to pass, as David sat in his house, he said unto Nathan
the prophet Lo, I dwell m a house of cedars, and the ark of the covenant of the
Lord is under curtains. And Nathan said unto David, Do all that is in thine
heart ■ for God is with thee. And it came to pass in that night, that the word of
the Lord came to Nathan, saying, Go and say unto David my servant, Thus
saith the Lord, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in. For I have not
dwelt in a house from the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but I was
from tent to tent and from one tabernacle to another. As long as I have walked
in all Israel have I spoken a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I com-
manded to feed my people, Why have ye not built me a house of cedars 1 And
now, thus shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the Lokd of hosts.
2
3
4
5
CHAP. XVII. 1, 2.
121
I took thee from the common, from behind the sheep, to be ruler over my people
8 Israel. And I was with thee, whithersoever thou wentest ; and I cut off all thy
enemies from before thee, and made thee a name like the name of the great on
9 the earth. And I ordained a place for my people Israel, and planted them, and
they dwelt in it, and were no more, troubled ; and the sons of evil no more wasted
10 them as before. And since the days that I appointed judges over my peopl"
Israel : and I subdue all thy enemies ; and I tell thee that the Lord will builo.
11 thee a house. And it shall come to pass, when thy days are fulfilled to go unto
thy fathers, that I will rais'e up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons ,
12 and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house, and I will estab-
13 lish his house for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son ; and I will
1 4 not take my mercy from him, as I took it from him who was before thee. But
I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom for ever ; and his throne shall
be established for ever.
15 According to all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spake unto David.
16 And King David went and sat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, 0 Lord
17 God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto 1 And this was
a small thing in Thine eyes, 0 God ; and Thou hast spoken of the house of Thy
servant for a great while to come, and regardest me after the way * of man that
18 raiseth up, 0 Lord God. What shall David add to Thee of the glory of Thy
19 servant 1 2 and Thou knowest Thy servant. 0 Lord, for Thy servant's sake, and
after Thy heart, hast Thou done all this greatness, to make known all these great
0 Lord, there is none like Thee, and no God besides Thee, according to
all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth is like
20 things.
21
Thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to Himself as a people, to make
Thee a name of great and terrible deeds, to drive out nations before Thy people,
22 whom Thou didst redeem from Egypt ? And madest Thy people Israel a people
23 to Thee for ever; and Thou, Lord, becamest their God. And now, Lord, let the
word which Thou hast spoken of Thy servant and of his house be maintained for
24 ever, and do as Thou hast said. Yea, let it be maintained, and let Thy name be
magnified for ever, saying, Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel, is God to Israel ;
25 and the house of David Thy servant is established before Thee. For Thou, 0 my
God, hast opened the ear of Thy servant, that Thou wilt build him a house ; there-
2(5 fore Thy servant hath found [courage] to pray before Thee. And now, Lord,
27 Thou art God, and hast spoken this goodness concerning Thy servant. And now
Thou art pleased to bless the house of Thy servant, that it may be before Thee
for ever ; for Thou, Lord, hast blessed, and it is blessed for ever.
1 For liri3 a good many as». read TliriBi which is as unsatisfactory as the obscure "liri3, or as rniflj 2 Sam.
vii. 19, or as the reading of the Sept i xui ixiTSt; pi m 'ipxiris kvifiirov, x*i C-^nrit pi, or that of the Vulg.: et fecisti mt
tpectabtlem super omnes homines.
1 113V"nX, wanting in the Sept. and in 2 Sam. vii. 21, is perhaps spurious. But see Exeg. Expl.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. —After the history of
the transplanting of the ark to Jerusalem, the
author of the hooks of Samuel has given the
account of David's purpose to build a temple, and
of the word of God communicated to him by
Nathan, 2 Sam. vii., and, indeed, in a form sub-
stantially agreeing with the present text, though
occasionally deviating from it in words. Besides
the expositors of Chronicles are therefore here to
be compared also those of the corresponding
parts of the books of Samuel, namely, C. A.
Crusius (Hypomnemata, ii. pp. 190-219), Thenius,
Keil, Hengstenberg (Christol. 2d edit. i. 143 ff.),
L. Reinke (Die Weissagung des Propheten Nathan,
in his contributions to the explanation of the 0.
T., vol. iv. p. 427 ff.), and, in a critical respect,
W ellhausen (p. 170).
1. David's Purpose, and Nathan's Consent at
first to it : vers. 1, 2. — As David sat in his house,
in that cedar palace described in xiv. 1, xv. 1 ff.
Alter ins33 2 Sam. vii. 1 has the further
chronological determination : " and the Lord had
given him rest round about from all his enemies. "
Our author leaves out this determination inten-
tionally, to avoid the apparent contradiction with
the circumstance that the severest wars of David
are introduced afterwards, and so, according to
his arrangement of the material, following the
order of thought rather than of time.— Ver. 2.
Do all . . for God is with thee. In 2 Sam. :
"Go and do . . . for the Lord is with thee."
The omission of rfe before nB>V rests ou tne
strong abbreviating and simplifying tendency of
our author ; the substitution of DTI?*? for
122
I. CHRONICLES.
niir on his aim to choose the current expressions
of his day. The older practical expositors justly
designate this preliminary consent of Nathan as
proceeding "from his merely human judgment "
(bona intentione et since.ro animo, non tamen ex
divina revelatione, J . H. Mich.).— Luth.; "The
prophets themselves occasionally err and sin, as
Nathan when he says to David of his own spirit
that he shall build a house to the Lord, which is
soon after altered by a divine revelation."
2. God's Revelation to Nathan : vers. 3-15. —
On the night as the time of divine revelations by
dreams, visions, etc., comp. our remarks on Job
iv. 13 (pp. 75, 84). — Thou shalt not build me a
house to dwell in. In 2 Samuel this prohibition
is put in the form of a question : ' ' Shalt thou
build me a house ? " — Ver. 5. But I was from tent
to tent, and from tabernacle ; that is, from one
tabernacle to another. For this sentence, which
is obscure from its pregnant brevity, 2 Samuel
gives : "but have walked (have been walking) in
a tent and in a tabernacle." The tabernacle
(pB'D) is presented along with the tent (>"IK)
as the more comprehensive notion, including
court, altar of burnt- offering, etc. — Ver. 6. With
any of the judges of Israel. 2 Samuel : ' ' with
any of the tribes of Israel " ('tjatJJ for it3Bt£>).
Our reading is perhaps the older ; comp. Berth,
and Wellh. — Ver. 7 ff. give the proper contents
of the divine revelation, as far as it concerns
David's relation to the building of the temple. —
Ver. 8. And made thee a name, like the name of
the great on tlie earth, referring to the kings of
the heathen monarchies. These words (ver. 85)
formed the text of the memorial sermon preached
in all the churches of the Prussian state on the
death of Frederick n. (1786).— Ver. 9. And I
ordained a place for my people Israel. The per-
fects (with i consec.) >nDC>i, ^DTll'D^. et<-'-> may
he taken as future statements of that which God
will further show to His people. Yet it seems
better to make these promises of future salvation
begin with ver. 11. — And the sons of evil no more
wasted them as before. The Egyptians are no
doubt chiefly intended ; comp. xvi. 20. On rfe
in the sense of wasting (= H3J? in 2 Samuel),
comp. Dan. vii. 25.— Ver. 10. And since the
days that I appointed judges over my people
Israel. D^O'DTI, "and until the days" (Ew. §
218, b) ; comp. the still more definite phrase :
D«n~|D^, 2 Sam. vii. 11. The whole time
from Joshua to Saul is here included. — And I
subdue all thy enemies. 2 Samuel : * ' and I give
thee rest from all thy enemies" (yb YliTJni lor
'njnaiT), perhaps more original. The change of
the suffix of the 2d pers. into that of the 3d
VBerth., Ew.) is not necessary, either in our pas-
sage or there, as the enumeratinn of the divine
benefits extends to the present, and even to that
which was experienced by David himself. — And I
tell thee that the Lord will build thee a house, and
not inversely : thou build Him a house. The
building of the house is here naturally figurative
of the bestowment of a blessed posterity, etc.
There is no allusion to David's house of cedar
(ver. 1, xiv. 1). Inadmissible is the past mean-
in" of TiJSI "and I have told them," etc.
(Berth., Wellh.) ; for we cannot discover that
such an announcement was made before, as our
historical books nowhere mention it. Even
2 Sam. (TaiTl) speaks of an announcement in
the present or immediate future.— Ver. 11. To
go unto thy fathers. 2 Sam. vii.; "tilie with
thy fathers." For the phrase, comp. Deut. xxxi.
16 ; 1 Kings ii. 2. — Thy seed . . . which shall
be of thy sons. Instead of this somewhat
pleonastic reference to Solomon, 2 Samuel pre-
sents perhaps the original : " which shall proceed
out of thy bowels " C^ySD XV "IK>X ; comp. 1
Sam. xvi. 11; Gen. xv. 4). Piobablythe chrono-
logical difficulty contained in this phrase, accord-
ing to which Solomon appeared to be not yet
born at the time of this promise, led our author
to clioose the more general expression, as he had
in ver. 1 altered the text for a chronological
reason by means of an omission. That here, as
in ttie two following verses, he infant to designate
not so mui:h Solomon as the Messiah, is asserted
by the older orthodox exegesis (for example, L.
Lavater : "Si tantum de Salomone h. I. intelli-
gendus esset, non dixisset semen quod erit de jiliis
tuis, sed quod erit de te ;" and so Starke and
others), and recently still by Keil. But the very
next prediction: "He shall build me a house"
(ver. 12), applies clearly to Solomon only, as in
2 Chron. vii. 18 his person, and not that of some
future Messianic descendant, is manifestly de-
signated. Accordingly, as in 2 Samuel, so also
in Chronicles the Messianic element is limited
essentially to the eternal duration that is pro-
mised (vers. 12-14) to the kingdom of Solomon ;
comp. Hengstenb. Christol. i. 152 ff. — Ver. 13.
And he shall be my son. The words following
this promise : "whom 1 will chasten with the
rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of
men," the Chronist has designedly omitted, to
bring out more sharply the thought of the ever-
lasting divine favour, in harmony with his usual
practice to set the light before the shade of the
house of David. — From him who was before thee,
from Saul, whose name is added, 2 Sam. vii.,
perhaps by the hand of a glossator. The present
text is certainly more original, even with respect
to the foregoing -|>|0K ^ (for -vff< $), as
Bertheau and Wellh. justly assert against
Thenius. — Ver. 14. But I will settle him in my
house and in my kingdom for ever ; T>OJ?n
xb\&, as in 2 Chron. ix. 8, 1 Kings xv. 4, oi
enduring foundation or preservation, causing per-
petual existence. The "house" or "kingdom"
of God, in which this preservation or confirming
of the seed of David is to take place, is first the
Old Testament theocracy, then the Messianic
kingdom of the new covenant. The text of
Samuel differs : " and thy house and thy kingdom
shall endure for ever before thee, and thy throne
shall be established for ever," of which form it
can scarcely be so absolutely asserted, as is done
by Bertheau and others, that it is the more
original. Moreover, the sense of the one as o!
CHAP. XVII. 15-27.
128
tlie other form is Messianic. — Ver. 15. Accord-
ing to all these words and all this vision. A
hendiadyoin, by which the words addressed by
Jehovah to Nathan are characterized as spoken,
titri3 (comp. 1 Sam. iii. 1) or fr-ina (2 Sam. vii.
17), as a divine revelation or prophetic message
from God. It is to be observed also that this
prophetic message is communicated not as it was
related by Nathan before the king, but as it was
revealed to him of the Lord by night, which is a
plain indication that we are to hold by the matter
rather than the form of the words in question.
The case is the same as in 1 Sam. iii. 10-14 (the
disclosure made to the young Samuel concerning
the fate of Eli) and in 1 Sam. viii. 7-9 (God's
word to Samuel on the introduction of the king-
dom in Israel).
3. David's Thanksgiving for the Promise made
to him through Nathan : vers. 16-27. — And Kimj
David went, into the sanctuary erected by him,
as the following words : " and sat before the
Lord," show.— Who am I, 0 Lord God? 2
Samuel: "my Lord God," a difference actually
not existing for the Masoretic reader, as our niir
is to be read by ^"itf. — Ver. 17. And this was a
small thing in Thine eyes. This is the literal
rendering. — And Thou hast spoken of the house
of Thy servant for a great while to come, literally,
"hast spoken that which points far away ;" pimD^
is an accusative depending on -Qin> of the same
force as in Prov. vii. 19, Job xxxix. 29 ; comp.
ver. 14. — And regardest me after the way of man
that raiseth up. So should the obscure ijJVK")5!
(vjffin Dlxmins perhaps be rendered; "the
way of man leading upwards " (~iin, abbreviated
from min) would then be the gracious and up-
holding (thus not merely condescending, but
positively furthering and improving) disposition
and conduct of human benefactors, with which
the gracious procedure of God towards David is
here compared. Nearly so Keil, who makes rOyiSH
correspond to the parallel pimD7, whereas Heng-
stenberg, like many ancients, conceives the phrase
to be an address to God : ' ' Thou highest Lord
God ;" and other expositors take it as an adverb
of place equivalent to Qi"lt32 (et me intuitu es
more hominum in cozlis). It is natural enough to
assume some corruption of the text here, as in the
parallel reading of Samuel: DINn min nktl,
though none of the proposed emendations give
satisfaction, neither Ewald's and Bertheau's
change of the Kal ijniX" into the Hiph.
Wtnn, and of rb)JOn into rb)fth (resulting
in the sense: "and hast caused me to see, as it
were, the order of men upwards"), nor Botteher's
reading 'JTPtTW, "so that I saw myself as the
order of men that is upwards " (saw myself as the
after-age at the head of a ruling race), nor Well-
hausen's conjecture that nil"! 'JWffil (at least in
2 Samuel) should be read. That the Tpna of
some Heb. mss. affords no sufficient help, see
Ciit. Note. — Ver. 18. What shall David add to
Thee of the glory of Thy servant, of the honour
pertaining to Thy servant, of the high honom
which Thou hast vouchsafed to Thy servant (me,
David). So conceived, Tpajmfct gives a toler-
able sense, and need not be erased, with the
modern critics, though its absence in the Sept.
and in 2 Samuel (where there is merely: "what
shall David say further to Thee?") is fitted to
create suspicion. — Ver. 19. 0 Lord, for Thy
servant's sake. 2 Sam. vii. 21: "for Thy word's
sake." The original reading is not necessarily to
be sought in the text of Samuel (see Wellh. ). In
b our author has contracted the longer form of the
other text. — Ver. 21. Whom Ood went to redeem
to Himself as a people. After this certainly
correct reading (DTlPSn Tlbil) is that in 2 Samuel
(DTl^S oSn "IK'tf) to be altered. — To make
Thee a name of great and terrible deeds. The
words niXliil ni?H3 appear to be loosely an-
nexed to Q{j>, to define the way in which God
made him a name (eomp. Ew. § 283). If this
construction seem too harsh, niK>J^> must be
inserted (as in 2 Sam. vii. 23) after QgJ: "that
Thou makest Thee a name, and doest great and
terrible things." — To drive out nations before
Thy people. The here much deviating text in
2 Samuel should be altered partly according to
the present text, namely, by inserting the certainly
original t*njp ; see Geiger, Urschrift und Ueber-
setzung des A. T., and Wellh., who follows him.
— Ver. 24. Yea, let it be maintained, etc. This
!ON,l is wanting in 2 Samuel, and is perhaps
repeated from ver. 23, to set forth more clearly
the connection with the following: " and let Thy
name be magnified." On the copula ), in the
sense of our "yea," comp. Dan. x. 19. — Ver. 25.
For Thou, 0 my Ood, hast opened the ear of Thy
servant, revealed, disclosed, made known to him ;
comp. 1 Sam. ix. 15. — That Thou will build him
a house, figuratively, by the increase of his pos-
terity and the prosperity of his dynasty, comp.
ver. io. — Therefore Thy servant hath found to
pray before Thee, namely, " the courage, the
heart to do so " (ia^rriK, 2 Sam- vii. 28), which
is, at all events, here to be supplied, if not neces-
sarily inserted in the text.— Ver. 27. For Thou,
Lord, hast blessed, and it is blessed for ever ;
comp., for the sentence and the expression, Ps.
xxxiii. 9. On the credibility of the thanksgiving
of David given here and 2 Sam. vii. 18 ft'.,
Thenius and Bertheau express themselves very
favourably. They refer its main elements to
David, on account of its many properties harmon-
izing with other genuine Davidic documents. In
particular the last words of David (2 Sam. xxiii.
5 ff.), in which the joyful confidence founded on
the divine promises in the happy continuance of
his house has found a quite similar expression,
count with them as a proof that our verses rest
on a definite recollection of the utterance of David,
and that exact reports of important expressions
124 I. CHRONICLES.
concerning the history of salvation, as they were
handed down partly by David, partly concerning
him, must have been contained in the sources
the books of Samuel and of Chronicles.
,. David's Wars and Officers of Slate, especially his Victorious Battles with the Ammonites ana
the Philistines: ch. xviii.-xx.
Ch XVIII 1. And after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines and
' subdued them, and took Gath and her daughters out of the hand of the
2 Philistines. And he smote Moab ; and the Moabites became Davids servants,
3 aQ AnTBavid smote Hadadezer > king of Zobah towards Hamath, as be went
4 to set up his sign at the river Euphrates. And David took from him a thousand
chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen : and
5 David lamed all the teams, but reserved of them a hundred teams And the
Syrians of Damascus * came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah ; and David slew
6 of the Syrians twenty and two thousand men. And David put [mensj in Syria
Damascus ; and the Syrians became David's servants, and brought gifts : and
7 the Lord preserved David wherever he went. And David took the arms of
sold that were on the servants of Hadadezer, and brought them to Jerusalem.
8 And from Tibhath and from Chun, cities of Hadadezer, David took very much
brass, of which Solomon made the brazen sea, and the pillars, and the brazen
V6SSG1S.
9 And Tou king of Hamath heard that David had smitten all the host of
LO Hadadezer king of Zobah. And he sent Hadoram his son to King David, to
greet him and to bless him, because he had fought against Hadadezer and
smitten him ; for Tou was at war with Hadadezer ; and [with him] all manner
11 of vessels of gold, and silver, and brass. These also King David dedicated unto
the Lord, with the silver and the gold that he had taken from all the nations,
from Edom, and from Moab, and from the sons of Ammon, and from the Philis-
tines, and from Amalek.
12 And Abshai the son of Zeruiah slew of Edom in the valley of salt eighteen
13 thousand. And he put garrisons in Edom; and all the Edomites became
servants of David : and the Lord preserved David wherever he went.
14 And David reigned over all Israel, and executed judgment and justice for all
15 his people. And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host ; and Jehoshaphat
16 the son of Ahilud was recorder. And Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Abimelech *
17 the son of Abiathar, were priests ; and Shavsha was scribe. And Benaiah the
son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethi and Pelethi ; and David's sons were the
chief beside the king.
Ch. xix. 1. And it came to pass after this, that Nahash king of the sons of Ammon
2 died, and his son reigned in his stead. And David said, I will show kindness
unto Hanun the son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me ; and
David sent messengers to comfort him concerning his father : and the servants of
3 David came to the land of the sons of Ammon, to Hanun, to comfort him. And
the princes of the sons of Ammon said to Hanun : Thinkest thou that David
doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee t are not his
servants come to thee to search and to turn over, and to spy out the land]
4 And Hanun took David's servants, and shaved them, and cut off half their ,
5 garments by the breech, and sent them away. And they went, and they told
David about the men, and he sent to meet them ; for the men were greatly
ashamed : and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beard be grown, and
then return.
6 And the sons of Ammon saw that they had made themselves stink with David :
and Hanun and the sons of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver to hire
them chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, and out of Syria-maachah, and
7 out of Zobah. And they hired them thirty and two thousand chariots, and the
king of Maachah and his people ; and they came and pitched before Medeba :
and the sons of Ammon gathered togetheV from their cities, and came to battle.
JHAP. XVIII.-XX. 125
8, 9 And David h*ard, and sent Joab, and all the host of the mighty men. And the
sons of Amnion came out, and set the battle in array at the gate of the city ; and
the kings that were come stood by themselves in the field.
10 And Joab saw that the battle was directed against him before and behind;
and he chose out of all the choice in Israel, and drew up against the Syrians.
11 And the rest of the people he gave into the hand of Abshai his brother, and
12 they drew up against the sons of Ammon. And he said, If the Syrians be too
strong for me, then thou shalt come to my help; and if the sons of Ammon be
13 too strong for thee, then I will help thee. Be courageous, and let us do valiantly
for our people and for the cities of our God ; and the Lord do that which is good
14 in His sight And Joab, and the people that were with him, drew nigh before
15 the Syrians „o the battle ; and they fled before him. And the sons of Ammon
saw that the Syrians fled, and they also fled before Abshai his brother, and went
into the city ; and Joab went to Jerusalem.
16 And when the Syrians saw that they were smitten before Israel, they sent
messengers, and drew forth the Syrians that were beyond the river ; and Sho-
17 phach, captain of the host of Hadadezer, went before them. And it was told
David ; and he gathered all Israel, and passed the Jordan, and came to them,5
and drew up against them ; and David drew up against the Syrians for battle,
18 and they fought with him. And the Syrians fled before Israel ; and David slew
of the Syrians seven thousand teams, and forty thousand footmen ; and he killed
19 Shophach, captain of the host. And when the servants of Hadadezer saw that
they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with David, and served him ;
and the Syrians would not help the sons of Ammon any more.
Oh. XX. 1. And it came to pass, when the year was ended, at the time when the
kings go out, that Joab led forth the strength of the host, and wasted the land
of the sons of Ammon, and came and besieged Eabbah ; but David tarried in
2 Jerusalem ; and Joab smote Eabbah, and destroyed it. And David took the
crown of their king from his head, and found it in weight a talent of gold, and
set with precious stones ; and it was put upon David's head, and he brought
3 very much spoil out of the city. And he brought out the people that were in
it, and cut them with saws, and iron threshing-carts and saws ;6 and so David
did to all the cities of the sons of Ammon ; and David returned with all the
people to Jerusalem.
4 And it came to pass after this, that a war arose at Gezer with the Philis-
tines ; then Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Sippai, one of the sons of Kapha ; and
5 they were subdued. And there was a war again with the Philistines; and
Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lachmi, brother of Goliath the Gittite ; and his
6 spear's staff was like a weaver's beam. And again there was war in Gath, where
was a man of [great] stature, and his fingers were six and six, twenty and four
7 [in an] ; and he also was born to Rapha. And he reproached Israel ; and Jona-
8 than the son of Shima, David's brother, slew him. These were born to Rapha
in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his
servants,
' Itjmn is the Kethib in all passages of our chapter, but the Ktri: "ITinin (so in 2 Sam. x. 16-19). The first
Ibrm, the more usual in the book* of Samuel and Kings, is also the more original, because "PH, a Syrian idol name,
occurs in other Syrian proper names.
2 Properly Darmascus (ptJWI— so here and Ter. 6, also 2 Chron. xvl. 2, xxiv. 23, without variation ; elsewhere always
' After TYS| DtJ»l there seems to have fallen out D^IM i comp. Sept. (<fpwpi*) and Vulg. (milita), and see Exeg.
Espl. "
4 For l-WSK read rather (with the Sept., Vulg., and xxiv. 3, 6) ^DTIN-
• For D1"6n K2s1 the text in Samuel (2 Sam. *. 17) has ilD&On KIM, "and went to Helam," perhaps mora
....... T- T T V T- .
correct and original (comp. Kxeg. Expl.), though all the translations and hss. confirm the DflvK of our passage.
* Rather, perhaps, " and scythes," as for DniBDI is (with 2 Sam. xli. 31) no doubt !"li"lM)331 to be read.
126
I. CHRONICLES.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — The present group
of war reports runs parallel to four sections of
2 Samuel, separated from one another by other
accounts. To the present summary accounts of
the victorious warfare of David with all surround-
ing enemies in general, in ch. xviii. , corresponds
2 Sam. viii. ; to the more copious description of
the peculiarly difficult war with Amnion, in eh.
xix. , corresponds 2 Sam. x. ; the close of this war,
described in ch. xx. 1-3, by the taking of Kabbah,
has its parallel in 2 Sam. xii. 26-31 ; the shorter
reports of the several heroic acts of David's
warriors in conflict with giants from the land
of the Philistines, ch. xx. 4-8, corresponds with
the section 2 8am. xxi. 18-22. The statements
of 2 Samuel coming between these sections (namely
ch. ix. and xi. 1-12, 25; but also ch. xiii. and
xiv. -xviii. ) are particulars from the private life
and domestic history of David, which theChronist,
in conformity with his plan, neither could nor
would take up.
1. General Report of David's Victorious Wars
with his Neighbours: ch. xviii. 1-13. Ver. 1
treats of the victories over the Philistines. — And
took Gath and lier daughters out of the hand of
the Philistines. This statement is surprising,
because 2 Sam. viii. 1 has the more general and
withal poetical expression : "and David took the
arm-bridle from the hand of the Philistines" (jriD
riEiXn for rprfl3} I")-])- To assume a purely arbi-
trary change of text on the part of our author is ques-
tionable ; and against, at least, a passing seizure
of the metropolis Gath with its daughter towns
(vii. 28) by David, it can scarcely be maintained
that in Solomon's time Gath was again an inde-
pendent city under its own king. — Ver. 2. And
the Moabites became David's servants, and brought
gifts, in short, became tributary subjects (ver. 6).
Why our author has omitted the notice, following
here in 2 Sam. viii. 2, of the severe handling of
the Moabites by David, is uncertain. It scarcely
rests on an apologetic tendency in favour of
David ; comp. in xx. 3 the account of the cruel
punishment of Rabbath Amnion. Moreover, this
war of David with Moab seems to be that in
which Benaiah slew the two sons of the king of
Moab, xi. 22.— Vers. 3-8. The War with Hada-
dezer of Zobah. — King of Zobah towards Hamath.
This closer determination of the situation of Zo-
bah (nri!3n), which is peculiar to our text, places
it pretty far north, not far from Hamath, the later
Epiphania, on the Orontes ; scarcely Haleb or
Nisibis, both of which lay farther north than
Hamath, and can scarcely, from an Israelitish
point of view, be described as lying "towards
Hamath " (against the Eabbis of the middle ages
on the one hand, and J. D. Mich, on the other).
Zobah is perhaps = Zabe of Ptolemy ; at all events,
it is to be sought north or north-east of Damascus
(with Ew. , Then. , Berth. , etc. ). ' On the spelling
peculiar to Chronicles and 2 Sam. x. 16-19, Ha-
darezer (Sept. 'ASpau&p), see Crit. Note.— As he
went to set tip his sign at the river Euphrates, to
' Recently Th. BIschoff (Dai Amland, 1873, p. 136) thinks
t\p has found the ruins rf Zohah south-east of Aleppo, r.ear
the salt lake JabuL He appears to mean the same'ruins
winch J W. Heifer (Heifer's Reiien in Vorderasien, by
Countess Pauline Nostitz, Leipz. 1873, i. p 174 ff ) saw in
1830.
establish his power (properly ' ' hand ") there j
comp. 1 Sam. xv. 12. Whether these words
refer to David or Hadadezer is doubtful ; the
latter (which J. H. Mich., Ew., Berth., etc.,
assume) may be the more probable, on account of
the mention of David as subject at the beginning
of the following verse. The various reading in
2 Sam. viii. 3: i*ji 3'tJ'rv, "to turn his hand,"
is perhaps to be amended from our passage, as it
gives a less suitable sense. — Ver. 4. And David
took from him a thousand chariots, and seven
thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen.
For this 2 Sam. viii. 4 has "1700 horsemen and
20,000 footmen," perhaps defectively; after fpn,
and before JTIKD"'JJ3E';I, '*■ appears necessary to
insert 33-1 there, for which also the Sept. speaks.
Yet comp. Wellh. on this passage, who questions
the insertion of 331, on account of the close of
the verse. — And, David lamed all the teams, but
reserved of them a thousand teams, for his own
use ; in fact, therefore, he lamed only 900. For
this custom of laming (Tprj)) war-horses, comp.
Josh. xi. 6, 9. — Ver. 6. And David put in Syria
Damascus, men, soldiers, garrison troops. From
2 Sam. viii. 6 and ver. 13 of our chapter the
word D,3''SJ appears to have fallen out after
TH DE»1 ; comp. also xiii. 3 ; 1 Sam. x. 5. —
Ver. 7. And David took the arms (or equipments)
of gold, 3rHIT,oi>K' i so rightly the moderns,
instead of the golden collars (xXaui) of the Sept. ,
the quivers (pharetrce) of the Vulg., and the
golden shields of the Chald., of some Rabbis,
and of Luther. — Which were on the servants of
Hadadezer, his military servants, soldiers. On
the addition of the Sept., in 2 Sam. viii. 7 rela-
tive to the later capture and carrying away of
these golden arms by Shishak of Egypt, under
Rehoboam, comp. the expositors of that passage.
— Ver. 8. And from Tibhath and from Chun, etc.
Tibhath (l"in3D), or, as it is perhaps to be read,
Tebah (n3D, for which, 2 Sam. viii., stands
erroneously 11133), appears to be identical with
the family mentioned, Gen. xxii. 24, among the
descendants of Nahor ; whether it be the present
Taibeh, on the caravan road between Aleppo and
the Euphrates, is questionable. In place of »g
2 Samuel gives TT\2 ( = J3arathena, Ptol. v.
19 ? or nrn3, Ezek. xlvii. 16 ?). On what this
diversity of name rests, whether on the corrup-
tion of the original Tn2 into ft3, as Berth.
thinks, or on a double name of the place in ques-
tion, must remain doubtful. — Of which Solomon
made the brazen sea, and the pillars, and the
brazen vessels. These words, wanting in 2 Sam.
viii. 8 in the Masoretic text, are perhaps to be
restored according to our passage, and according
to the Sept. and Vulg.— Vers. 9-11. Embassy
and Present of Tou King of Hamath to David.
In the parallel account, , 2 Sam. viii. 9-12, this
Tou is called Toi (lyh). — Ver. 10. And he sent
Hadoram his son. 2 Samuel: "Joram,'' at all
CHAP. XVIII. 10-XIX. 3.
127
events incorrect, as a name compounded with
niiT1 would scarcely have suited a member of
a Syrian royal house ; and the Sept. gives there
'liSinvfiifi. (here ' Alavpifi). — To greet him, to wish
him health. So is Di?5Jv v"P«E'? to be taken,
according to the parallel passages, as Gen. xliii.
27, not, with the Sept. and Vulg. , in the sense of
a prayer for peace (ut postulant ab eo pacem). —
For Ton was at war with Hadadezer, liter.illy,
" For Hadadezer was a man of wars of Ton," a
constant assailant and adversary to him ; comp.
xxviii. 3 ; Isa. xlii. 13. After these words, which
form a parenthetical explanation to the foregoing,
follows the wider object of CPC'*! : " an(i a'l man-
ner of vessels of gold and silver and brass, " which
Luther erroneously refers to ver. 11.- Ver. 11.
With tJie silver and the gold that he had taken.
For NtM "ICW 2 Samuel presents C"Tpn 1W,
perhaps the original form. — From all the nations
. . . and from Amalek. In 2 Samuel a more
complete and probable text is found (in which,
besides, Dh^D is to be read for m^D)- — Vers.
12, 13. Ahshai's Victory over the Edomites in the
Valley of Salt. — And Abshai . . . sleio of Edom
(literally, "slew Edom") in the valley of salt,
18,000 men. In Bertheau's combination of the
very different reading in 2 Sara. viii. 13 with our
passage, for ' ' Abshai son of Zeruiah " would
have to be read " Joab, etc.," and after "slew of
Edom "would have fallen out the words "when
he (Joab) returned from the conquest of Aram."
Otherwise Ew., Then., Wellh., Keil, etc., the
latter of whom upholds the statement of Chroni-
cles, that Abshai gained this victory, by reference
to ch. x. 10 ff. of our book (where Abshai appears
as commander under his brother Joab), and de-
clares it consistent as well with Ps. lx. 2 as with
1 Kings xi. 15. — Ver. 14. And all the Edomites
became servants of David. For this 2 Samuel
has more fully, and perhaps originally : "and in
all Edom he appointed officers; and all the Edom-
ites became David's servants. "
2. David's Officers of State : vers. 14-17, — a list
in 2 Sam. viii. also appended to the above sum-
mary war reports ( = 2 Sam. viii. 15-18), that was
certainly found here in the old common sources
of both authors, introduced by the general remark
on the ability and excellence of the government
of David (ver. 14). — Ver. 15. For Joab, comp. on
ii. 16. — Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was re-
corder. "VSfQ, properly " remembrancer, " that
is, not annalist (Sept. I i*i ruv vxop.vnp.a.ruv ;
Vulg. a commentariis), but chancellor, who makes
to the king a report of all that takes place in the
kingdom, and conveys his commands ; comp. the
magister memoriae of the later Eomans, and the
Waka Nwvis in the Persian court (Chardin, Voy-
ages, v. p. 258). — Ver. 16. For Zadok, comp. on
v. 30 ff. — Abimelech the son of Abiathar. For
TpD^K is certainly to be read, with the Sept.,
Vulg., and 2 Sam. viii. 17, ^D'riN > *°r so *s
this priest called in xxiv. 3, 6, 31, where he is
likewise named as the representative of Ithamar
with Zadok of Eleazar, and where he appears as
the son of Abiathar. That Abiathar's father was
also called Ahimelech, 1 Sam. xxii. 20, doe3 not
warrant the assumption that in our passage, as in
xxiv. , there is an exchange of the father and the
son ; and thus a transposition of the names into
" Abiathar the son of Ahimelech " is necessary
(as Movers, Then., Ew., Wellh. think). Rather
is our Ahimelech to be regarded as a son of the
same name with his grandfather, according to the
knosvn Hebrew custom, who, even during his
father's lifetime, acted in the priestly office.
Comp. the frequent recurrence of the grand-
father's name-in the grandson in v. 30-41. — And
Shavsha was scribe, that is, secretary of state.
This Shavsha (Luth. "Sausa") is called in 1
Kings iv. 3 Shisha (KB^E>, differing only in
spelling from NtJ'lE'), but in 2 Sam. xx. 25
N1B" (fcOS>). If 2 Sam. viii. 17 exhibits n,"lb',
this is to be considered, perhaps, an error of the
pen.— Ver. 17. And Benaiah . . . was over the
Oherethi and the Pelethi. So also 2 Sam. viii.
18, with the more correct reading im3n ^JJ for
'"Gill, as in 2 Sam. xx. 23. That " Cherethi
and Pelethi" denote the two divisions of the
royal guard (the <rwf*.«.rc<pi\a.xi;, Joseph. Antiq.
vii. 5. 4) is undoubted, though, with Gesen.,
Then., Bahr (on 1 Kings i. 36), Keil, etc., the
former name be explained by confossores, lictores,
executioners, the latter by celeres, Hyyufti, run-
ners (couriers), and thus both appellatively, for
which the passages 1 Kings ii. 25, 2 Kings xi. i
appear to speak, or though (with Lakemacher,
Movers, Ew., Berth., Hitz., etc.) they be re-
garded as the nationalities of the Cretans
(Carians) and the Philistines. Comp. the latest
discussion of this controversy by J. G. Miiller
(Die Semiten in ihrem Verhaltniss zu Chamiten
und Japhetiten, 1872, p. 263 ff. ), who decides for
the latter interpretation. For Benaiah, comp.
also xi. 22 ff. — And David's sons were the chief
beside the king, the next to him. In 2 Sam. viii.
18 the ancient term D^nb, privy counsellors, is
chosen to designate the high rank of the royal
princes (comp. 1 Kings iv. 5).
3. The War with A mmon and Syria : ch. xix.
1-xx. 3 ; comp. 2 Sam. x. — And it came to pass
after this. The loose form of connection ii"P1
p ''"ins serves sometimes to introduce new re-
ports, even if there be no strict chronological
order, or if, as here (comp. xviii. 3-5 with xix.
16 ff.), that which is to be related has been partly
mentioned before. Comp. for example, 2 Sam.
viii. 1, ji.. 1, xiii. 1. For the Ammonite king
Nahash, and his war with Saul, see 1 Sam. xi. —
And his son reigned in his stead. The following
certainly shows taat this son was called Hanun ;
yet the name pjn, from 2 Sam. x. 1, appears to
have originally stood in the text after 133, as in-
versely there, the omitted name ginj must ap-
parently be supplied from our passage. — Ver. 3.
Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father?
literally, "Does David honour thy father in thine
eyes?" The emphasis in this question rests on
the notion of honouring, of which the questioners
doubt whether it really forms the object of David's
embassy. — To search and to turn over (turn up-
128
I. CHRONICLES.
side down, examine thoroughly), and to spy out
the land. This sentence is also in Hebrew a
question, but, as an affirmative answer is ex-
pected, introduced, not with n, but with K?n:
"Are they not come to search, etc.?" In 2 Sam.
x. 3, the sentence runs somewhat different, so
that not the land (jnfctn), but the citv CVJNl).
is the object of the verbs, and the 7|3n removed
to the end has the sense, not of turning over, but
of destroying. But it is scarcely necessary to
change our text accordingly (against Berth.). —
Ver. 4. And shaved them. 2 Samuel more exactly:
"shaved off the half (the one side) of their beard. "
— And cut off half their garments by the breech.
ill'E'aiSn, properly, "the step, the step-region in
the middle of the body,'' here euphemistic for
nine', nates, which is used in 2 Samuel. — Ver. 5.
And they went. This is wanting in 2 Samuel,
but not therefore to be erased as superfluous
(against Berth.). — And the king said, Tarry at
Jericho. So far they were then come on their
way to Jerusalem. The following "then return "
is naturally completed by adding "to Jerusalem"
or "hither." — Ver. 6. That they had made them-
selves stink with David, had drawn his hatred on
them. For the Hithp. lEJtunn 2 Samuel has
the Niph. of the same verb, in the same reflexive
sense. — Hanun . . sent a thousand talents of
silver to hire, etc. The statement that this hiring
of auxiliaries took place is wanting in 2 Samuel,
but is certainly genuine. — For Mesopotamia =
Aram-naharaim, 2 Samuel names, as the first of
the countries from which Hanun hired his auxili-
aries, Aram-beth-rehob, which can scarcely be
only another name of Mesopotamia (as some
ancients have assumed, identifying the city Beth-
rehob with Rehobath, now Rahabe, on the Eu-
phrates, Gen. xxxvi. 37), but the kingdom or
territory of Beth-rehob, a Syrian city, Num. xiii.
21, Judg. xviii. 28, lying south of Hamath. For
the following name, Aram-Maaehah, 2 Sam. x. (as
ver. 7 of our ch. ) has only Maachah (on which
region, bordering northward on the trans-jordanie
Palestine, comp. Deut. iii. 14; Josh. xii. 5, xiii.
11). On the contrary, Zobah is there called more
fully: Aram-Zobah (comp. on xviii. 3). — Ver. 7.
And they hired them 32,000 chariots, that is,
chariots with riders, Qi{jHSl 2IH, as the fore-
going verse shows. The number 32,000 agrees
substantially with the deviating statement in
2 Samuel, in which these auxiliaries appear
rather as footmen, and, indeed, consisting of
20,000 footmen from Aram and Aram-beth-rehob,
1C00 men from Maachah, and 12,000 men from
the kingdom of Tob (Judg. xi. 3), which latter
our author has left undistinguished. —A nd they
came and pitched before Medeba, the city of the
tribe of Reuben mentioned Josh. xiii. 16, two
miles (about nine English miles) south-east of
Heshbon. This statement as well as the follow-
ing, relative to the simultaneous assembling of
the Ammonite troops, is wanting in 2 Sam. x.,
but was found no doubt in the old sources used
by our writer, in common with the author of the
books of Samuel. — Ver. 8. And all the host of the
mighty. Different, but merely in expression, from
2 Samuel: "the whol? host, the mighty men." —
Ver 9. And the sons of Amman . . . at the gate
of the city, before the gates of Kabbah, their
capital, this reading : T-JTI nna, is to be pre-
ferred, as clearer than that in 2 Sam. x. : |-|J]S
"UttSin, " at the gate, outside the gate."— Ver. 10.
And Joab saw that the battle was directed against
him before and behind, literally, "that the face
of the battle ( = the front of the line) was before
and behind him:" that before him stood the
Ammonites, and in his rear the Syrians. Oppo-
site, the latter, as the stronger foe, Joab took his
ground, while, ver. 11, he entrusted the engage-
ment with the Ammonites to his brother Abshai.
— Ver. 13. For our people, and for the city of our
God : that these may not fall into the hands of
the heathen, and from cities of the Lord become
cities of idols. — Ver. 15. And went into the city,
fled in.to their capital Rabbah, while Joab first
returned to Jerusalem, reserving the siege and
capture of this strong fortress for the following
campaign. — Vers. 16-19. The Conquest of the
Syrians allied with the Ammonites. — They sent
messengers, and drew forth the Syrians that were
beyond the river Euphrates, the Mesopotamians,
who must have been somehow subject to Hadad-
ezer, and laid under tribute; comp. 2 Sam. x. 16.
— Ver. 17. And came to them. Instead of this
notice, which is superfluous, along with the follow-
ing words : "and drew up against them," should
be read, with 2 Sam. x. 16 (see Crit. Note) :
"and he came to Helam." This elsewhere not
occurring local name QpTi or DN?n (Sept. Aiyi/t,
Vulg. Helam) the Chronist quite omits in its
first place (in 2 Sam. x. 16 = ver. 16 of our eh.),
and changes it the second time, whether inten-
tionally or not, into OnvK- Comp. Joseph. Antiq.
vii. 6. 3, where the name is regarded as a proper
name of a king beyond the Euphrates, the master
of the general Shophach (Sabekos). It is, more-
over, not impossible that the local name Helam
corresponds to the Alamatha on the Euphrates in
Ptolem. xv. 5, in which case ch. xviii. 3 might
be combined with our passage, if the same war
with Hadadezer and the Syrians be spoken of
there as here. — Ver. 18. And David slew of the
Syrians 7000 teams (chariot horses) and 40,000
footmen. On the contrary, 2 Samuel has 700
teams and 40,000 horsemen. Perhaps the
smaller number of teams in 2 Samuel and the
designation of the 40,000 as footmen in our text
deserve the preference ; comp. Wellh. p. 180. —
Ver. 19. And when the servants of Hadadezer,
here not his warriors, but his allies or subject
kings (vassals); comp. 2 Sam. x. 19: D'OPBH 73
iTjnin ''HV- — Ch. xx. 1-3. The Siege and Con-
quest of Rabbah, here more briefly related than in
2 Sam. xi. 1, xii. 26-31, and therefore without
any reference to the death of Uriah. — When the
year was ended, at the time when the kings go out,
in the spring, as most suitable for re-opening the
campaign. The last described battle with the
Syrians appears accordingly to have fallen in the
autumn of the previous year. — Joab led forth
the strength of the host; more circumstantially
2 Sam. xi. 1: "David sent Joab, and his servants
with him, and all Israel." On jOSfn 7'n, comp.
CHAP. XX. 3-6.
129
the similar nyi ^Tl, 2 Chron. xxvi. 13. — And
Joab smote Rabbah, and destroyed it, properly,
pulled it down ; comp. Ezek xvi. 39, xxvi. 4,
12; Lara. ii. 2, 17. Compared with 2 Sam. xii.
26 ff., where it is reported that Joab first only
took the so-called city of waters, but called King
David to the taking of the proper fortress (citadel,
acropolis), that the honour of completing the
conauest and destruction of the city might be
nis, the present report appears brief and summary.
— Ver. 3. And cut them with saws, and iron
threshing-carts and saws. "ifcj's'i, *<■". Xs7> from
the root -fit?, "cut"; comp. lije>D, "saw," from
the cognate root -)(£>]. In 2 Sam. xii. 31, Q{>»1
is perhaps only an error of the pen for -ic"l or
D"TtJ»1 (Bbttcher). — For nilJEUV as in 2 Samuel,
rt"lt3D21, "and with scythes" (or like iron-cut-
ting instruments, scarcely "wedges," as Luther,
or "axes," as Kamph., thinks), is perhaps to be
read. A twofold mention of saws, first in the
sing., then in plur., would be an intolerable
tautology. Moreover, this cutting and grinding
of the vanquished Ammonites with iron saws,
threshing sledges, and the like, is in itself horrible
and barbarous enough (comp. Prov. xx. 26; Amos
i. 3); and we need not assume that the Chronist
intentionally, and from an apologetic tendency,
passed over a still more horrid kind of punish-
ment then inflicted on the vanquished Ammonites,
burning in tile-kilns (2 Sam. xii. 31); comp. on
xviii. 2.
4. Appendix : Briefer Report of the Heroic
Deeds of some of David's Warriors in the Con-
flict with Philistine Giants : vers. 4-8. — This
report is also treated as an appendix in 2 Samuel,
where it is found quite at the end of the history
of David, ch. xxi. 15-22, and, indeed, enlarged
by a fourth heroic deed (vers. 15-17), there related
in the first place, but here wanting— the danger-
ous conflict of David with the giant Ishbi-benob,
whom Abshai at length slew. It appears as if the
Chronist had omitted this story intentionally,
because it might have lessened the military fame
of David. Comp. Lightfoot, Ghronol. V. T. p.
68 : Illud prcelium, in quo David in pericuhim
venit et unde decore et illcesus prodire non potuit,
omiasum est; as Starke : "The dangerous combat
of David with Ishbi is not mentioned here, as
the book of Chronicles, as some remark, conceals
or passes over the shame of the saints ; whence
also nothing occurs here of the adultery and
murder by David, or of the idolatry of Solomon."
— Ver. 4. And it came to pass after this. This
formula stood here originally not so unconnected
as in xix. 1 ; but the event to which it referred,
2 Sam. xxi. 18, was that history of the combat
with Ishbi which is intentionally omitted by our
author, on which account the formula does not
now appear very suitable. —A war arose at Gezer.
"IDJ?ni (perhaps arising out of -|ijj 'nfll, 2 Sam.
xxi. 18), here=npni, according to later usage.
For Gezer (in the tribe of Ephraim, to the south-
west, near the north border of the Philistines),
see vii. 28. For "IJJ3, moreover, we should ap-
parently (2 Sam. xxi. 18) read 333, or perhaps
333 ; that passage is not inversely to be amended
from ours (against Berth.). — Then Sibbecai the
Husliathite (one of David's Gibborim ; see xi. 29
and xxvii. 11) slew Sippai, one of the sons of
Rapha, one of the Rephaites or descendants of
Kapha, that gigantic tribe that before the inva-
sion of the Philistines inhabited the south-west
of Canaan, and of whicli several families of gigantic
size still lived among the Philistines ; comp. Josh,
xi. 22; Deut. ii. 6, 23. — And they were subdued,
namely, by the conquest of this giant ; comp.
Judg. xi. 33 ; 1 Sam. vii. 13. The absence of
this remark in 2 Samuel does not make its
originality suspicious. — Ver. 5. And ther" wa>
a war again with the Philistines, namely, 2 Sam.
xxi. 19, at Gob (or Nob), and so at the same
place as the former. — Elhanan the son of J air
slew Lachmi, brother of Goliath the Gittite. Ac-
cording to this certainly original reading is the
defective text, 2 Sam. xxi. 19: "Elhanan the
son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew Goliath
the Gittite," to be amended (with Piscat. , Cleric,
Mich., Mov., Then., Eeil, Wellh.). "The form
i"IJTi instead of -)ij^ of Chronicles, would be
caused by the following D'JIXi the accidental
insertion of which from the line underneath -n
easily understood " (Wellh. ). Besides, the here
quite unexplained mention of the celebrated
captain of David, Elhanan of Bethlehem (xi. 26),
will have occasioned a change of 'DrPVlN i"*0
^Drpn 1V3- Accordingly, the question started by
Berth., as defender of the originality of the text
of Samuel: "Have there been two Goliaths?"
falls to the ground as an idle one. — Ver. 6 ff. The
Last of the Four Heroic Deeds. — Where was a man
of (great) stature: rriD S^N = the p^p {jiitf,
vir mensurarum, in 2 Samuel. — And his fingers
were six and six (namely, on the hands and the
feet, therefore in all), twenty and four. Comp.
the sedigiti mentioned by Plin. H. N. xi. 43 ;
also Trusen, Sillen, Gebrduche, und Krankheiten
der alten Hebraer, p. 198 f. ; Carlisle, "An
account of a family having hands and feet with
supernumerary fingers and toes" (in Philos.
Transac. 1814, part 1, p. 94) ; Rosbach, Diss.
de numero digitorum adaucto, Bonn 1838 ;
Blasius, Fall von Ueberzahl der Zehen, in Sie-
bold's Journ. fixr Geburtshiilfe, vol. xiii. Art. 1 ;
also Lond. Medic. Gaz vol. xiv. Apr. 1834,
and Friedrich, Zur Bibel, i. p. 298 f. Recently
the well-known Arabian traveller F. v. Maltzan,
in the Berlin Anthropological Society, reported
as follows: "Among the Himyarites (in South
Arabia), in the dynasty of Forli, the six fingers
are hereditary, and the pride of the ruler and the
people. Indeed, this property of six fingers, a
sign of bodily or, if not bodily, of mental strength
among the Arabs, is still kept up artificially, as
the six-fingered princes of the reigning house aro
allowed to marry only six-fingered members of
the family, to avoid as much as possible the
appearance of five fingers. In short, the twenty-
four fingers and toes of the ruler are the pride of
the country; and any one out of the country might
prove his nearer or further connection with the
ruling house by a greater or smaller superfluity of
fingers" (Correspondence Sheet of the German
Society for Anthropology, Ethnol., etc., 1872,
130 I. CHRONICLES'.
No. 8, p. 60).— Ver. 7. Jonathan the son of n^ r6x in 2 Sam. xxi. 22, where it is preceded
Shima, David' s brother, slew him. Comp., on this ; :''; ""'" , ., „ „, ,. , . ,, ...
r , by the number " four (which is naturally onntteu
Shima, ii. 13. — Ver. 8. These were born. ^ for by the Chronist). — And they fell by the hand of
, . . " . | David, and by the hand of his servants, namely,
fl^K is an archaism, that occurs eight times in , hy David.s hlind in a mediate way, as he was the
the Pentateuch, but always with the article (^n), ' supreme commander and military chief of the
■ t ■ victorious Israelites, but immediately by the hand
and stands only here without it, for which reason ' of his so-called servants or heroes. The whole
it appears suspicious ; the following ,^3 also , remark forms a concluding subscription thit
rf l on y" appears no less suitable m our passage than ui
probably contains an error ; comp. the regular I 2 Sam. xxi. 22 (against Berth.).
*.. The Census and the P,agve : ch. xxi.
Ctt xxi. 1. And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number
2 Israel. And David said unto Joab, and to the rulers of the people, Go,
number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan ; and bring it to me, that I may
3 know their number. And Joab said, The Lord add to His people an hundred-
fold as many as they are. Are they not, my lord the king, all my lord's ser-
vants 1 Why doth my lord require this thing 1 Why shall it be a trespass
4 to Israel t But the word of the king prevailed against Joab ; and Joab de-
ft parted, and went through all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. And Joab gave
the sum of the number of the people unto David ; and all Israel were a
thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew sword ; and
6 Judah was four hundred and seventy thousand men that drew sword. But
Levi and Benjamin he counted not among them ; for the king's word was
abominable to Joab.
7, 8 And God was displeased with this thing ; and He smote Israel. And
David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing :
but now take away the iniquity of Thy servant ; for I have done very foolishly.
9, 10 And the Lord spake unto Gad, David's seer, saying, Go and tell David,
saying, Thus saith the Lord, Three things I lay before thee ; choose thee one
11 of them, that I may do it unto thee. And Gad came to David, and said unto
12 him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee either three years of famine ; or three
months to be driven1 before thy foes, and the sword of thy enemies to over-
take thee ; or three days the sword of the Lord and pestilence in the land,
that the angel of the Lord may destroy in all the border of Israel ; and now
13 consider what word I shall return to Him that sent me. And David said
unto Gad, I am in a great strait : let me now fall into the hand of the
Lord ; for very great are His mercies : but let me not fall into the hand of
man.
14 And the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel ; and there fell of Israel seventy
15 thousand men. And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it ; and as
he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and repented of the evil, and said to the
destroying angel, It is enough now, stay thy hand : and the angel of the
1 6 Lord stood by the floor of Oman 2 the Jebusite. And David lifted up his
eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and the
heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched over Jerusalem ; and
17 David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. And David
said unto God, Have not I commanded to number the people ? it is I that
have sinned, and done evil indeed ; and theso sheep, what have they done 1
O Lord my God, let Thy hand now be on me and on my father's house, and
not on Thy people to smite.
18 And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say unto David, that
David should go up and set up an altar unto the Lord in the floor of Oman
19 the Jebusite. And David went up at the word of Gad, which he spake in
20 the name of the Lord. And Oman turned, and saw the angel ; and his four
21 sons with him hid themselves : and Oman was threshing wheat. And David
went to Oman ; and Oman looked, and saw David, and came out of the floor,
CHAP. XXI. 1.
181
22 and bowed to David with his face to the ground. And David said unto
Oman. Give me the place of this floor, that I may build therein an altar
unto the Lord : thou shalt give it me for the full price, that the plague be
23 stayed from the people. And Oman said unto David, Take thee, and let my
lord the king do that which is good in his eyes : lo, I give thee the oxen for
burnt-offerings, and the threshing-rollers for wood, and the wheat for the
24 meat-offering : I give all. And King David said unto Oman, Nay ; but I will
verily buy it for the full price ; for I will not take that which is thine for the
25 Lord, nor offer burnt-offerings without cost. And David gave to Oman for
26 the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. And David built there
an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings ; and
he called upon the Lord, and He answered him by fire from heaven on the
27 altar of burnt-offering. And the Lord commanded the angel ; and he put
his sword again into its sheath.
28 At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the floor
29 of Oman the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. For the tabernacle of the Lord,
which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at
30 that time in the high place at Gibeon. And David could not go before it
to inquire of God ; for he was afraid before the sword of the angel of
the Lord.
according to the parallel text 2 Sam. xxiv. 13 OjDJ for nBD3), rather "flight." So the Sept , Vulg., and Lather.
P~IK the Sept. renders here and in the whole chapter by 'O/wx, as It conforms to njliX, the Kethib in 2 Sam. xxiv.
w <for which elsewhere there the Keri njTlK always stands). Our text has throughout invariably p'INj which the
Vr (g. gives rightly Oman, Luther wrongly ,l Arnan.'*
EXEGETICAIi.
Preliminary Remark. Relation of the Fore-
going Account of Chronicles to 2 Sam. xxiv. — As
clearly as the mostly verbal agreement of our
account with the parallel text of Samuel points
to one common source of both, so numerous and
important are also their deviations from one
another. They chiefly consist of the following : —
a. The position of the history of the census in 2
Samuel is that of an appendix to the history of
David's reign already in the main completed. In
our book, on the contrary, it closes only that
section of the history of this king which refers
to the external security and enlargement of his
power by wars, buildings, etc. ; but it thereby
leads (in connection with the following description
of his preparation for the building of the temple,
xxii.) to a new section, that by means of full de-
tails of his temple, state and war officers, is fitted
to present a picture of the inner character of his
government, b. The event is so introduced in
2 Samuel, that reference is made to a former
plague, a famine (2 Sam. xxi. 1-14) which God
had brought on the kingdom, so that David's
pernicious project of a census is represented as
the direct effect of the divine anger ("And again
the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel ;
and He moved David, etc."), but, in our account,
so that the whole is referred to a tempting in-
fluence of Satan on David, and connected neither
with that famine nor any former visitation of
Israel under David (not, for example, with the
insurrections of Absalom and Shebna, which,
like the famine, are entirely unnoticed by our
author). For the question, whether the repre-
sentation of Satan as the moral originator of the
census rests on the influence of the religious
ideus of a later time, see on ver. 1. c. The
census executed by Joab at the command of
David is described pretty fully in 2 Sam. xxiv.
4-9, but only summarily in our chapter, with the
chief emphasis on the numerical result, and the
notice of a special circumstance unmentioned in
2 Samuel, namely, that Joab, because the royal
commission was repugnant to him, neglected to
enumerate the tribes of Levi and Benjamin.(vers.
4-6). d. On the purchase of Oman's (or, as the
Keri is in 2 Samuel, Araunah's) floor and the
sacrifice by David, our text (vers. 19-27) is more
full than 2 Sam. xxiv. 19-25. e. The statement,
forming the close of our account and its connec-
tion with what follows, regarding the selection of
the floor of Oman for the constant place of sacri-
fice by David (and for the site of the temple), in
vers. 28-30, is wholly wanting in 2 Sam. xxiv.,
as, indeed, an express reference to the fact that
that place attained a special sacredness under
David by the angelic appearance and the sacrifice
during the plague is absent there, while the
whole occurrence is presented under the prevailing
view of such a judicial punishment as the re-
bellions of Absalom and Shebna, and the famine
already reported there, but by our author entirely
omitted. That the most of these deviations are
occasioned by the peculiar pragmatism and the
special tendency of the author of the books of
Samuel on the one hand and of the Chronist on
the other, is already apparent from this brief sur-
vey, and will receive further confirmation from
the following exposition.
1 . The Census, its Occasion and Effect : vers.
1-6. — And Satan -food up against Israel. That,
instead of the divine anger, here Satan, the per-
sonal evil principle (see on Job i. 6, ii. 1), is
named as the hostile power that occasioned the
pernicious expedient of the census, is now usually
explained (even by Keil) as a later idea of the
132
I. CHRONICLES.
Israelites, and accordingly reckoned among the
proofs that our book was composed after the exile.
That this view is at least hasty, if it does not
involve an error, is plain when we reflect — 1. That
the way in which the prologue of the hook of Job
presupp ises the idea of Satan, as long naturalized
in the belief of Israel, speaks for the origin of this
idea, not only before the exile, but before the time
of Solomon ; 2. That passages such as (Jen. iii. 1 ff.
and 1 Kings xxii. 19 ff., though the name »355»
does not occur in them, show that the materials
of this idea arose from that early time ; and 3.
That to the parallel passage 2 Sam. xxiv. , though
not using the name, the notion of an intervention
of Satan in the temptation of David is by no
means foreign ; indeed, even a positive hint of
this is implied in it. Ew. and Wellh. justly
assume that in the verb used, 2 Sam. xxiv. 1,
riD'V "provoked," lies an allusion to a personal
tempting power, which cannot be God or the
divine anger j1 that, indeed, according to the
original, now mutilated, text of Samuel, probably
JtOfeTI was the subject of ]-|D,1- — -And provoked
David to number Israel. The injury of the census,
indicated by this expression, rests on this, that
such an undertaking in and of itself counted as
an act exciting the anger of God, and therefore
demanding propitiation (comp. the expiatory
customs in the enumerations of the Eomans, ac-
cording to Valerius, Maximus, Varro, and Livius,
as also that census instituted by Moses, Ex. xxx.
'. 1-16, which did not provoke God, only because the
money collected by it as a gift to the tabernacle
had a holy purpose, and therefore an expiating
significance in itself). But a special wrong and
blame was attached to the census of David, be-
cause it was a work of proud boastfulness and
wicked haughtiness, not valuing, but over- valuing,
his own power and greatness (eomp. Joab's warn-
ing, ver. 3). The measure can scarcely be
regarded as an expression of despotic wilfulness
and tyrannic oppression of the people, or as a pre-
paration for the imposition of an oppressive war
tax or other tribute (Berth., etc.), or even as
expressive of a lust for warlike conquest in the
king (J. D. Mich. ; comp. Kurtz in Herzog's
Beal-Encyl. iii. 306); at least the text in nowise
indicates that blame was attached to it on any of
these grounds. — Ver. 2. Go, number Israel from
Beersheba even to Pan, the usual formula to
designate the land of Israel in all its length ; comp.
Judg. xx. 1; 1 Sam. iii. 20; 1 Kings iv. 25, etc.
The plain customary phrases: "Go, number"
(l"1SD 137), are simplifying and explanatory for
those selected in 2 Samuel : KJ'tilt? (specially ad-
dressed ii Joab) and VlpS (including the assist-
ants of Joab in the enumeration, the captains or
commanders of the army). — And bring it to me,
that I may know their number, the number of the
Israelites. — Ver. 3. Joab's Warning. — The Lord
1 Comp. Volck, De gumma carminix Join scntentia. p. 33
flqq. : Hoc si tenes, Deum von sine cawa populo >,uo atque ejus
nut, supert-ienti illi qjuiem, succin-'uitse, Sat-mumque eum
esse, qui, ut homines propter delicto apud Deum arcuset eorum
pmins repetituvus, ita hoc efficiat, ut peccati pullulantis vis
erumpat: difficultatem ita expedies, ut Davidem, quia Deus
iratus pravitatw poenam irroqare voluerit ad infelix Olud con-
silium adduct'tm fume dicas diaboli divmm voluntati imer-
tunlis impulsu, ere— Comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbew i! p
437 ff., aji a Schlottmaan, Das Buds Hiob, p. 38 ff.
add to His people a hundredfold as many as they
are. In 2 Samuel stands, in accordance with the
preference of this author for repetitions of the
same phrase (comp. 1 Sam. xii. 8), a double Qns,
" so many as they are, so many as they are, a
hundredfold," or more briefly: "so and so many as
they are a hundredfold. " For the present simpler
expression, eomp. Deut. i. 11. — Are they not all
. . . my lord's servants ? Does any one doubt
that this great multitude of people is subject to
thee ? Will any one check thy joy in the great-
ness and power of thy kingdom ? This question
is wanting in the often deviating text of Samuel,
in place of which are the words : " that the eyes
of my lord the king may see it " (the hundred-
fold increase of the people). — Why shall it be a
trespass to Israel ? — a trespass (DDC'tf) that
brings divine punishment on the people instead
of thee, the king, who art guilty of this wicked
haughtiness. — Ver. 4. But the word of the king
yreoailed against Joab, literally, " was strong
above Joab " (which form pj; pfn is perhaps to
be restored in 2 Samuel in place of the present
7X 'n)> overcame his resistance (Luth. : "suc-
ceeded against Joab"); comp. 2 Chron. viii. 3,
xxvii. 5. — Ver. 5. And all Israel were a thousand
thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew
sword, literally, "that bare the sword ;" comp.
Judg. viii. 10, xx. 2, 15, 17, 46, etc. The num-
ber 1,100,000, compared with the 800,000 men-at-
arms in 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, involves an actual devia-
tion, which either depends on an ancient variety
in the traditions concerning the numerical result
of the census, or what is more probable, must be
derived from a confusion of the numbers ; comp.
the cases of this kind cited in the Introd. § 6,
No. 5. The difference in the number of the
Jewish men-at-arms is smaller, in which the
500,000 in 2 Samuel is merely a round number,
for the more exact one, 470, 000, contained in our
text. Moreover, differences in the later traditions
might the more easily arise in this Davidic census,
because it was merely oral, as, according to 1
Chron. xxvii. 24, the result was not entered in
the annals of the kingdom. The general correct-
ness of the account, that Israel then numbered
about a million, and Judah about half a million
warriors, is warranted by the communications of
the author, which attest even for much later
times the extraordinary density of the population
in the formerly so fruitful land of promise. And
that the actual army of David, 1 Chron. xxvii.
1 ff., amounted only to 288,000 men, by no means
contradicts the present statement relative to the
total number of men fit to bear arms ; comp. our
remark on iv. 18.— Ver. 6. But Levi and Benja-
min he counted not among them ; for the king's
word was abominable to Joab ; on account of the
reluctance with which he obeyed the command of
the king, the numbering was not quite completed :
it was stopped, perhaps at the king's command,
before Benjamin, the last of the tribes to be num-
bered, was taken in hapd ; comp. the more exact
statements in 2 Sam. xxiv. 5 ff. concerning the
order pursued by the commission under Joab, that,
starting from the southern tribes east of Jordan,
went round over the north of the land to the south
of Judah, and thence arrived at Jerusalem. A«
no time remained for the numbering of Benjamin
CHAP. XXI. 7-16.
133
(comp. xxvii. 23 f. — the express statement that
the numbering was not completed ; also Josephus,
Antiq. vii 13. 1: %aipie tJj; l&eviecptiTiSos tyv\ris.
\\ttpi6[*.wa-t yip avritv ovk 'ipfatrsv), so the tribe of
Levi was omitted on account of its legal exemption
from numerations for political or military objects
(comp. Num. i. 47-54). In the present state-
ment, therefore, there is nothing incredible ; and
neither its absence in 2 Samuel, nor the circum-
stance that the Chtonist, instead of the unfinished
state of the census, puts forward in his subjective
pragmatism the reluctance of Joab as the cause of
the omission of those tribes, justifies the suspicions
entertained by de Wette and Gramberg against it.
Comp. Keil, Apologet. Versuch, p. 349 ft.
2. The Divine Displeasure with tlie Numbering
of the People by (lie Voice of the Seer Gad : vers.
7-13. — And Qod was displeased with this thing,
literally, "and it was evil (j>Tl) in God's eyes
for this thing: " the same construction appears in
Gen. xxi. 22 ; usually without "jj) before the dis-
pleasing object, Gen. xxxviii. 10; 2 Sam. xi. 27,
etc. — And He smote Israel. This is not so much
an anticipation of that which is narrated ver. 1 4 ff . ,
as a generalizing description of the mode in which
God's anger took effect on Israel. It does not
appear that the words are to be amended (Berth.),
according to 2 Sam. xxiv. 10: iriS TFTX> T|a\,
" and the heart of David smote him." We have
kere simply two modes of narrative, one of which
regards more the human thought and deed, the
other more the divine. — Ver. 10. Three things I
lay before thee, concerning thee, with thee, laying
the choice before thee. Wellh. justly declares,
not the strange p(33 of Samuel, but our nD3
to be original (against Berth.). — Ver. 12. Either
three years of famine. This time is certainly the
original, not the seven years of the text in Samuel,
which has arisen by the easy change of the letters
(]12XP f°r KvB>)> an(i finds its emendation in the
Sept. — Or three montlis to be driven before thy
foes. What is here original, whether nSDJ of
our text (nom. particip. Niph.: "to perish, be
swept away ") or ?|DJ in 2 Samuel, must remain
doubtful. On the contrary, the following mni
rUB'O^ tpyiKi " and the sword of thy foes to
overtake " (= so that the sword of thy foes over-
take thee), is certainly to be preferred to the
reading ^jsYt fcftm in 2 Samuel. — That the angel
of the Lord destroy in all the border of Israel.
This enforcing addition to the third question is
wanting in 2 Samuel, but must be no less original
than that parallel addition to the second question.
And the hendiadyoin: "the sword of the Lord
and pestilence, " for the simple pestilence ("ITl)
in 2 Samuel, can scarcely be regarded as an arbi-
trary addition of the Chronist. Comp. , moreover,
with respect to the triad of divine judgments —
famine, sword, and pestilence — the parallels, Lev.
xxvi. 25 f.; 1 Kings viii. 37 ; 2 Chron. xx. 9; Jer.
xiv. 12 ff., xxi. 7-9, xxiv. 10, xxvii. 8, 13, xxix.
17 f., xxxii. 24-36, xxxiv. 17, xxxviii. 2, xlii.
17, 22, xliv. 13; Ezek. v. 12, vi. 11 f., vii 15,
xii 16 ; also Ezek. xxi. 19, where this woful
triad is indicated by the figure of three swords ;
likewise Ezek. v. 17, xiv. 13-19, Eev. vi. 8, where
the triad is extended to a quatrain by tbe addition
of beasts of prey (comp. still other appropriate
parallels in my Theol. naturalis, i. p. 637).
3. The Judgment, and David's Repentant En-
treaty for its Removal: vers. 14-17. — And the
Lord sent pestilence upon Israel. That this
pestilence continued "from the morning even to
the time appointed " is stated in the precise
account in 2 Samuel ; likewise that it affected
all the people "from Dan even to Beersheba. ''
Wellh. (p. 220) defends, perhaps not unjustly,
the extended form of our first verse-member,
which the Sept. presents, as original: "And
David chose the pestilence ; and when the days
of wheat harvest came (comp. ver. 20), the
plague began among the people." — Ver. 15. And
God sent an angel to Jerusalem. The TIK^D
without the article, " an angel," is strange, as the
angel in question, ver. 12, was named before.
Berth, gives the preference to the text 2 Sam.
xxiv. 16: " And the angel stretched out his hand
to Jerusalem," whereas Movers (p. 91) defends
our text as original. Perhaps neither text now
contains exactly and fully the original, whether
we amend, with Keil: "And the angel of God
stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem," or de-
clare the restoration of the original now impos-
sible (with Wellh.). — And as he was destroying,
the Lord beheld, and repented of the evil ; that is,
as soon as the angel had begun to destroy,
Jehovah considered, and repented that He had
decreed the heavy stroke. On this repentance of
God, comp. Gen. vi. 16 ; Ex. xxxii. 14 ; Jer. xlii.
10 ; Jon. iii. 10 ; Ps. cvi. 23. — It is enough now,
stay thy hand. Notwithstanding the ace. dis-
tinct, over 31, this word is to be connected with
the following DflJJ, and taken in the sense of
"enough" (sufficit) ; comp. Deut. i. 6 ; 1 Kings
xix. 4. Against Berth., who in 2 Sam. xxi".
16 connects 2~) w'th D5)3, an<i regards this "a
great mass of people " as the original reading,
see not only Keil, but also Wellh. — And the
angel of the Lord stood by the floor of Oman the
Jebusite. That this Oman (or Araunah,-as the
Keri writes his name in 2 Samuel ; comp. Crit.
Note here) had been king of the Jebusites
cannot be inferred from 2 Sam. xxiv. 23, as the
word TT^DH there is either to be erased, with
Then., or (with Bottcher and Wellh.) to be re-
ferred by emendation to David (there addressed
by Araunah). That the floor of Ornan was on
Mount Moriah, the subsequent site of the temple,
north-east of Zion, is stated in the sequel ; see
ver. 28 ff. — Ver. 16. And David . . . saw the
angel of the Lord standing between the earth and
Die heavens. This whole verse, as also ver. 20,
with the statement of the hiding of Ornan and
his four sons before the angel, and ver. 26, with
the mention of the fire coming down from God
on David's offering, are wanting in the shorter
and simpler account in 2 Samuel. These may be
called embellishments of tradition, but they are
not to be regarded as inventions of our historian
(against Berth., etc.). — And David and the elders
. . . fell on their faces. The mention of the
elders is wanting in 2 Samuel, but is not the
least strange, as it was a solemn act of expiation
134
I. CHRONICLES.
and penitence on behalf of the whole nation.
Comp. also the mention, 2 Sam. xxiv. 20, of the
retinue of servants accompanying the king when
he went to Oman. — Ver. 17. Have not I com-
manded to number the people ? In 2 Samuel the
prayer of David is much briefer. But for this
very reason the attempt of Bertheau to show that
our text here and in the sequel arises from the
effort to explain and improve the other text is
altogether unjustified. Neither are the present
words Din niJD^> WBX 'ON N^il corrupted
from those in Samuel : nODH "|&6ormK lntTG
DJ73, nor is Tliyin jnril to be changed into a
supposed original Vrijnri iljnn ODNl, "and I,
the shepherd, have done wrong ; " for the ques-
tion : " but these sheep, what have they done ? "
is easily understood without the previous men-
tion of the shepherd ; comp. Ps. xcv. 7, o. 3,
etc.
4. The Purchase of Oman's Floor, and the
Offering of the Burnt-Sacrifice there : vers. 18-
27. — Ver. 20. And Oman turned. So 2W']
is certainly to be translated (comp. 2 Kings xx.
5 ; Isa. xxxviii. 5 ; and such New Testament
passages as Luke xxii. 61, etc.), not "returned,"
as Bertheau does against the context, at the same
time defending the conjecture that 3tJ"1 is cor-
rupted from f|pC«V — And Oman was threshing
wheat, a clause wanting in 2 Samuel, but cer-
tainly original, which is confirmed by the notice
of the Sept. already mentioned on ver. 15 con-
cerning the wheat harvest as the time when the
pestilence began. — Ver. 22. Give me the place of
this floor. So it is to be translated, not as in
Luther: "Give me space in this floor." The
whole floor was necessary for the king's object ;
it is also all bought by him. The history of this
purchase recalls in general the similar incident in
the life of Abraham, Gen. xxiii., but does not
necessitate the assumption that the recollection
of Gen. xxiii. 9 affected the forms of the text,
nor in particular that the twofold n?D E)D33
was taken thence. — Ver. 23. Lo, J give the oxen
for burnt-offerings. Along with D^'liDHl stands
also 2 Samuel : "ipan VD1, " and the harness of
the oxen," their wooden yokes, a certainly
original phrase, that has only fallen out of our
text by a mistake. The other text also requires
the mention of "the wheat for the meat offer-
ing," which can be no late addition. — Ver. 24.
Nor offer burnt-offerings without cost, that is,
without having paid the full price for them.
The infin. ni?V'"11 after the finite verb as a con-
tinuation is not surprising ; comp. Ew. § 351, c.
Here also Bertheau's emendations are superfluous.
— Ver. 25. And David gave to Oman for the
place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
Otherwise 2 Samuel xxiv. 24, where David pur-
chases the floor with the oxen for fifty shekels of
silver. The one of these two contradictory state-
ments is certainly corrupt, and more probably
that in 2 Samuel, as fifty shekels of silver is too
low a price ; comp. Abraham's 400 shekels of
silver for the cave of Machpelah, Gen. xxiii. 15.
The sum of 600 shekels of gold appears, indeed,
too high ; but an over-payment corresponds better
with the crisis than a much smaller price, which
might have been interpreted as an act of mean
covetousness. That the Chronist has "inten-
tionally exaggerated " (Then. ) is a conjecture as
little to be justified as the different harmonizing
attempts of the ancients ; for example, that each
of the twelve tribes must have given fifty shekels,
whereby the 600 shekels mentioned by the
Chronist were raised (Raschi), or that the 600
shekels are to be reckoned as silver, but to be
paid in gold, and with fifty pieces of gold, of
which each was = twelve silver shekels (Noldius,
ad concord. Part. not. 719), etc.— Ver. 26. And
David . . . offered burnt-offerings and peaa-
offerings. After the sentence corresponding to
these words in 2 Sam. xxiv. 25 is found in the
Sept. an addition that anticipates in brief the
contents of xxii. 1-6. — And he called upon the
Lord, and He answered him by fire (or heard
him with fire) from heaven on the altar of burnt-
offering. For these words, to be understood
according to Lev. ix. 24, 1 Kings xviii. 24, 38,
2 Kings i. 12, and 2 Chron. vii. 1, 2 Samuel has
simply: "and the Lord was entreated for the
land" (comp. on ver. 16) ; likewise for our ver.
27, with its mention of the angel's sword returned
into its sheath, the plainer and less poetical :
"and the plague was stayed from Israel.
5. David's repeated Offering on the Floor of
Oman, with the Reason: vers. 28-30.-^1* that
time . . . he sacrificed there ; that is, repeatedly,
frequently ; Luther rightly : ' ' was wont to offer
there." Only this sense of DE* DIM agrees with
the sequel, especially with xxii. 1. — Vers. 29, 30
explain this selection of Oman's floor for the
regular place of sacrifice for the king more pre-
cisely, by referring to the older sanctuary at
Gibeon, and to the apparent neglect of it ; comp.
on ch. xv. 1, xvi. 39 f. — And David could not go
before it, the tabernacle at Gibeon, and the altar
there ; comp. for 133? in this connection, xvi. 4,
37, 39. — For he was afraid before the sword oj
the angel of the Lord ; the appearance of the
angel, with its desolating effects, had left in his
mind an awfully strong impression of the holi-
ness of the place, so that he did not venture to
sacrifice in any other place. This interpretation
only (comp. Berth. ) suits the fact and the con
text, not that of various recent expositors, who
wish to extract strange motives out of the words ;
for example, J. H. Mich. • "quia ex terrore visionis
angelica infirmitatem corporis contraxerat," or
<>. v. Gerlach : "because Gibeon was too far
away," or Keil : "because Gibeon, notwithstand-
ing the sanctuary existing there with the Mosaic
altar, was not spared by the plague," etc.
Comp., moreover, for the various details of tha
present account, the evangelical and ethical reflec-
tions at the close of the exposition of this book.
CHAP. XXII.
18*
e. David's Arrangements for the Building of the Temple ; other Spiritual amd
Temporal Regulations ; last Will and Death.— Ch. xxii.-xxix.
a. Provisions for the Building of the Temple: ch. xxii.
Ch. xxii. 1. And David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the
altar of burnt-offering for Israel.
2 And David commanded to gather the strangers that were in the land of
Israel ; and he appointed masons to hew square stones to build the house of
3 God. And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of
4 the gates, and for braces ; and brass in abundance without weight. And
cedar-trees without number ; for the Zidonians and Tyrians brought much
5 cedar-wood to David. And David said, Solomon my son is young and
tender, and the house to be builded for the Lord must be highly magnifical
for name and glory in all countries : I will now prepare for it : and David
prepared abundantly before his death.
6 And he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build a house for
7 the Lord God of Israel. And David said to Solomon, My son,1 1 had it in
8 mind to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God. But the word of
the Lord came unto me, saying, Thou hast shed much blood, and made great
wars ; thou shalt not build a house unto my name, because thou hast shed
9 much blood on the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born to thee,
who shall be a man of rest ; and I will give him rest from all his enemies
around ; for Solomon shall be his name, and I will give peace and rest unto
10 Israel in his days. He shall build a house to my name ; and he shall be my
son, and I will be his father ; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom
1 1 over Israel for ever. Now, my son, the Lord be with thee ; and prosper
12 thou, and build the house of the Lord thy God, as He hath said of thee. Also
the Lord will give thee wisdom and understanding, and ordain thee over
13 Israel, that thou may est keep the law of the Lord thy God. Then shalt thou
prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes and judgments which the
Lord commanded Moses concerning Israel : be firm and strong ; fear not, nor
14 be dismayed. And, behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of
the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand
talents of silver, and of brass and of iron without weight ; for it is in abun-
dance : and I have prepared timber and stone, and thou shalt add thereto.
15 And with thee1 are workers in abundance, hewers and carvers of stone and of
1 6 timber, and all skilful men in all work. Of the gold, the silver, and the brass,
and the iron there is no number : arise and do, and the Lord be with thee.
17 And David commanded all the princes of Israel to help Solomon his son :
18 Is not the Lord your God with you? and hath He not given you rest on
every side ? For He hath given the inhabitants of the land into my hand ;2
19 and the land is subdued before the Lord, and before His people. Now give
your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God ; and arise and build
the sanctuary of the Lord God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord,
and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to be built to the name of
the Lord.
' 'JB, according to the Keri; the Ketlub has 133, " unto Solomon his son ; " but it scarcely de-erve* the yireterence,
u fa3 might easily arise from fa3 fl'DPEVi *er. 6.
1 So the Masoretio text and a part of the mss. of the Sept. (A2 F X : iv x"P< A"")- But tlle SeP'- «><*• r<" . Vulg.,
Luther, etc. : " into your hands."
EXEGETICAL.
1. Connection with the Foregoing Section : ver.
I. — The present chapter, which opens the second
half of David's history referring to the inner side
of his government, is, by its introductory verse,
closely connected with the foregoing account ol
the pestilence, and the consequent 'devaticn of
136
I. CHRONICLES.
the floor of Oman to be the place of sacrifice for
the king. The further accounts, relating directly
or indirectly to the security of David's kingdom
for his successor, to the end of the book, are thus
in a suitable way connected with the last-men-
tioned important event in the external history of
the government of David. — This is the house of
the Lord God, or: "shall be a house of the Lord
God." David gives this determination to the
former threshing-floor on the same ground that
moved Jacob to consecrate his resting-place at
Luz to be a Bethel (Gen. xxviii. 17), because
Jehovah had there revealed to him His saving
presence.
2. The Preparation of Materials for the future
Temple : vers. 2-5. — And David commanded to
gather the strangers that were in the land of
Israel, the descendants of the Canaanites sub-
dued in the conquest of the land, who lived as
bondmen under his government ; comp. 2 Chron.
viii. 7-10 and ch. ii. 16, 17, where the number
of these bondmen under Solomon is stated to be
150,000, whom he employed as bearers and work-
men in building the temple. — Masons to hew
square stones. Comp. 1 Kings v. 17, 31 ; also
the simple jyjj, square stones, 1 Kings vi. 36,
vii. 9 ff. ; Ex. xx. 25; Isa. ix. 9.— Ver. 3. For
the nails for the doors of the gates, and for braces.
nVianoK properly, "for joining things " (Sept.
TrpoQus ; more correctly Vulg. commissurce atque
junctures) ; comp. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 11, where,
however, braces of wood are meant. — Ver. 4. For
the Zidonians and Tyrians ( = Phenicians ;
comp. Ezra iii. 7) brought much cedar-wood to
David; this at first naturally, as an article of
trade for the exports of Palestine, corn, wine,
fruit, etc., not yet by a contract of supply for
building the temple, such as Solomon afterwards
made with Hiram, 1 Kings v. 15 ff. — Ver. 5.
Solomon my son is young and tender. So (ijjj
nil, panwlus et delicatus, Vulg.) David names
Solomon also, ch. xxix. 1, in one of his last
speeches to the people, although, born shortly
after the Syrian Ammonite wars (2 Sam. xii. 24),
he must have been at this time, shortly before
David's end, above twenty years of age. But
even shortly after the beginning of his reign,
Solomon calls himself Jit3p ~IJ?J, 1 Kings iii. 7;
comp., for example, also Benjamin, Gen. xliii. 44;
Joshua, Ex. xxxiii. 11 ; Behoboam, 2 Chron. xiii.
7, etc. — And the house to be builded for the Lord
must be highly magnificat (properly, ' ' great to
make"). n?JJD?, properly, "upward," "above
measure great;" comp. on xiv. 2. — For name
and glory in all countries, that it tend to the
glory of the Lord in all countries ; comp. xiv.
17. — / will now prepare for it. The meaning of
this cheerful offering is somewhat weakened, if,
with the Vulg. (prceparabo ergo, etc.) and Luther
("therefore will I make preparation"), we take
{<J as a particle of inference.
8. The Charge to Solomon to build the Temple :
vers. 6-16. This charge is obviously to be re-
garded as given to Solomon shortly before the
death of David ; see the \r?\t2 *)tb at the dose of
ver. 5. The whole address on to ver. 16, beside*
being a legacy of the predecessor to his successor,
is therefore to be regarded in some measure as
parallel to 1 Kings ii. 2-9, and as essentially con-
temporary with the contents of ch. xxviii. and
xxix. of our book. On its perhaps not strictly
historical but ideal character, which is common
to it with those addresses of David in ch. xxviii.
and xxix., see Introd. § 6, No. 6. — Ver. 7. On
the Keri 'J3 to be preferred to the Kethib 133, see
Crit. Note. — / had it in mind, literally, " I, it was
in my heart ; " quite so (with the same emphatic
position of 'jx before 133? Dy) also ch. xxviii. 2.
The phrase : "it is or was in my heart, " for: "I
have (had) in mind, " appears also in 2 Chron. i.
11, vi. 7 f., ix. 1, xxiv. 4, xxix. 10, as in other
historical books, Josh. xiv. 7; 1 Kings viii. 17 f.,
x. 2. — Ver. 8. But the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying. "What was a historical necessity
in the course of David's government is by this
concrete description referred to a definite word of
the Lord communicated somewhere and sometime
to David, as in ch. xxviii. 3 (comp. 1 Kings v.
17). It is not necessary to seek a definite place,
where such a divine command was at least inti-
mated to him. What Nathan says, xvii. 4 ff., of
David's wars, concerns only the help which God
gave him in these, but does not give prominence
to the circumstance that he was by those frequent
wars unfitted for building the temple. Comp.
also Hengstenb. Gesch. des Reiches Gottes, iii.
124. — Ver. 9. Behold, a son shall be born to thee.
The participle (1713) is here in the sense of the
luture ; comp. ver. 19 and 1 Kings xiii. 2. —
Who shall be a man of rest, not a man who makes
rest (Jer. Ii. 59 ; comp. Hitzig on this passage),
but, as the sequel shows, a man who enjoys rest,
who has the blessings of peace, and therefore
rightly bears his name flbSt?. Comp. the de-
scription of the profound peace during the reign
of Solomon, 1 Kings v. 4 f.— On ver. 10, comp.
ch. xvii. 12 f., which prediction of Nathan is
briefly repeated in our passage. — Ver. 11. The
Lord be with thee (comp. vers. 16, 18) ; and prosper
thou; comp. ver. 13; Josh. i. 8; and lastly, on -fl^
$>y, to charge any one, ver. 8 (i^j/) and xi. 10.—
Ver. 12. Also the Lord will give thee wisdom and
understanding; the same terms are so connected
in 2 Chron. ii. 11. The fulfilment of this pro-
phecy, as of the similar one of Nathan (2 Sam.
vii. 11), see in 1 Kings iii. 5 S.—That thou mayesi
keep the law of the Lord, properly, "and to keep
the law, " etc. Comp. , on this continuation of the
verb fin. by the infin. with f), Ew. § 351, c—
Ver. 13. If thou takest heed to fulfil ("to do")
the statutes and judgments. The language here
frequently coincides with the prescriptions and
promises of Deuteronomy ; comp. Deut. iv. 1,
v. 1, vii. 4, 11, xi. 32 ; and respecting the closing
admonition: "be firm and strong," Deut. xxxi.
6, 8 ; Josh. i. 7, etc.— Ver. 14. And behold, in
my trouble, etc. So is •"ijjq to be taken here
(comp. Gen. xxxi. 42, and the parallel meaning,
ch. xxix. 2), not "in my labour," as the Sept.,
CHAP. XXII. 16-19.
187
Vulg. , and Luther have misunderstood the phrase.
The following numbers, 100,000 talents of gold
and 1,000,000 talents of silver, are only free from
the suspicion of wilful exaggeration by theChronist
or an error of transcription, if we are permitted
to introduce a reckoning according to other, that
is, smaller units than those customary in the
O. T. (comp. Introd. § 6, No. 5). If we reckon
the talent ("133) of silver at 3000 shekels of silver,
according to the usual Mosaic or sacred value of
about 2s. 3|d. each, it would amount to £342,
and therefore 1, 000, 000 such silver talents would
make the large sum of £342,000,000 ; and 100,000
talents of gold, if the gold shekel be sixteen times
that of silver, would reach the still higher sum of
£547,500,000. Thegold and silver thus gathered
by David would amount to £889,500,000, a sum
incredibly high for the requirements of worship
at that time. On the contrary, if we assume, with
Keil, that the present shekel is not the sacred
(Mosaic) but the civil so-called shekel, after the
king's weight, and that these royal shekels were
only half as weighty as the others, and so equal
in weight and value to the bekah or Mosaic half-
shekel (Ex. xxxviii. 26), — an assumption that
seems to be corroborated by the comparison of
1 Kings a. 17 with 2 Chron. ix. 16,' the sum
named is reduced by at least a half. That so
large a sum gathered and saved by David is not
inconceivable, but has its parallel in other high
sums of oriental antiquity, Movers (Die Phonizier,
ii. 3, p. 45 ff.) and Keil (p. 182 f. of his Comment.)
have rendered probable by examples from the
history of Persia and Syria, those exceedingly
rich countries adjacent to the kingdom of David;
comp. the £34,000 of gold and 500,000 talents
of silver which Cyrus seized in the conquest of
Athens (Varro, in Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxii. 15), the
40,000 talents of uncoined gold and silver and
9000 talents of coined silver which Alexander
seized in Susa alone, the 120,000 talents which
the same conqueror acquired in Persepolis ; like-
wise the colossal treasures of Syria, with its
numerous great idols of solid gold, its gold shields
for the servants of Hadadezer, 2 Sam. viii. 7 ff. , its
gold pins as ornaments of the boots of the common
soldiers of an Antiochus the Great, etc. At all
events, it is hasty in Bertheau, who, besides, com-
mits a great error in asserting that 5000 millions
of thalers (about £750,000,000) would suffice to
pay off the debt of all European states, to deny
the credibility of the present high numbers, and
suppose that they could be "nothing but the
first circumlocution of the notion, ' great, exceed-
ingly great, ' — a circumlocution that may still be
heard in the mouth of those who have not re-
flected on the value and import of the numbers,
and therefore deal quite freely with thousands
•Hid hundred thousands. " Neither the fact that
Solomon's annual revenue amounted only to 666
talents of gold, nor that the queen of Sheba made
him a present of 120 talents of gold (comp.
1 Kings x. 10, 14; 2 Chron. ix. 9), is sufficient to
confirm this suspicion of a boastful exaggeration
• See Mosis Maimon Conttitutiomi de siclis,—quas illw-
irauit, Jo EsKevs, Lugd. Bat. 1718, p 19, and comp the
remarks on 2 Chron. iii. 3 concerning the relation of the older
(sacred or Mosaic) cubit to the shorter civil cubit of later
times. [In the text, English money has been substituted for
foreign.J
as the ground of the present statements. For,
besides the 666 talents in gold expressly mentioned
in those passages, Solomon must have had still
other revenues considerably higher in their total
amount (especially from tolls and tributes of the
subject nations) ; but the value of a single gift in
money and precious metals cannot in itself be
compared with that of a great treasure amassed
during several years. And should not David have
actually contemplated the foundation of a temple
treasure, of which the surplus remaining ni'ttr
defraying the cost of building should be kept in
the sanctuary, and saved for covering the future
expenses of it (as Solomon actually did after the
building was finished with the money remaining
over, 2 Chron. v. 1; 1 Kings vii. 51), and there-
fore have accumulated so vast a sum ? Comp.
that which is expressly reported to this effect,
and see Keil's full discussion of all questions and
opinions on this matter (pp. 181-184). — And thou
shalt add thereto. That Solomon followed this
advice of his father, to add to the building
materials, is clear from 2 Chron. ii., where also
the activity of the here (ver. 15, and in vei. 2)
mentioned workers in stone and wood, as well as
the "skilful men in all work" (D3n, to denote
the ingenious mastery in the crafts of building
and figuring, as in Bezaleel, Ex. xxxi. 3), is again
mentioned. — Ver. 16. Of the gold, the silver, and
the brass, and the iron, there is no number, pro-
perly, " for gold," etc. The ~> before the several
words serves to make more prominent that which
is hitherto enumerated (Ew. § 310, a). On the
following nfc'yi fflpi " arise and do, " comp. Ezra
x. 4.
4. Invitation to the Princes of Israel to aid in
the building of the Temple : vers. 17-19. — Is not
the Lord your God with you ? The remembrance
of God's former grace toward the people is a
ground for the invitation. That the words com-
municated here and in ver. 19 are David's words
to the princes, is sufficiently clear even without
")bX7 from the foregoing li'i 1 ; comp. the same
immediate introduction of the address in xxiii. 4.
He hath given the inhabitants of the land into my
hand, the Canaanites, Jebusites, Philistines ;
comp. xiv. 10 f., Josh. ii. 24, as on the following :
"the land is subdued," Josh, xviii. 1, Num.
xxxii. 22, 29. — Ver. 19. Now give your heart and
soul to seek the Lord your God ; comp. 2 Chron.
xvii. 4, Ezra iv. 2, where the same construction
of Knl with *> is found, whereas elsewhere it
usually has the simple ace. of the object after it
(xvi. 12, xxi. 30, etc.). — To bring the ark of the
covenant (xv. 1 ; 2 Chron. v. 2) . . . into the house,
etc. ^j in jvap stands (as in Josh. iv. 5) for
^$, and is not perhaps nota accusativi (Berth.), as
fc03n is never constructed with the ace. loci, hut
with $)K, or with the ace. and n local. For the
future sense of n333n, comp. on ver. 9.
188 I. CHRONICLES.
/3. Distribution of the Levites and Priests, and Order of their Service: ch. xxiii.-xxvi.
Ch. xxiii. 1. And David was old and full of days, and he made his son Solomon
king over Israel.
1. Enumeration of the Levites, and Arrangement of their Work: vers. 2-5.
2 And he gathered all the princes of Israel, and the priests and the Levites.
3 And the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years and upwards ;
4 and their number by their polls in men was thirty and eight thousand. Of
these, twenty and four thousand were to oversee the work of the house of the
B Lord, and six thousand were to be officers and judges. And four thousand
porters ; and four thousand praising the Lord with instruments which I have
made1 for praise.
2. The Twenty-four Houses of the Levites: vers. 6-23.
6 And David divided them2 into courses for the sons of Levi, for Gershon,
Kohath, and Merari.
7, 8 Of the Gershonites were Ladan and Shimi. The sons of Ladan were the
9 chief Jehiel, and Zetham, and Joel, three. The sons of Shimi were Shelomith,8
and Haziel, and Haran, three : these were the chiefs of the fathers for Ladan.
10 And the sons of Shimi were Jahath, Zina, and Jeush, and Beriah : these four
11 were Shimi's sons. And Jahath was the chief, and Zizah the second; and
Jeush and Beriah had not many sons ; and they formed one father-house and
one class.
12, 13 The sons of Kohath : Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. The sons
of Amram : Aaron and Moses ; and Aaron was separated to sanctify him as
most holy, he and his sons for ever, to burn incense before the Loud, to
1 4 minister to Him, and to bless in His name for ever. And Moses, the man of
15 God, his sons were called after the tribe of Levi. The sons of Moses were
16, 17 Gershom and Eliezer. Of the sons of Gershom, Shebuel was the chief. And
the sons of Eliezer were Behabiah the chief : and Eliezer had no other sons ;
18 but the sons of Behabiah were very many. The sons of Izhar, Shelomith the
19 chief. The sons of Hebron : Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel
20 the third, Jekamam the fourth. The sons of Uzziel : Micah the first, and
Jesiah the second.
21 The sons of Merari : Mahli and Mushi ; the sons of Mahli : Eleazar and
22 Kish. And Eleazar died, and had no sons, but only daughters ; and their
23 brethren, the sons of Kish, took them. The sons of Mushi : Mahli, and
Eder, and Jeremoth, three,
3. Closing Remarks on the Levites: vers. 24-32.
24 These are the sons of Levi after their father-nouses ; the chief of the
fathers for those mustered by the number of the names for their polls, doing
the work for the service of the house of the Lord from twenty years old and
25 upwards. For David said, The Lord God of Israel hath given rest to His
26 people, and He dwelleth in Jerusalem for ever. And also the Levites have
27 no more to carry the tabernacle, with all its vessels for its service. For, by
the last words of David, these were the number of the Levites from twenty
28 years old and upward. For their post was at the hand of the sons of Aaron,
for the service of the house of the Lord, for the courts, and for the chambers,
and for the purifying of everything holy, and the work of the service o the
29 house of God. And for the shew-bread, and the fine flour for meat-otfering,
and the unleavened cakes, and pancakes, and that which is fried, and all
30 measures of capacity and length. And to stand every morning to thank and
31 praise the Lord, and so in the evening. And to offer all burnt-offerings to
the Lord for the Sabbaths, for the new moons, and the set feasts by number,
CHAP. XXHI.-XXVI. 139
32 after the order of them, continually before the Lord. And they shall keep
the charge of the tent of meeting, and the charge of the sanctuary, and the
charge of the sons of Aaron their brethren, for the service of the house of the
Lord.
4. The Twenty-four Classes of Priests: ch. xxiv. 1-19.
Ch. xxiv. 1. And for the sons of Aaron, these are the divisions : the sons of Aaron :
2 Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before
3 their fathers, and had no sons ; and Eleazar and Ithamar became priests. And
David distributed them, so that Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech
4 of the sons of Ithamar were for their office in their service. And the sons of
Eleazar were found more numerous in chief men than the sons of Ithamar ;
and they were thus divided : for the sons of Eleazar sixteen chiefs of father-
5 houses ; and eight of father-houses for the sons of Ithamar. And they
divided them by lot, one with the other ; for the holy princes and the princes
6 of God were of the sons of Eleazar, and of the sons of Ithamar. And
Shemaiah son of Nethaneel, the scribe of the Levites, wrote them before the
king and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar,
and the chiefs of the fathers for the priests and for the Levites : one father-
house being taken for Eleazar, and one 4 taken for Ithamar.
7, 8 And the first lot came out to Jehoiarib, the second to Jedaiah. The third
9 to Harim, the fourth to Seorim. The fifth to Malchijah, the sixth to
10, 11 Mijamin. The seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abijah. The ninth to
12 Jeshuah, the tenth to Shecaniah. The eleventh to Eliashib, the twelfth to
13, 14 Jakim. The thirteenth to Huppah, the fourteenth to Jeshebab. The
15 fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immer. The seventeenth to Hezir, the
16 eighteenth to Hapizez. The nineteenth to Pethahiah, the twentieth to
17 Jehezkel. The one and twentieth to Jachin, the two and twentieth to Gamul.
18 The three and twentieth to Delaiah, the four and twentieth to Maaziah.
19 These are their offices for their service, to go into the house of the Lord
according to their order by Aaron their father, as the Lord God of Israel had
commanded him.
5. The Classes of the Levites: vers. 20-31.
20 And for the remaining sons of Levi : for the sons of Amram, Shubael; for
21 the sons of Shubael, Jehdeiah. For Rehabiah : for the sons of Behabiah, the
22 chief was Isshiah. For the Izharites, Shelomoth ; for the sons of Shelomoth,
23 Jahath. And the sons [of Hebron]6: Jesiah [the first], Amariah the second,
24 Jahaziel the third, Jekamam the fourth. The sons of Uzziel, Micah ; for the
25 sons of Micah, Shamir.6 The brother of Micah was Isshiah ; for the sons of
26 Isshiah, Zechariah. The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi : the sons of
27 Jazziah, Beno.7 The sons of Merari, by Jaaziah his son : Shoham,8 and
28,29 Zaccur, and Ibri. To Mahli belonged Eleazar;9 and he had no sons. Con-
30 cerning Kish, the sons of Kish, Jerahmeel. And the sons of Mushi : Mahli,
and Eder, and Jerimoth : these were the sons of the Levites after their
31 father-houses. And these also cast lots like their brethren the sons of Aaron,
before David the king, and Zadok, and Ahimelech, and the chiefs of the
fathers for the priests and for the Levites : the fathers, the chief like his
younger brother.
6. The Twenty-four Classes of Singers: ch. xxv.
Ch. XXV. 1. And David and the captains of the host separated for service the sons
of Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun, who prophesied10 with harps, with
psalteries, and with cymbals : and the number of the workmen for the service
2 was. For the sons of Asaph : Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and
3 Asharelah sons of Asaph, under Asaph, who prophesied under the king. For
Jeduthun : the sons of Jeduthun were Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah,
Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under their father Jeduthun, on the harp who
140 I. CHRONICLES.
4 prophesied to thank and praise the Lord. For Heman : the sons of Heman
Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani,
Eliathah, Giddalti, and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir,
5 Mahazioth. All these were the sons of Heman, the king's seer in the words
of God, to lift up the horn : and God gave Heman fourteen sons and three
6 daughters. All these were under their father for song in the house of the
Lord, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps for the service of the house of God
7 under the king, with Asaph, and Jeduthun, and Heman. And their number
with their brethren that were instructed in singing to the Lord, all that
8 were cunning were two hundred eight}' and eight. And they cast lots for the
charge, the small as the great, the teacher with the scholar.
9 And the first lot came forth for Asaph to Joseph:11 the second to
1 0 Gedaliah ; he and his sons and his brethren were twelve. The third to
1 1 Zaccur, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The fourth to Izri, his sons and
12 his brethren, twelve. The fifth to Nethaniah, his sons and his brethren,
13, 14 twelve. The sixth to Bukkiah, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The
15 seventh to Jesharelah, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The eighth to
16 Jeshaiah, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The ninth to Mattaniah, his
17 sons and his brethren, twelve. The tenth to Shimei, his sons and his
18 brethren, twelve. The eleventh to Azarel, his sons and his brethren, twelve.
19, 20 The twelfth to Hashabiah, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The thirteenth
21 to Shubael, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The fourteenth to Mattithiah,
22 his sons and his brethren, twelve. The fifteenth to Jerimoth, his sons and
23 his brethren, twelve. The sixteenth to Hananiah, his sons and his brethren,
24 twelve. The seventeenth to Joshbekashah, his sons and his brethren, twelve.
25, 26 The eighteenth to Hanani, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The nineteenth
27 to Mallothi, his sons and his brethren, twelve. The twentieth to Eliathah,
28 his sons and his brethren, twelve. The one and twentieth to Hothir, his sons
29 and his brethren, twelve. The two and twentieth to Giddalti, his sons and
30 his brethren, twelve. The three and twentieth to Mahazioth, his sons and
31 his brethren, twelve. The four and twentieth to Romamti-ezer, his sons and
his brethren, twelve.
7. The Classes of Porters: eh. xxvi. 1-19.
Ch. xxvi. 1. Concerning the divisions of the porters : to the Korhites was Meshele-
2 miah son of Korah, of the sons of Asaph.12 And Meshelemiah had sons :
Zechariah the first-born, Jediael the second, Zebadiah the third, Jathniel the
3, 4 fourth. Elam the fifth, Jehohanan the sixth, Elioenai the seventh. And
Obed-edom had sons : Shemaiah the first-born, Jehozabad the second, Joah
5 the third, and Sacar the fourth, and Nathaneel the fifth. Ammiel the sixth,
6 Issachar the seventh, Beulthai the eighth ; for God blessed him. And to
Shemaiah his son were born sons, that ruled in the house of their father ; for
7 they were valiant men. The sons of Shemaiah : Othni, and Bephael, and
8 Obed, Elzabad, — his brethren, strong men, — Elihu, and Semachiah. All these
of the sons of Obed-edom, they and their sons and their brethren, strong men
9 of ability for service, were sixty and two of Obed-edom. And Meshelemiah
10 had sons and brethren, strong men, eighteen. And Hosah, of the sons of
Merari, had sons : Shitnri the chief ; for he was not the first-born, but his ,
11 father made him chief. Hilkiah the second, Tebaliah the third, Zechariah
the fourth : all the sons and brethren of Hosah were thirteen.
12 To these divisions of the porters, to the chiefs of the men, were the wards
13 like their brethren, to minister in the house of the Lord. And they cast
14 lots, the small as the great, after their father-houses, for every gate. And
the lot eastward fell to Shelemiah : and for Zechariah his son, a wise coun-
15 sellor, they cast lots, and his lot came out northward. To Obed-edom south-
16 ward ; and to his sons the house of Asuppim. To Shuppim13 and to Hosah
westward, at the gate Shallecheth, by the causeway of ascent, one ward like
17 another. Eastward were six Levites, northward four a day, southward four
CHAP. XXIII.-XXVI. 141
18 a day, and towards Asuppim two and two. At Parbar westward, four on
19 the causeway, and two at Parbar. These were the divisions of the porters
for the sons of Kore, and for the sons of Merari.
8. The Administrators of the Treasures of the Sanctuary, with the Officers for the
External Business : vera. 20-32.
2 '. And the Levites their brethren 14 were over the treasures of the house of
21 God, and over the treasures of the holy things. The sons of Ladan, the sons
of the G-ershonite of Ladan, chiefs of the father-houses of Ladan the Ger-
22 shonite, Jehieli. The sons of Jehieli : Zetham, and Joel his brother, over the
23 treasures of the house of the Lord. Of the Amramites, the Izharites, the
24 Hebronites, and the Uzzielites. Shebuel son of Gershom, the son of Moses,
25 was ruler of the treasures. And his brethren by Eliezer were Eehabiah his
son, and Jeshaiah his son, and Joram his son, and Zichri his son, and Shelo-
2£ moth18 his son. This Shelomoth and his brethren were over the treasures of
the holy things, which David the king had dedicated, and the chiefs of the
fathers, and16 the captains of thousands and hundreds, and the captains of
27 the host. Out of the wars and of the spoil they dedicated to maintain the
28 house of the Lord. And all that Samuel the seer, and Saul the son of Kish,
and Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Zeruiah, had dedicated ; every-
thing dedicated was under Shelomoth and his brethren.
29 Of the Izharites was Chenaniah with his sons, for the outer business over
30 Israel, for officers and judges. Of the Hebronites were Hashabiah and his
brethren, valiant men, a thousand and seven hundred, for the oversight of
Israel on this side Jordan westward, for all the business of the Lord, and for
31 the service of the king. Of the Hebronites was Jeriah the chief ; for the
Hebronites, in their generations for the fathers, in the fortieth year of the
reign of David, they were sought, and there were found among them men of
32 valour in Jazer of Gilead. And his brethren, valiant men, two thousand and
seven hundred fathers of families ; and David the king appointed them over
the Eeubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, for every matter
of God, and of the king.
' For TCE'J? the Sept. (ttroltinv) and Vulg. (fecerat) have the 3d person. But see Exeg. Expl.
* For Dp?nsl read (here and xxiv. 3) DppCPV See Exeg. Expl.
8 So the Keri: in the Kethib the name is Shelomoth. The same difference appears in another Shelomith, xxvi. 25.
* For TtlfcO is perhaps to he read TriKl (with L. Cappell., H. Grotius, Gesen., etc.), as some late and unimportant
Mas. in de Rossi exhibit in the var. led.
* The insertion of |i"13n after ^3 (Luther., Berth., and most moderns) is certainly confirmed neither by the
Hebrew Cod. nor by the old translations (Sept., Vulg., etc.), bat appears necessary from xxiii. 19.
8 So the Keri' the Kethib has Shamur: the old Vers (Sept. 'Za./jwp, Vulg. Samir) as the Keri.
1 Before 132 a name seems to have fallen out The text in vers. 26 and 27 is corrupt. See the Exeg. Expl.
Properly "and Shoham" (QnK"l)
9 After the name of Eleaz&r the Sept. Keod. Vat.) adds xott 'lS&ftap, xoti airtdixstv 'EXea^ocp, a gloss which is wanting
InAEFX.
18 The Kethib D'WOJH is an error of transcription fur the certainly correct Keri D^N^SH (pnrtic. Niph.) ; comp. the
ring. N33H In vers. 2 and 3, and see Exeg. Expl.
11 After PlDl V, the notice constantly recurring in the following verses: " his sons and his brethren, twelve," appears
to have fallen out by an oversight. Yet it is to be observed that this notice in ver. 9b, after ^t^il }i"l v"13, is different
from that in ail subsequent cases, namely, " he and his brethren and his sons " (VJIN before, not V33i as afterwards)
whence it is probable that the writer did not mention with the first singer the eleven companions, whom he preceded ai
the twelfth.
11 For &1DK, according to ch. Ix. 19, P)D''3K appeal's to have been read, though no external evidence confirms thli
conjecture.
U2
I. CHRONICLES.
» &2iZh (Sept. t« 2a?«,\; but cod. rat. A S^.) appears to have come into the test by the repetition of the
.art two syllables of the foregoing D'BDXrt, which was perhaps aided by an obscure remembrance of the root
WQp, vii. 12.
"So according to the Sept. (K«J «' A«w™ «.*?»> «i™»), which has here certainly the right text; camp. Qi^p
DfVnS, 2 Chron. xxix. 34. If the njnK of the Masoretic text he original, D'^pD must have stood in place of
D'vHI (cnmp. the Vulg., which has wholly omitted that Cvill)-
•'»' KelMb: rftzbtf; Keri: WoV (<=omp. Mitt. 9). The tftftio is proved by ver. 26 to be more correct, though
the name recurs, ver. 28, as JVu7^ without variation.
'• For D''E&r5iT'HEv should apparently be read 'iT'HtJ'1 i comp. xxix. 6.
EXEGBTIOAL.
Preliminary Remark, especially regarding |
the introductory notice, ch. xxiii. I. — The con- 1
nected survey of the condition, distribution, and
ministerial functions of the tribe of Levi at the
end of the reign of David, which fills the four ch.
xxiii. -xxvi. (and falls into eight subdivisions, as
is noted in the superscriptions of the above trans-
lation), is introduced by the statement, ch. xxiii.
1, that the aged and life-weary King David ap-
pointed his son Solomon to be king over Israel,
formally appointed him his successor on the
throne, and regularly delivered over the kingdom
to him. The numbering and classification of
the Levites, and the order of their service in the
sanctuary, appears accordingly to be the principal
measure by which David introduces the trans-
ference of the kingdom to his successor. A
survey of the state of his army and of his mili-
tary and civil officers (ch. xxvii.) is appended as
the second of these measures, after which the
final arrangements committed in solemn assembly
to Solomon and the heads of the people, referring
chiefly to the building of the temple (ch. xxviii.,
xxix.), form the close of these measures, and the
immediate transition to the death of the king (ch.
xxix. 26 ff.). As sources in communicating these
accounts of the order of the Levites and their
service, the Chron ist had no doubt liturgical
precepts and statistical notes proceeding (me-
diately or immediately) from David, that ana
Tfl, which he mentions, 2 Chron. xxxv. 4, along
with a nb^E' nrOOi and which we may regard
either as part of the royal 'annals of this king or
as an independent document. Comp. Intrrod. § 5.
— And David was old and full of days. jpf is
here not an adjective, but 3d p. perf. of the verb,
as in Gen. xviii. 12 ; and so jqe> with its accusa-
tive of restriction Qi)^, for which elsewhere
usually the adj. Qitfi jQg> (Gen. xxxv. 29 ;
Job xii. 17), or even ]Qj»> alone (Gen. xxv. 8).
— He made his son Solomon king over Israel.
This notice does not perhaps forestall the more
precise and definite statement ot the appointment
of Solomon to be king in ch. xxix. 22 (which
reports also the mode of appointment, by the
anointing of the successor), but forms a general
introduction to all that follows to the end of our
book (comp. the similar general but not forestal-
ling statement in ch. xxii. 7), and serves to place
all that is here related of the Levites, the military
and civil officers, under the head of the last will
and concluding acts of the king. A statement
in many respects similar occurs in John xiii. 1,
which characterizes all that follows to the end of
this Gospel as a "loving of his own unto the
end." Against the opinion of Bertheau, that the
Chronist has in our verse given briefly the con-
tents of the narrative 1 Kings i., the remarks of
Keil suffice ; comp. also our exegetical exposition
of ch. xxix. 22.
1. Enumeration of the Levites, and Arrange-
ment of their Work: ch. xxiii. 2-5. — And lie
gathered all the princes of Israel. These, the
representatives of the tribes, had to co-operate in
this mustering and regulation of the Levites,
because this was a general concern of the king-
dom. The present account concerning the hold-
ing of a great census Levitarum in a solemn
assembly of the spiritual and temporal chiefs of
the people, shortly before the end of David, is
confirmed by the passage xxvi. 30 f., which
speaks specially of the result of this muster "in
the fortieth year of the reign of David" with
regard to the family of Hebronites in Gilead.—
Ver. 3. And the Levites were numbered from (lie
age of thirty years and upwards. This accords
with the proceeding of Moses, who, Num. iv. 3,
23, 30, 39 ff., likewise numbers the Levites from
thirty years of age (to fifty) for service in the
sanctuary. But as he had already included
younger men, namely, from twenty-five years of
age (Num. viii. 23-26), David's muster may also
have extended not merely to those of thirty years
and upwards, but rather, according to the express
statement of ver. 24, reached the Levites of twenty
years and upwards. That this later statement
does not contradict the present one, and that it i»
not necessary to amend our passage by inserting
D'HtJ'J} for CUvE* (Keil), see on ver. 24. — By
their polls in men, thus excluding women and
children ; the D'naj^ defining more exactly the
QtVl/ib- — Ver. 4 f. contain the words of the
king, as appears from the 1st perf. Tl^E'V a'
the end of ver. 5, for which the Sept. and Vulg.
have unnecessarily, and only from ignorance of
the true state of the matter, substituted the third
person. — Of these, twenty and four thousand wen
to oversee the work of the house of the Lord, the
duties of the Levitical temple service in general,
to which belonged not — a. the proper priestly
CHAP. XXIII. 6-23.
143
functions (xxiv. 1-19) ; b. those of the Levitical
civil and judicial officers (the D,~lt3tJ' and
3it3St>>, ver. 46; comp. xxvi. 29-32) ; c. those
of the porters (ver. 5a; comp. xxvi.) ; d. those
of the singers and musicians (ver. 5 ; comp.
xxv.). — With instruments, which I have made for
praise, which I have introduced to accompany
the sacred singing in the service of God ; comp.
2 Chron. xxix. 26 ; Neh. xii. 36 ; also Amos vi.
5, where David is mentioned as inventor of sacred
musical instruments.
2. The Twenty -four Houses of the Levites :
ch. xxiii. 6-23. — And David divided them into
courses for the sons of Levi. In his new muster
and order of the Levitical houses he thus founded
upon the three old well-known branches of this
tribe (comp. v. 27-vi. 15). Dp^TH, for which,
here and xxiv. 3, R. D. Kimchi would read
rather Dp">n*l (see Orit. Note), stands for Dpprpl
(comp. ch. xxiv. 4, 5), and is merely a by-form of
the imperf Kal, not Piel, as Ges. and Ew. think.
Bertheau asserts that not all the Levites, but
only the 24,000 specially appointed for the service
in the house of the Lord, are to be regarded as the
object of DpSlTI; an|i> in fact, ver. 24 appears
to favour this, as well as the circumstance that
a great part of the names here enumerated recur
in xxiv. 20-31 and xxvi. 20-28 ; whereas in
the enumeration of the twenty-four classes of
singers (xxv. ), porters (xxvi. 1-19), and officers,
and judges (xxvi. 29-32), quite other names
occur. What Keil adduces against this (p. 188)
is by no means sufficient to invalidate it. — a.
The Houses of the Gershonites: vers. 7-11. — Of
tlie Gershonites were Ladan and Shimi. In ch.
vi. 2, as already in Ex. vi. 17, Num. iii. 18, these
two sons and founders of the two chief branches
of the Gershonites are called Libni and Shimi.
Our Ladan appears not to be identical with Libni,
but rather to have been a descendant of this son
of Gershon, after whom, in David's time, a greater
branch of the family was named. Vers. 8, 9
analyze this branch of the Ladanites as falling
into the two chief stems of the sons of Ladan and
the sons of Shimi, a descendant of Libni, by
name Shimi, not the brother of Ladan or Libni
named in ver. 7, whose branch is more fully
described in vers. 10, 11. Those belonging to
the branch of Ladan fall altogether into six
houses, namely, three of the sons of Ladan
(ver. 8) and three of the sons of Shimi (ver.
9). On the contrary, the descendants of the
other Shimi (brother of Ladan, ver. 10) form
only four, or rather only three, houses, as
the two youngest of the families belonging to
them, Jeush and Beriah, from their numerical
weakness, are included in one house, and also
in one class (mpS, ver. 11). The Gershonites,
therefore, in David's time counted in all nine
houses. — b. The Houses of the Kohathites : vers.
12-20. — Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. So
are the four sons of Kohath named also in v. 28,
vi. 3, and previously in Ex. vi. 18; Num. iii. 27.
— Aaron was separated to sanctify him as most
holy. So is D*KHp Bhp W^pffa to be under-
stood of Aaron's choice and anointment to be the
most holy person of a high priest, not from his
ministering in the most holy place (Yulg. ut
ministraret in sancto sanctorum; likewise the
Peschito), nor from his appointment to consecrate
the most holy utensils (Clericus, against which
see Hengsten. Ghristol. ii. 50, and Keil on the
passage). — And to bless in His name for ever, in
Jehovah's name, to pronounce the blessing on the
community (after the prescription of Moses, Num.
vi. 23, xvi. 2; Deut. xxi. 5); not to bless the
name of Jehovah, or call upon Him, as Ges. and
Berth, think. — Ver. 14. And Moses the man of
God, his sons were called after the tribe of Levi,
were reckoned among the simple Levites, and not
among the priests. On pjj fcopj, comp. Gen.
xlviii. 6; Ezra ii. 61; Neh. vii. 63.— Ver. 15. Of
the sons of Gershom, Shebuel was tlie chief, pro-
perly, "Gershom's sons, Shebuel the chief;"
comp. the numerous cases in which "sons" are
announced, and yet only one follows, as ch. ii.
31, etc. That, moreover, Gershom had other
sons, who were reckoned with the house of
Shebuel (or Shubael, as he is called in ch. xxiv.
20), appears to follow from ver. 17, where it is
expressly said of Eliezer that he had no sons
besides Rehabiah. Shebuel and Rehabiah there-
fore were the names of the houses of the family of
Amram that sprang from Moses. To these two
non-sacerdotal houses of the Kohathites are to be
added, according to vers. 18-20, of the family of
Izhar, the house of Shelomith (or Shelomoth, ch.
xxiv. 22) ; of the family of Hebron four houses,
Jeriah, Amariah, Jahaziel, and Jekamam ; of the
family of Uzziel two, Micah and Jesiah, — in all,
nine Levitical houses of Kohathite origin. — c.
The Houses of the Merarites : vers. 21-23 — The
sons of Merari : Mahli and Mushi. So are
called the two sons of Merari also, vi. 4 ; Ex. vi.
19; Num. iii. 33; whereas in xxiv. 27 a third
son of Merari is named, Jaaziah, the founder of
the three houses of Shoham, Zaccur and Ibri.
The conjecture is obvious, that the name of this
Jaaziah with his three sons has fallen out of our
passage by an old oversight, as Bertheau assumes
when he supplements the text of our passage from
ch. xxiv. 26, 27. But, 1. The Sept., Vulg., and
Syr. present our text, that gives only two sons
of Merari ; 2. The books of Moses, and indeed
the whole of the Old Testament elsewhere, know
nothing of a third son of Merari and his descend-
ants ; 3. The passage xxiv. 26, 27 bears manifest
traces of an interpolation in itself, by which the
name Jaaziah must have come into the text ; 4.
The names of the supposed sons of Jaaziah occur
nowhere else, with the exception of Zaccur alone
(see xxv. 2) ; 5. The only gain that the assump-
tion of the names in question into our text could
be, — that, namely, the number of the Merarite
houses should be brought up to six, and so a total
of twenty -four houses of Levites should be shown
in our section (nine Gershonite, nine Kohathite,
and six Merarite), analogous to the number of
twenty-four houses and classes of priests (ch.
xxiv.), and of twenty-four classes of singers (ch.
xxv.), and corresponding with the express asser-
tion of Josephus (Antiq. vii. 14. 7), that David
divided the Levites into twenty-four classes, — this
single gain is lost by this, that there should be
not twenty-four but twenty-five houses resulting
from the addition of the three sons of Jaaziah, as
our passage (vers. 21-23) derives not three but
four houses from Merari : one from Mahli (named
144
I. CHRONICLES.
after Eleazar the father of the heiress, or after
his brother Kish, and then after Jerahmeel, chief
s >n of this Kish; see xxiv. 29), and three from
Mushi, namely, Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth.
Now of these three sons of Mushi, Bertheau will
certainly exclude from the text the first, Mahli,
on account of his identity of name with Mahli
the brother of Mushi, to obtain the desired result
of six Merarite houses ; but the arbitrariness of
this procedure is obviously greater and more un-
justifiable than the buldness of our condemnation
of the vers. 26 and 27 in ch. xxiv. as interpolated,
that has sufficient ground in the clearly corrupt
text of this verse. It necessarily follows that our
section yields only four Merarite, and therefore in
all only twenty-two Levitical houses.
3. Closing Remarks respecting the Leviles: ch.
xxiii. 24-32. — These, are Die sons of Levi . . . for
those mustered, DfTHIpB? (comp. Ex. xxx. 14,
Num. i. 21 ff. , as on the following words : " by
the number of the names," Num. i. 18, iii. 43).
— Doing the work for the service of the house of the
Lord. rOSOBil i"lfe>y is, as also in 2 Chron.
xxxiv. 10, 13, Ezra iii. 9, Neh. ii. 16, not sing, but
plur. =;'^E>n 'b'Jfi an(i differing only in writing
from this regular form (that occurs, for example,
2 Chron. xxiv. 13); comp. Ew. § 16, b. — From
twenty years old and upwards. This statement,
that the twentieth year is fixed as the starting-
point for the entrance of the Levites on their
official duties, is more exactly explained in the
following words, by reference to the lighter labour
which fell upon the Levites when the wandering
life of the wilderness ceased, — a conclusion that is
not fully expressed, but indicated clearly enough
by vers. 25, 26. — Ver. 27. For by the last words
of David these were, etc. Thus it is obvious we
are to understand the orders of David issued
shortly before his end by the words Tfi i-Qla
D'iiirtNH (with the Vulg. : juxta prozcepta David,
novissima, and so Clericus, J. H. Mich. , Keil, etc. ),
not "in the later histories of David" (Kimchi,
Berth. ), — a conception which imports into the text
a thought quite foreign to the context, and by
no means justified by referring to ch. xxix. 29.
Even because a last arrangement of David is now
expressly named as the ground of the introduc-
tion of Levites of twenty years into the sacred
service, it is to be assumed that that statement
in ver. 3 respecting the entrants at the age of
thirty years refers to an earlier numeration, in
which David had adhered to the legal determina-
tion in Num. iii. 23, 30 (so Kimchi, J. H. Mich.,
»nd others), though the words and the connection
of that passage, especially the circumstance that
there the number 38,000 is given as the result
of the muster, and that here no grea'ei number
takes its place, may not appear to favour such a
distinction between an earlier and a later muster.
It is conceivable, though not indicated by our
author, that David may have established a dis-
tinction of classes, in such a way that he intro-
duced the Levites of twenty years to the lower
and easier duties, and those of thirty years to the
higher and holier functions. At all events, any
mode of harmonizing the two accounts appears
more reasonable than the expedient of Bertheau,
that the Chronist placed side by side two differ-
ent accounts, the one giving twenty, the other
thirty, years, without explanation as they were
found in his sources, or than the emendation of
Keil, who changes D,b6e'\ Ter- 3> i11*0 D'IK'y.
— Vers. 28-31. Here follows an enumeration of
the duties to be performed by the Levites, rising
from the lower and more external (referring to
the court and its chambers, to purification and
the like) to the higher, and closing with the
assistance given in the sacrifices of the great
feasts. — And for the shew -bread, that is, the
preparation, not the presentation of it, which
belonged exclusively to the priests (Lev. xxiv.
8 ff.). — And pancakes, properly, "the pan,"
comp. Lev. ii. 5. — And that which is fried (Lev.
vi. 14), and all measures of capacity and length,
for measuring flour, oil, and wine, which were
added to the sacrifices, which the Levites had to
clean and keep (comp. Ex. xxix. 40, xxx. 24 ;
Lev. xix. 35). — And to stand every morning to
thank and praise the Lord. This naturally refers
to the duties of the 4000 Levitical singers and
musicians (ver. 5; comp. ch. xxv.); for here are
enumerated the offices of all classes of the Levites,
not merely of the 24,000 (against Berth,). — And
to offer all burnt-offerings to the Lord. "Hereby
the Levites were obliged to prepare the requisite
number of victims, to examine the fitness of them,
to slay the animals, to flay them, etc." (Keil.)—
By number after the order of them continually
before the Lord, that is, by number as they are
to be presented continually before the Lord,
according to the prescriptions of the law regard-
ing them. The TDfl continually refers to " the
offering" (ni^jj JTi^J?n) as a business recurring
regularly on the appointed day ; comp. ni>J!
"PCD, Num. xxvii. 6, etc. — Ver. 32. And they
shall keep the charge of the tent of meeting ("the
temple," comp. Num. xviii. 4), and the charge
of the sanctuary (of all holy things connected
with worship, Num. xviii. 5), and the charge of
the sons of Aaron (the care of all that the priests
enjoin upon them, all the help given to the
priests). On this particular recapitulation of all
the functions of the Levites, comp. the similar
passage, Num. xviii. 3 if.
4. The Twenty-four Classes of Priests: ch. xxiv.
1-19. — The enumeration of these follows quite suit-
ably after the foregoing passage, particularly after
ch. xxiii. 32 ; comp. the " sons of Aaron" with
that in ver. 1 of our chapter. — The sons of Aaron :
Nadab and Abihu, etc. Comp. on this introduc-
tion to the Davidic regulations referring to the
Mosaic time in vers. 1 and 2, ch. v. 29, and Ex.
vi. 23 ; Lev. x. 1 ; Num. iii. 4. — Ver. 3. And
David distributed them, so that Zadok of the sons
of Eleazar. For Opbrpl, comr- on xxlil- 6 ; for
Zadok and Abiathar, on v. 30, xvi. 39, xviii. 16;
for rnpB, official class, on xxiii. 11. — Ver. 4.
And the sons of Eleazar were found more
numerous in chief men. These "men" (D<"133),
of whom Eleazar had twice as many in heads or
chiefs (□''B'sn) as Ithamar, are the chiefs, not of
the great complex of families or houses (Berth.),
but of the several families, the fathers, chiefs of
CHAP. XXIV. 5-25.
146
the several priestly homes. — Ver. 5. And they
divided them. The subject is David, Zadok, and
Ahimeleeh, to whom naturally this matter be-
longed. —One with the other, literally, "these
with those," those of Eleazar with those of
Ithamar ; comp. xxv. 8. — For the holy princes
ami the princes of God. On the former phrase,
comp. Isa. xliii. 28, and the parallel phrase ;
"princes of the priests," Q^nbn ^t^, 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 14 ; on the second (Sept. &f%omt xvflnv),
the equivalent: "high priests, upper priests."
For the princes of priests and high priests from
Ithamar, who were far behind those of the line
of Eleazar in number and importance, comp.
on v. 80. — Ver. 6. Wrote them, namely, the
classes, as the lot determined. — One father-house
being taken for Eleazar and one for Ithamar,
that is, alternately, from the urn containing
the lots for Eleazar, and then from that contain-
ing the lots for Ithamar (so fnx signifies ; comp.
Num. xxxi. 30, 47), that none might seem pre-
ferred before the other. And, indeed, this alter-
nation in di awing the lots might have been so
managed, that, on account of the double num-
ber of the families of Eleazar, two lots for
Eleazaj might be drawn for every one for Ithamar
(comp. Berth.). Whether this mode of drawing
lots be indicated by the doubling of the jnX
in the second place (-IDIVX^ triN Tn&O)' as
Berth, thinks, is more than doubtful. Notwith-
standing the almost universal agreement of the
mss. respecting this double jnN, and the fact
that the old translators and the Rabbis did
not understand the passage, the alteration of
the first jnx into inx (see Grit. Note) appears
to be the only means of obtaining a correct con-
ception of these otherwise dark words. — Ter. 7 ff.
The names of the twenty-four classes are now
given in order, as they were settled by lot. — And
the first lot came out of the urn ; comp. for XV1
in this sense, Josh. xvi. 1, xix. 1. Jehoiarib and
Jedaiah, the names of the first two classes, are so
named together in cH. ix. 10. For Jedaiah, comp.,
besides Ezra ii. 36, Neh. vii. 39 ; for Jehoiarib,
as uhe class from which Mattathias and the Mac-
cabees sprang, 1 Mace. ii. 1 ; for Abijah, as the
class of Zacharias the father of John the Baptist,
Luke i. 5 ; for the classes of Immer (ver. 14) and
Jachin (ver. 17), ch. ix. 10, 12. Some of the
twenty-four classes never occur again, namely,
Seorim (ver. 8), Jeshebab (ver. 13), and Hapizez
(ver. 15), some at least not among the priests, as
Mijamin (ver. 9), Huppah (ver. 13), and Ganiul
(ver. 17). With respect to the name Pethahiah
(ver. 16), Holzhausen (Die Weissagungen des Joel
ubers. und erkldrt, Gott. 1829) has propounded
the quite arbitrary conjecture that it is identical
with Petlmel (nTlHS = iwriB) the father of the
prophet Joel, — a conjecture which is of almost as
much value as that of Raschi, who would identify
Pethuel the father of Joel with Samuel (comp.
R. Wunsche, Die Weissagungen des Joel, 1872,
p. 1). — Ver. 19. According to their order by
Aaron their father, as the Lord . . had com-
manded him. Comp. the words occurring so often
in the law : '■" And the Lord said unto Moses and
Aaron" (for example, Num. iv. ], 17), and
similar Pentateuchic testimonies for the regula-
tion of the priestly service according to the
divine command. — The credibility of the present
statements of the Chronist regarding the origin
of the twenty-four classes of priests, and their
order in the service by David, is attested by Ezek.
viii. 16-18 (see the exposition of the passage),
Neh. xii. 1-7, 12-21, and by Josephus, Antiq.
vii. 14. 7 : iiifitiviv oStos o fctpurf^os &XP' T*s trvp-ipo*
rifcifas. Against the assertion made by de Wette
and Gramberg, and defended by Herzberg (Gesdi.
des V. Israel, i. 381 ff.), that the twenty-four
classes originated after the exile, see Movers,
Olironilc, p. 279 ff., and Oehler in Herzog's Beal-
Encycl. xii. 185 ff.
5. The Classes of the Levites : ch. xxiv. 20-31.
— And for the remaining fions of Levi, after the
enumeration of the priests. By this might be
understood all the Levite3 except the family of
Aaron or the priests ; but as in the two following
chapters the twenty-four orders of singers and the
divisions of the porters and of those charged with
external duties are enumerated apart, it seems
necessary to suppose that the present section
speaks only of the Levites employed in worship,
and not of the whole body. They are "the
brethren of Aaron," the Levites specially assigned
to the priests as assistants in divine service,
whose division into classes is here described.
Only on this assumption is explained the other-
wise very surprising, indeed inconceivable, in-
completeness of the present list of Levitical
classes, compared with that of the Levitical
houses named in xxiii. 6-23, which embraces all
the three families, the Kohathites, the Merarites,
and the Gershonites, whereas the Gershonites are
wholly excluded from the present list. This ex-
clusion seems to have its ground in this, that, xxvi.
20 ff., several Gershonite houses had the charge
over the treasures of the sanctuary, and also the
duties of officers and judges (although this is not
expressly stated) were partly discharged by the
Gershonites. So at least Keil, whereas others
certainly, as Berth., regard our list as laid out
for a full enumeration of all the Levitical classes
or houses, but from some cause (perhaps ' ' because
the author was not able to make out all the
names of the classes ") no longer fully preserved.
The list, for the at least often defective character
of which the elucidation of the details will afford
more than one proof, begins after omitting the
Gershonites, ver. 20, at once with the classes of
the Kohathites. — For the sons of Amram, Shubael
was the chief or head of a class ; obviously the
son of Gershom son of Moses, therefore grand-
son of Amram, who is called Shebuel xxiii. 16.
The same double spelling of this name is found
also xxv. 4, 20, in a family of singers of the
house of Heman. As chief of the class springing
from Shubael was, in David's time, Jehdeiah, a
person otherwise unknown, whose name, xxvii.
30, is also borne by an officer of David. — Ver.
21 ff. Other chiefs of classes are now named —
1. For the Amramite class, Isshiah (different from
the one named ver. 25). 2. For the Izharite
class, Jahath (ver. 22). 3. For the Uzzielite
class of Micah, Shamir (ver. 24). 4. For the
CJzzielite class of Isshiah, Zechariah (ver. 25).
In this kind of enumeration, it is strange that in
ver. 23, where we should expect to find the chiefs
of some classes of the great Hebronite family
(xxiii. 19), only the names of the four chiefs ot
146
I. CHRONICLES.
founders of the Hebronite houses, Jeriah,
Amariah, Jahaziel, and Jekamam, are mentioned,
quite as in xxiii. 19, and indeed introduced by a
mere 133^ before the name of the first ^n4")''.
There can be no doubt that the text is here de-
fective. It is probable that not merely the name
rt~On is to be inserted after 133:] (see Crit. Note),
but that also the names of the four chiefs in
David's time have fallen out after those of the
four classes. — Vers. 26, 27 bear still clearer
marks of the corruption of the present text, per-
haps even of its complete spuriousness, than ver.
23 (eomp. partly tht- Crit. Notes and partly the
Exeg. Expl. of xxiii. 21-23). Especially strange
is — 1. The iin'Ty ''JB m ver- 266, detached from
that which goes before (instead of "> ^33l)- 2.
The 132 in the same place, that cannot possibly
be taken for a proper name (with some older
exegetes), but rather indicates that a proper name
had fallen out before it. 3. The repetition of
'"HO '33 at the beginning of ver. 27, which ap-
pears to presume a wholly different mode of
enumeration from that which is usual from ver.
20 on. 4. The copula 1 before DilE', as first of
the sons of Jaaziah, in ver. 276. To all this are
to be added the reasons which make improbable
the existence of a Jaaziah as third son of Merari
along with Mahli and Mnshi ; see on xxiii. 21 f.
The spurious character of the two verses appears
therefore almost certain, though they are attested
by the Sept., Syr., and the Vulg. — For vers. 28,
29, comp. likewise the remark on xxiii. 21 If. —
Ver. 30. And the sons of Mushi : Mahli, and
Elder, and Jerimoth. As in ver. 23, so here it is
strange to name the houses without stating the
chiefs of tlv classes taken from them. The text
appears here also to be defective. — Ver. 31. And
these also cast lots like their brethren the sons of
Aaron. From this manifestation of the quite
analogous character of the allotment of the
Levites and the priests (vers. 1-19), it is highly
probable that the number of the Levitical classes
(as also that of the singers in the following
chapter) was likewise twenty-four, although in
the present text, the partial defectiveness of
which is obvious, and needs no further proof,
only fifteen chiefs of classes are expressly named.
— Tlie fathers, the chief like his younger brother;
that is, the eldest brother representing the house,
as well as his younger brother (for KJfcO!"l, in ap-
position with the father-house, comp. on xxiii.
17, 18). Quite correct in sense the Vulg. : "tarn
minores, quam majores ; omnes sors mqualiter
dividebat." That nothing is communicated to us
jf the order of the several classes, as they were
tettled by lot, completes the impression of the
great defectiveness which characterizes this sec-
tion.
6. The Twenty-four Classes of Singers: ch.
xxv. — And David and the captains of the host
separated. "Captains of the host" (S3Vn '"l{J>)
are those partakers in the legislative and judicial
government of David who were designated, xxiv.
6, merely as "princes," xxiii. 2, as "princes of
Israel. " The designation explains itself from the
conception of Israel as the host of the Lord (Ex.
xii. 17, 41), not from that of the Levites as an
army, or their doings as a military service (Num.
iv. 23). — The sons of Asaph, and Heman, and
Jeduthun. The $> before f|DK is here nota ae-
cusativi; comp. Ezra viii. 24. For the genealogy
of the three song-masters, of whom Asaph was a
Gershonite, Heman a Kohathite, and Jeduthun a
Merarite, see vi. 18, 24, 29 ff.— Who prophesied
vnth harps, or showed themselves inspired with
harps ; for "the really artificial play is, like every
art, an expression of inspiration or enthusiasm "
(Berth.) ; comp. Ex. xxxi. 3, and for the Keri
QtjjSjn as alone admissibly the Crit. Note. —
And the number of the workmen for the service
toas. For the position of the genitive ')}) ^3K
after the governing ^DD with suffix, comp. the
similar construction pyy 1B>Q3, "his the slug-
gard's soul," Prov. xiii. 4 (Ew. § 309, c). That
statements are actually made in the sequel con-
cerning the number of the Levitical musicians
appears from vers. 3-5, where the families of
them are referred to : four sons of Asaph (ver. 2,
without express mention of the number four), six
sons of Jeduthun, and fourteen sons of Heman ;
and also from ver. 7, where the sum of all the
singers of these families is stated to be 288. — Ver.
2. Sons of Asaph under Asaph, literally, "by
the hand," or "at the hand," of Asaph, that is,
led by him. T"7J? here means the same as in
the vers. 3 and 6, i"p~7J?, "at the hands," under
the guidance or order. — Ver. 3. For Jeduthun,
the sons of Jeduthun were Gedaliah, or, "as to
Jeduthun (the family of Jeduthun), the sons of
Jeduthun," etc. As the number of these "sons
of Jeduthun" (perhaps disciples trained by him ;
eomp., for this figurative import of the term
"sons" in our section, on ver. 7) is expressly
stated to be six, and yet only five are here
named, hence one name must have fallen out,
and, indeed, according to ver. 17, that of Shimi,
the only one that is wanting "in our verses, while
all the other twenty-three names recur (vers.
9-31). — Under their father Jeduthun on the harp,
or ' ' under the guidance of their father Jeduthun
on the harp ;" "11333 belongs to ftniT. F°r
the following: "who prophesied (or 'was in-
spired") to thank and prai9e the Lord,' comp.
xvi. 4 ; 2 Chron. v. 13. — Ver. 4. Giddalti and
Romamti-ezer. The genitive 1JJJ probably be.
longs also to Tv^j, so that the full _ame of
this son of Heman is Giddalti-ezer (though in
ver. 9 this is not expressly stated). — Ver. 5. All
tliese were the sons of Heman, the king's seer in
the words of God, Heman is so called as
mediator of divine revelations for the king ;
comp. 2 Chron. xxxv. 15, where the same pre-
dicate is applied to Jeduthun, and ch. xxi. 9,
where Gad is introduced as David's seer. — To
lift up the horn ; and God gave to Heman fourteen
sons and three daughters. The rich blessing of
descendants is here, as elsewhere (for example,
Job xlii. 13 ; Ps. cxxvii. 3 f. ; also ch. xxvi. 5),
represented as a lifting up of the horn, that is,
the might and consequence of the per^an con-
CHAP. XXV. 6-XXVI. 7.
147
eerned ; comp. for ftp D*"in (which does not
mean to "sound the horn," as Berth., misled by
the certainly erroneous Masoretic accentuation,
supposes) in this figurative sense, for example,
1 Sam. ii. 10 (Luke i. 78) ; Lam. ii. 17 ; Ps.
lxxxix. 18, xcii. 11, cxlviii. 14. — Ver. 6. All
these were under their father, literally, "under
the guidance of their father." The genitive
DiT3}« is distributive, and does not refer
specially to Heman (Berth.) ; for by "all these"
our verse clearly points to all enumerated from
ver. 2, and not merely to Heman's sons, vers. 4,
5. — Under the king, with Asaph, and Jeduthun,
and Heman. That here, by the ^T^J? referring
t° TpBil and the three following names, David
appears co-ordinated with the three song-masters,
is explained by his having co-operated with them
in the first arrangement and institution of the
service of song. — V er. 7. And their number . . .
all that were cunning, were two hundred eighty
and eight. This total of 288, or 24 x 12, as the
sequel (ver. 9 ff.) shows, is explained by this,
that each of the twenty- four (4 + 6 + 14) sons of
Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman, with his eleven
"brethren," not his nearest kindred, but rather
his companions in calling, was incorporated into
one class or choir of twelve musicians, so that thus
there were twenty-four such dodecades. These
288 musicians were designated "all the cunning"
G'QtSrrbs), as by instruction and practice they
were entrusted with the art of sacred singing,
and were able to train the great body of singers
(the 4000 who, ver. 8, are distinguished from
them as "scholars," D,TD^fl)- — Ver. 8. And
they cast lots for the charge, mow ni?"li3,
properly, "lots of service" (xXnpovs Ipnptpivv,
Sept.). — The small as the great, the teaclier with
the scholar. To ntpj/l) belongs ^nj3 |b|33 as
genitive : "in the way of as the small so the
great" (comp. Eccl. v. 15 and Ew. § 360, a.). The
repetition of a mOK'D after TV2lb, which some
MSS. present, and some Rabbinical expositors, as
Easchi and Kimchi, demand, is an unnecessary
attempt to amend and interpret. The passage
says that the whole of the Levites destined for
the service of song, the leaders as well as the
choristers, the 288 D'J'SD as well as the 3712
O^TD^fli were chosen by lot ; and so the regu-
larly exchanging classes, or i<p<if*tp!xi, included
both kinds of singers. — Vers. 9-31. The Result
of the Lot. — And the first lot came out for Asaph
to Joseph, literally, ' ' for Asaph, (namely) for
Joseph" his son. The *?, "for" or "on," is
usually omitted in the following. For the ques-
tion whether the words "his son and his brethren
twelve" (or, "he and his sons and his brethren"
— together— ' ' twelve "), which stand after the fol-
lowing twenty-three names, have fallen out after
f|Div, or were intentionally omitted, see Crit.
Note'.— Ver. 11. The fourth to Izri, his sons.
This Tzri is called Zeri in ver. 3, as several other
names in this list vary in spelling and form from
those in vers. 2-4, — namely, Nethanjahu and
Hananjalm, vers. 12, 23 (for Nethaniah, Hana-
niah, vers. 2, 4) ; Hashabiah, ver. 19 (for Ha-
shabjahu, ver. 3) ; Jesharelah, ver. 14 (for
Asharelah, ver. 2) ; Azarel, ver. 18 (for Uzziel,
ver. 4; comp. the various forms of the loyal
name Uzziah-Azariah, 1 Chron. iii. 12 ; 2 Chroi
xxvi. 1) ; Shubael, ver. 20 (for Shehuel, ver. 4) ;
Jeremoth, veT. 22 (for Jerimoth, ver. 4) ; Elija-
thah, ver. 27 (for Eliathah, ver. 4). For the
absence of Shimi, ver. 17, in the former list, see
on ver. 3. The various deviations in the spelling
and formation of the names deepen the impression
of the historical character, for which the whole
account of singing-classes vouches. That of the
twenty-four names of the leaders only one, that
of Mattithiah, ver. 21, occurs elsewhere (xv. 18,
21, in the account of the removal of the ark),
proves nothing against the credibility of the
present double list, the arbitrary invention of
which would be far more difficult to conceive
than the assumption of its resting on ancient and
genuine documents.
With regard to the series of names in vers.
9-31, what is remarked by Keil suffices for its
explanation : — " The series is so determined by
lot, that the four sons of Asaph hold the first,
third, fifth, and seventh places ; the six sons of
Jeduthun, the second, fourth, eighth, tenth,
twelfth, and fourteenth places ; lastly, the four
sons of Heman mentioned in ver. 4, the sixth,
ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth places ; and the
remaining places, 15-24, fall to the remaining
sons of Heman. Hence it follows that the lots
of the sons of the three song-masters were not
put in separate urns, and one lot drawn from
each urn in succession, but all the lots were
united in one urn, and, in drawing, the lots of
Asaph and Jeduthun so came out, that after the
fourteenth drawing only the sons of Heman re-
mained." This simple explanation of the order
of the names is certainly preferable to the arti-
ficial assumption of Bertheau, that "two series
of seven each were first put in the urns, and one
drawn from each of these alternately, and then
the remaining ten sons of Heman were put in."
7. The Glasses of Porters : ch. xxvi. 1-19. —
7'o the Korhites was Meshelemiah. Comp. ver.
14, where the name is Shelemiah. On the patro-
nymic DTn'pn, "the Korhites," comp. ix. 19,
where also the names Kore and Abiasaph occurred.
That "Asaph" is a slip of the pen appears from
this, that, vi. 24 ff., Asaph belongs to the de-
scendants of Gershon, not, as the Korhites, to
that of Kohath. — Ver. 2. Zechariah the first-
born. This son of Meshelemiah occurs also ix. 21
and in ver. 14. — Vers. 4-8. Obed-edom and his
Descendants. — And Obed-edom had sons. This
Obed-edom, already occurring xv. 18, 24, and xvi.
38, is called in the latter place a son of Jeduthnn,
not of the well-known song-master of the house of
Merari, for the account of the Merarite porter*
begins in ver. 10, but of some other unknown
Korhite of the same name, as appears from ver.
1 comp. with ver. 19. — Ver. 6. And to Shemaiah
. . . were born sons that ruled in the house of
their father, properly, " the lordships (D^'BGin,
abstr. pro concr. for Q^'fiin ; comp. Ew. §160,6)
of the house of their father. "—Ver. 7. And Obed,
148
I. CHRONICLES.
Elzabad, his brethren. The missing copula } is
to be supplied before ^f7N as before V/1K. Then
the strong men, Elihu and Semachiuh, are named
as Elzabad's brethren. That the names of the
brethren are not stated (Berth.) is less probable.
— Ver. 8. Strong men of ability for service. The
sing. tTTB^K is in apposition with the ^3 stand-
ing at the beginning of the verse (or such a 73
is to be supplied before it). — Ver. 9. And Meshe-
lemiah . . . eighteen. By this appended statement
of the number of Meshelemiah's family, the sum
0'. the Korhite porters is fixed at eighty. — Vers.
10,11. And Hosah, of the som of Merari. This
Hosah occurred before, xvi. 38, along with Obed-
edom as porter. — Skimri the ;hief; for he was not
the first-born, that is, because none of the families
springing from Hosah possessed the birthright
(perhaps because the eldest son had died without
male heirs), the father named Shimri, the strong-
est and cleverest of his sons, chief of the family.
— Ver. 11. All the sons and brethren of Hosah
were thirteen. Hence the whole number of all the
porters here named is ninety-three (62 + 18 + 13).
On the relation of this number to the statement
in ix. 22, that the porters were in all 212, see
on the passage ; comp. also xvi. 38. — Vers.
12-19. The Division of Porters according to the
several Stations at which they were to serve. —
To these divisions of the porters, to the chiefs of
the men. For this explicative D^'D-in ,K>t<",p>
comp. on xxiv. 4 ; for the following statement
respecting the division of the stations by lot,
xxv. 8. — For every gate, literally, "for gate
and gate. " These are the gates of the four-sided
temple, facing the four quarters of heaven. —
Ver. 1 4. And for Zechariah his son, a wise
counsellor, literally, "one counselling with pru-
dence ; " on what this strange predicate rests is
unknown. Before in^ST we are to repeat •>. —
Ver. 15. To Obed-edom . . . and to his sons the
house of Asuppim, namely, to guard. This "7V3
D'SDNil, "house of collections" (comp. Neh.
xii. 25), must have been a place for keeping the
sacred stores for the temple service, a temple
magazine, situated in the court near the south
gate, and, as appears from ver. 17, had two
entrances to guard. No particulars of it are
known. "The translation of the Vulg. : in qua
parte erat seniorum concilium, appears to rest
upon the explanation of the word D'SDN by
'assembly of men'" (Berth.). — Ver. 16. ToShup-
pim and to Hosah. On the probable spurious-
cess of "Shuppim," see Crit. Note. The "gate
Shallecheth by the causeway of ascent," the keep-
ing of which was committed to Hosah, is to be
regarded as turned, because toward the west, also
to the lower city (east of which lay the temple
mount). Thus, "the causeway of ascent," by
this gate is the way that led from the lower city
up to the higher temple mount. The name
"gate Shallecheth" is perhaps to be explained,
with Bottcher and Thenius, by "refuse gate." —
One ward like another, literally, " ward beside
ward" (nip^h as in ver. 12 and xxv. 8), not
"ward over against ward," as Berth, thinks,
who, on the ground of this precarious interpre-
tation, assumes a diversity of the west gate and
the Shallecheth gate as two entrances placed
over against each other. Even ver. 18 does not
confirm this interpretation, as here the guard
stationed on the west side is represented certainly
as double, consisting of four guards standing at
" Parbar," and two on the causeway, but not as
a guard divided between two gates. Far-fetched
and contrary to the Masoretic division is the
attempt of Clericus to refer the words -|OB'"p
"lDK'D nt3l6 t° all the stations, and so to the
contraposition of the four temple gates. — Ver. 17.
Eastward were six Levites, northward four a
day. These (6 + 4) ten daily guards the house of
Meshelemiah (with his eighteen sonsand brothers),
ver. 14, had to set, as the (4 + 2 + 2) eight guards
stationed southward, ver. 15, belonged to the
house of Obed-edom (with his sixty-two sons and
brothers), and on Hosah (with his thirteen sons
and brothers) was imposed the setting of the
(4 + 2) six guards for the west side; comp. ver.
16 with ver. 18. A uniform and systematic
division we cannot discover; probably it was
arranged by lot. Moreover, not (6 + 4 + 8 + 6)
twenty-four single men are meant, but so many
leaders or guarding officers ; for the strength of
the several stations was certainly greater, as the
sum total of all the porters is said in ch. xxiii. 6
to be 4000 men. There is nothing in the text to
show that the number twenty-four points to a
division of the whole body of porters into twenty-
four classes, analogous to the twenty-four classes
of priests and singers. — Ver. 18. At Parbar west-
ward, four on the causeway, and two at Parbar.
This "13ns (= D'TPB, 2 Kings xxiii. 11) is, as
the statement of its situation to the west shows,
to be regarded as a part of the temple buildings,
near the Shallecheth gate, an addition with cells
for depositing the stores and utensils of the
temple, similar to the house of Asuppim, ver. 15,
on the south side. The "causeway" is naturally
the " causeway of ascent, " ver. 16.
8. The Administrators of the Treasures of
the Sanctuary, with the Officers for the Ex-
ternal Business: vers. 20-32. a. The Lord
Treasurers (Stewards): vers. 20-28. — And the
Levites their brethren. That instead of the un-
meaning nsl"IX Dsl^ni of the Masoretes we are
to read thus (after the Sept. and the analogy of
such passages as 1 Chron. vi. 29, 2 Chron. xxix.
34), is maintained by most modern expositors
since J. D. Mich. — Were over the treasures of
the house of Ood, and over the treasures of the
holy things. — This general statement is special-
ized by the following passage in this way, that
the sons of the Gershonite Ladan were placed
over the treasures of the house of God, that is,
in a strict sense the temple treasures (ver. 22 ft.),
but the sons of Shelomoth over the treasures of
the holy things, that is, the spoils consecrated by
David (ver. 26 ff.).— Ver. 22. Jehieli, the sons of
Jehieli : Zetham, and Joel his brother. The sense
is, as appears from xxiii. 7 f., that Zetham and
Joel, the heads of the house cf Jehieli (or Jehiel),
belonging to the Gershonite line of Ladan, had to
administer the treasures of the house of God (tie
proper treasures of the temple, vei. 20). — Ver.
23 f. Of the Amramites, the Izharites, the Hebron-
CHAP. XXVI. 25-32.
149
itea, and the Uzzielites, the four branches of the
family of the Kohathites, xxiii. 15 ff. — Shebuel
. . . ruler over the treasures (1 before ?tf:QB» con-
tinuing the sentence). As "son of Gershom son
of Moses," this Shebuel (or Shubael, as in xxiv.
20) belongs to the Amramites. And indeed this
Amramite Shebuel appears, as the general phrase :
"ruler (T>)3) of the treasures," shows, to be chief
superintendent or administrator of all the sacred
treasures, the president or administrator of the two
departments of these treasures mentioned in ver.
20 (not merely as superintendent of such sums as
flowed regularly into the sanctuary, as Berth.,
limiting the word nVlXlN. thinks). — Ver. 25. And
his brethren by Eliezer were Rehabiah his son
(Eliezer's), and Jeshaiah his son, etc. These are
called brethren of Shebuel, because they sprang
from Moses by Eliezer, as this by his brother
Gershom (xxiii. 16). — Ver. 26. This Shelornoth
and his brethren. As a descendant of Eliezer,
and therefore an Amramite, this Shelornoth (or
Shelomitb ; see Crit. Note) is different from the
two Shelomiths of ch. xxiii. , the Gershonite (ver.
9) and the Izharite (ver. 18; comp. xxiv. 22).
As he with his brethren has charge over the
treasures of the holy things of David (that is,
over the consecrated gifts from the spoils of the
wars of this king), he appears co-ordinate with
the Jehielites Zetham and Joel, but subordinate
to the ruler Shebuel. — And the captains. These
last-named K3SH HE* are the field-officers or
generals of David's army, as Joab, Amasa, as
distinct from the before-mentioned captains of
thousands and hundreds, or officers in general. —
Ver. 27. Out of the wars and of the spoil they
dedicated to maintain the house of the Lord, not
to keep it in good condition or to repair it
(according to the meaning which pin has in
2 Kings xii. 7 ; Neh. iii. 7 ff. ), but " to make it
great" (comp. xxix. 12, where pjn stands by
p^3, and is synonymous with it). Only this view
agrees with the circumstance that the temple, at
the time now in question, was not built, but only
about to be built. For p in jy X> as nota accus. ,
comp. xxix. 12. — Ver. 28a belongs still to the
parenthetical explication of the dedicated gifts
which began with ver. 27. — And all that Samuel
. . . had dedicated. The article in gwipnil stands
for the relative "it*>K, as in xxix. 17; 2 Chron.
xxix. 36; Ezra viii. 25, x. 14, 17. —Everything
dedicated, literally, every one who had dedicated
(E^lpHiTpS), wno placed that which was dedi-
cated by him under Shelornoth and his brethren.
The enumeration of the several gifts derived from
war, which began with ver. 27, or properly with
ver. 266, is here concluded, and referred to ver.
26a. T-JJJ, properly, " on the hand, " entrusted
for keeping, committed to the charge of any one. —
b. Officers for the External Business : vers. 29-32.
Only one Izharite and two Hebronite families are
mentioned in this category, consequently only
those belonging to two lines of the family of
Kohath, and no Gershonites or Merarites (as also,
vers. 20-28, to the treasurers belong no Merarites
and the Gershonites play only a subordinate pait).
— Of the Izharites was Ohenaniah . . . for the
outer business. In what this outer business con-
sisted the more definite addition shows : " for
officers (scribes) and judges. " Although, xxiii. 4,
the whole number of the Levites assigned to these
functions is stated to be 6000, a number so high
that all the situations of this kind in Israel might
apparently be filled by them, yet we should in-
clude, according to Neh. xi. 16, the administra-
tion of the external business specially for the
temple and its servants, the exaction of the taxes
for the temple, the collection of tithes, etc. — Ver.
30. Of the Hebronites . . . for the oversight of
Israel on this side the Jordan westward, of the
west-land of Israel ; comp. Josh. v. 1, xxii. 7.
rnp3 ?V the Sept. correctly renders: iiri tSj
ivurKi^iw too 'lcrpctn*. (ad inspeclioneni Israel).
The view of Berth. : "were over the gifts," that
is, the taxes, is unsupported by the usage, and
scarcely reconcilable with the explanation of the
contents of the foregoing verses on such taxes.
Comp. also ?J> TpSH in ver. 32, which signifies
nothing but "appoint as overseers," give the
oversight. — Ver. 31. Of the Hehronites was Jeriah
the chief. This Jeriah occurred in xxiii. 19, but
not in his present character as chief of the Hebron-
ite family appointed over the land east of the
Jordan. — For the Hehronites. This parenthesis,
extending to the end of the verse, explains the
surprising circumstance that the oversight of
both sides of the Jordan was committed to the
Hebronites. Why Jazer of Gilead, according to
Josh. xxi. 39, a Merarite city, served as a chief
residence to these Hebronites, remains obscure in
the brevity of the present notice. — Ver. 32. And
his brethren, valiant men, two thousand and seven
hundred fathers of families. So in the sense of
house or family fathers is DUNi! ^KT here
without doubt to be understood, as the very great
number 2700 teaches (not "heads of father-
houses"). The phrase is essentially equivalent
to the shorter flUK, "fathers," in ver. 31.
Moreover, the conjecture is natural, that as the
Hebronite family of Hashabiah numbered 1700,
and the Hebronite family of Jeriah 2700, house-
fathers, so to the Izharite family of Chenaikiah
(ver. 29) belonged the 1600 still wanting to the
sum total of 6000 (xxiii. 4), and that this number
has fallen out by some oversight. The present
list of officers for the outer business appears not
to have been preserved entire (comp. Keil, p.
209).
y. Division of the Military Officers; Order of the Service and of the Royal Househould :
ch. xxvii.
1. The Twelve Divisions of the Army: vers. 1-15.
Ch. xxvii. 1. And the sons of Israel after their number, the heads of the houses
and the captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that served the
160 I. CHRONICLES.
king in any matter of the courses, that which came in and that which went
out month hy month for all the months of the year, the one course was
2 twenty and four thousand. Over the first course, for the first month, was
Jashobam son of Zabdiel ; and in his course were twenty and four thousand.
3 Of the sons of Perez, the chief of all the captains of the host for the first
4 month. And over the course of the second month was Dodai1 the Ahohite,
and his course, and Mikloth the commander ; and in his course were twenty
5 and four thousand. The third captain of the host, for the third month, was
Benaiah son of Jehoiada the priest as chief ; and in his course were twenty
6 and four thousand. This is Benaiah the hero of the thirty, and above the
7 thirty; and his course was for Ammizabad his son. The fourth, for the fourth
month, was Asahel Joab's brother, and Zebadiah his son after him ; and in
8 his course were twenty and four thousand. The fifth, for the fifth month, was
the captain Shamhuth the Izharite ; and in his course were twenty and four
9 thousand. The sixth, for the sixth month, was Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoite;
10 and in his course were twenty and four thousand. The seventh, for the
seventh month, was Helez the Pelonite, of the sons of Ephraim ; and in his
11 course were twenty and four thousand. And the eighth, for the eighth month,
was Sibbechai the Hushathite, of the Zarhites ; and in his course were twenty
12 and four thousand. And the ninth, for the ninth month, was Abiezer the
Anthothite, of the Benjamites; and in his course were twenty and four
13 thousand. The tenth, for the tenth month, was Maharai the Netophathite, of
1 4 the Zarhites ; and in his course were twenty and four thousand. The eleventh,
for the eleventh month, was Benaiah the Pirathonite, of the sons of Ephraim ;
15 and in his course were twenty and four thousand. The twelfth, for the twelfth
month, Heldai the Netophathite, of Othniel ; and in his course were twenty
and four thousand.
2. The Princes of the Twelve Tribes: vers. 16-24.
1 6 And over the tribes of Israel : of the Beubenites, Eliezer son of Zichri was
1 7 ruler : of the Simeonites, Shephatiah son of Maachah. Of Levi, Hashabiah
18 son of Kemuel : of Aaron, Zadok. Of Judah, Elihu.2 of the brethren of
19 David : of Issachar, Omri son of Michael. Of Zebulun, Ishmaiah son of
20 Obadiah : of Naphtali, Jerimoth son of Azriel. Of the sons of Ephraim,
Hoshea son of Azariah : of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joel son of Pedaiah.
21 Of the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo son of Zechariah : of Benjamin,
22 Jaasiel son of Abner. Of Dan, Azarel son of Jeroham : these are the princes
23 of the tribes of Israel. But David took not their number from twenty years
old and under, because the Lord had promised to increase Israel as the stars
24 of heaven. Joab the son of Zeruiah began to number, but did not finish,
because for this there was wrath against Israel ; and the number was not put
in the account of the chronicles of King David.
E The Lords of the Treasvres and Possessions of David : vers. 25-31.
25 And over the king's treasures was Azmaveth son of Adiel : and over the
stores in the country, in the cities, and the villages, and the towers, was
26 Jonathan son of Uzziah. And over the field-labourers for tillage of the ground
27 was Ezri son of Chelub. And over the vineyards was Shimi the Ramathite ;
and over that which was in the vineyards of stores in wine was Zabdi the
28 Shiphmite. And over the olive-trees and the sycamores which were in the
Shephelah was Baal-hanan the Gederite : and over the cellars of oil was
29 Joash. And over the herds that fed in Sharon was Shitrai 8 the Sharonite :
30 and over the herds in the valleys was Shaphat son of Adlai. And over the
camels was Obil the Ishmaelite : and over the asses was Jehdeiah the
31 Meronothite.4 And over the flocks Jaziz the Hagrite : all these were rulers
of the substance which belonged to King David.
CHAP. XXVII. 1-15.
151
4. The State Counsellors of David: vers. 32-34.
32 And Jonathan, David's kinsman, was a counsellor, a wise man, and a
33 scribe; and Jehiel son of Hachmoni was with the king's sons. And Ahithophel
was the king's counsellor ; and Hushai the Archite was the king's friend.
34 And after Ahithophel was Jehoiada son of Benaiah, and Abiathar ; and the
general of the king's army was Joab.
» For Hil, according to xi. 12, is to be read "HVVja "ltJJpR-
1 For If! vN the Sept., in accordance with ii. 13 and 1 Sam. xvi. 6, xvlt. 13, exhibits 'Eiidt/3.
• So the Kttttib: the Keri has Shirtai (',D"1E').
* Sapt. & ix Mvot&Gv; but ni3"lD occurs also, Nth. lit. 17, as the name of a place near Mizpah; a pm&D nowhere.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — In this list of the
military and civil officers of David, the collocation
of ministers and associates of the army, domains,
and kingdom of this king is connected with the
survey contained in ch. xxiii. -xxvi. of the Levites
and priests in his reign, and also with the account
of the census of the people in ch. xxi. To the
latter vers. 23, 24 distinctly refer, which show
the fore-mentioned captains of the military divi-
sions and princes of the tribes as included in that
census, and thereby indicate the political and
military import of that measure (comp. on xxi.
1, 6). With the registers of Levites and priests in
ch. xxiii. -xxvi. , however, our section is connected
partly by its position and the similarity of its
contents, partly by the circumstance that both the
spiritual (Levitical) and the temporal hierarchy
of officers had obtained their more permanent
regulation and organization in the last year of his
government, and, indeed, in connection with the
census of the people, as appears again from
ver. 23.
1. The Twelve Divisions of the Army: vers.
1-15. — Arid the sons of Israel after their number.
Ver. 1 forms the full superscription to the follow-
ing list. As this contains only the twelve divi-
sions of the army of 24,000 men each, with the
names of their commanders, this circumstantial
superscription seems to promise too much ; the
detailed description of the army divisions an-
nounced in it, and of their officers, appears in
vers. 2-15 to be no longer complete, but only
preserved in the form of an abstract (Berth.).
But the chief stress rests on ' ' after their number "
(D1SDD7), as the determination of the monthly
changing military courses at the strength of
24,000 each, immediately after the close of this
superscription, clearly shows. Hence all else
that is here indicated, the mention of the captains
of the thousands and hundreds, the officers, etc. ,
is to be regarded as of mere secondary account. —
That which came in and that which went out
month by month, properly, ' ' the coming in and
outgoing," namely, the course going in and out
of service at the beginning of every month ;
cmnp. 2 Kings xi. 5, 7, 9, and 2 Chron. xxiii.
4, 8. Here naturally only the monthly attend-
ance of each of the twelve divisions or corps is
spoken of, not that they had changed places every
month, and were stationed one after another in
Jerusalem, which would have been quite impos-
sible for so large a corps. — The one course; nflS!"!,
taken distributively, as Num. xvii. 18; Judg. viii.
18. — Ver. 2. Over the first course . . . Jasho-
bam. Concerning this Jashobam (perhaps "Ish-
bosheth") son of Zabdiel, see on xi. 11. — And in
his course were twenty and four thousand, liter-
ally, "on ($y) his course went 24,000 men." —
Ver. 3. Of the sons of Perez : he was descended
from that distinguished Jewish family from
which David sprang; comp. ii. 4 ff. — The chief
of all the captains of the host for the first month,
stood as first in the series of twelve commanders
relieving each other monthly, but was still subor-
dinate to the commander of the whole army
(generalissimo), namely, to Joab (ver. 34). — Ver.
4. Dodai the Ahohite. On the omission of
" Eleazar son of" before Dodai, see the Crit. Note.
— And his course, and Mi/cloth the commander. \
before ni?pD appears to introduce the consequent,
and seems to be superfluous, as it is wanting before
"QPBJ>> ver. 6, in a similar connection. At all
events, Mikloth is a proper name, as viii. 32,
ix. 37 f. prove ; whether the there named Benja-
mite be identical with the present Mikloth must
remain doubtful. — Ver. 5. The third captain . . .
was Benaiah . . . as chief. {J>N1, predicate to
Benaiah, not attribute to tnbn. Concerning this
Benaiah and his distinguished position as ' ' hero of
the thirty, and above the thirty" (more honoured
than all of them), see xi. 22, 25 ; 2 Sam. xxiii.
23. For the construction in ver. 66, comp. on
ver. 4ft. — Ver. 7. Asahel . . . and Zebadiah his
son after him. This form of expression contains
a plain reference to the early death of Asahel
(xi. 26), his tragic end, which Abner prepared for
him, 2 Sam. ii. 18-23. The fourth course would
thus, at least for the late time now in question,
have to be designated properly after Asahel's son
Zebadiah, its then living leader. But it is called
(honoris causa) de patris defuncti nomine, as
Clericus well remarks, just as the family of the
Maccabees is distinguished by the name Asnio-
nseans.— Ver. 8 ff. The following names Shamhuth
(earlier, xi. 27, Shammoth ; 2 Sam. xxiii. 11,
Shammah), Ira, Helez, Sibbechai, Abiezer, Maha-
rai, Benaiah, and Heldai occurred together already,
though in a somewhat different order, in the list of
heroes in xi. 27-31. — Shamhuth the Izrahite, the
descendant of Zerah son of Judah, ch. ii. 4, 6 ; fTlTTl
stands for <rnTs!"l, an(* this is equivalent to
TTWI, >"ers- H an<i 13. —Ver. 15. Heldai tht
152
I. CHRONICLES.
JVetophathite, of Othniel, belonging to the family
of Othniel, incorporated by his connection with
Caleb into the tribe of Judah, Josh. xv. 17; Judg.
i. 12-15. The name Heldai is besides in xi. 30
Heled, and in 2 Sam. xxiii. 29, by an error of the
pen, Heleb.
2. The Princes of the Twelve Tribes : vers.
16-24. — In this list the twelve tribes are
enumerated in quite a different order from that
in Genesis, and even that in iv.-vii. of our book.
A fundamental ground for the order here ex-
hibited— Eeuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issaohar,
Zebulun, Naphtali, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benja-
min, Dan — can the less be ascertained, because
the names of two tribes (Gad and Asher) have
fallen out probably by an old corruption of the
text ; and there is no means even of conjecturing
what was their original place in the list. There
remains, therefore, only an uncertain surmise
that Dan has been assigned the last place on
account of his fall into idolatry ; comp. evangeli-
cal and ethical reflections on ch. i.-ix., No. 3. —
Ver. 17. Of Aaron, Zadok. Whether this
naming of a prince of the Aaronites, namely, the
high priest Zadok, of the line of Eleazar, along
with that of the Levite was to make amends for
the omitted princes of Gad and Asher is uncer-
tain.—Ver. 18. Of Judah, JSlihu. That "Eliab"
(ii. 13) is to be read, with the Sept., for "Elihu"
is most probable, even for this reason, that Eliab
was the lirst-born of Jesse, to whom the dignity
of prince must have naturally fallen. — Ver. 21.
Of the half . in Gitead, literally, ' ' toward
Gilead" (mj)?3), a suitable designation of the
east half of Manasseh. — Vers. 23, 24. Closing
Kemark on the Two Lists referring to the Army of
Israel, vers. 2-15 and vers. 16-22. — But David
took not their number from tiventy years old and
under ; he had only those above twenty years
numbered. On 13DO Nt"3, to take, determine,
a number, comp. Num. iii. 40, and Ex. xxx. 12 ;
Num. i. 49. — Because the Lord had promised to
increase Israel as the stars of heaven. This
ground for the remark that David included only
those above twenty years in his census of the
people obviously means that to number the
whole mass of the people, which God's promise
to the patriarchs (Gen. xxii. 17, etc.) had de-
signated as innumerable, was not intended by
David ; he had only wished to ascertain the num-
ber of those able to bear arms for the organization
of his army. On ver. 24a, comp. xxi. 6. — And
the number was not put in the account of the
chronicles of King David, literally, " and the
number went not up," etc. ; comp. -\qq py r6j)i1,
2 Chron. xx. 34, on account of which parallel,
moreover, "IBD3 is not to be read for 1QDD3i
especially as the phrase D^Tl i"m "iqd d»es
not occur in Chronicles. The second 1QDD is
rather to be understood in the sense of "reckon-
ing, register of numbers," and therefore we are
to think of the statistical section of the annals
of David's reign (Berth., Kamph., etc.). In
these the result of that great census of the people
had no place according to our passage ; and if,
xxi. 5, a communication regarding this result is
made, it must have been derived from some other
source.
3. The Lords of the Treasures and Possessions
of David : vers. 25-31. — And over the king's
treasures was Azmaveth. These first-mentioned
treasures in general (ntlVK; comp. xxvi. 20; Job
xxxviii. 22) were perhaps, as the contrast with
the "treasures in the country" teaches, the
stores or spoils of war preserved in Jerusalem, sc
far as they were crown and not temple property
{xxvi. 22); thus rightly Luther: " over the
treasure of the king." — And over the stores in
the country, in the cities, and the villages, and the
towers, that is, in the forts or keeps ; comp. the
notice of such towers in 2 Chron. xxvi. 10 ; Mic.
iv. S ; Song iv. 4. — Ver. 26. And over the field-
labourers for tillage of the ground was -Ezri.
Here begins the specification of the stores in the
field, with the royal domains or fields (mp here
in the strict or proper sense, not as in ver. 25). —
Ver. 27. And over the vineyards was Shimi the
Ramathite, of Eamah in the tribe of Benjamin,
Josh, xviii. 25. The next following officer, Zabdi,
the manager of the wine-stores in the vineyards,
is called 'DDt^n, "the Shiphmite," coming per-
haps from DBB>, a place mentioned in Num.
xxxiv. 10 f., on the north border of Canaan.
But perhaps it is more natural to refer to niDBB"
in the south of Judah (1 Sam. xxx. 28), as the
south produced the most wine, and of course the
most vineyards and vine cultivators. — Ver. 28.
And over the olive-trees and the sycamores in the
Shtphelah, in the lowlands of the fruitful plain,
between the hills of Judah and the Mediterranean,
Josh. xv. 53. DVPTi olivo plantations and gar-
dens ; comp. Deut. vi. 11, 1 Kings v. 25 ; and so
the following QiopK". How important the pro-
duce of the sycamores must have been in the
times of David and Solomon appears from the
proverbial expression, 1 Kings x. 27, 2 Chron. i.
15 : " Cedar- wood as plentiful as the sycamores
that grew in the Shephelah." Comp. C. Hoffmann,
Blicke in die friihere Geschichte des gelobten
Landes, p. 171 : "None of the plants adorning
the country in that time is so fallen as those oft-
mentioned sycamores, of which only a few still
stand in the gardens of Jaffa as tokens of by-
gone beauty. On the coast, on the hot soil,
moistened by under water, stood in broad planta-
tions these mighty, shady, leafy crowns, the
native land of which is Egypt. They are men-
tioned at Jericho in the time of Christ (Luke
xix. 4). Did they, as the herdsman Amos, who
plucked their figs, intimates Amos vi1. 14, extend
to the now so cool and dry valleys of Tekoa,
about the Frank Mountains, that now bear
among the Arabs the name of paradise, as a
monument of vanished glories ? At all events,
they were proverbially common in Solomon's
time ; and this leads to one of those numerous in-
dications of a former abundance of water," etc. —
Baal-hanan the Gederite, of Geder or Gederah,
situated in the lowlands south-east of Jabneh
(comp. Josh. xii. 13, xv. 36, and our remark on
Beth-geder, ii. 51) ; man is thus not really
different from TITian, xii. 4. Keil would derive
■man rather from Gedor (lila), on the hills
of judah, Josh. xv. 58 ; but the form of the
CHAP. XXVIII. XXIX.
153
Gentilicium is against this. — And over the herds
in the valleys, namely, those in the hill country
of Judcih towards the Dead Sea and the Jordan ;
comp. xii. 15. — Ver. 30. And over the camels
vms Obil the Ishmaelite. As the riches of the king
consisted in camels (comp. Job i. 3 ; Judg. vii.
12) jb the south country, where the Ishmaelites
formerly wandered, a descendant of this race was
appointed overseer of them. So it might be with
the Hagarite Jaziz, who was placed over the flocks
(comp. v. 10, 19 ; Ps. lxxxiii. 7). For Jehdeiah
the Meronothite, see Crit. Note. — Ver. 31. All
these were rulers of the property which belonged to
King David. {}fc|3"), "property," a wider notion
than that of the "treasures of the king," ver. 25,
including these (the treasures in Jerusalem) and
"the treasures in the country." The total num-
ber of the officers appointed to take charge of all
this property, as they are named above, is twelve,
namely, the two head officers, ver. 25 (for the city,
Azmaveth ; for the country, Jonathan), and the
ten overseers of the tillage and pasturage, the
latter of whom were to give a yearly account of
the produce of the stock under their charge to
the former. The number twelve can scarcely be
accidental here, though it is not expressly noticed.
4. The State Counsellors of David : vers.
32-34 ; comp. the similar lists of the chief officers
of state in xviii. 15-17 (2 Sam. viii. 15-18) and
in 2 Sam. xx. 23-26, with which, however, the
present has only Joab the commander-in-chief in
common, whereas, otherwise, here partly other
persons, partly other functions, appear ; and,
indeed, its chief aim is to name the counsellors
(□'SJ)*) of the king : it is a list of the chief
counsellors of David (as it were his private
council of state or cabinet). — And Jonathan
David's kinsman was a counsellor ; ~\\r\ (pro-
perly favourite, friend, Song i. 13, etc.) may
signify the father's brother, Jer. xxxii. 7, in which
sense it appears to be taken by the Sept.
(■mtpuiixipvs) and Vulg. (patraus). Yet it
signifies also (Jer. xxxii. 12) "kinsman, cousin"
in general, and appears here also to convey this
wider sense, where scarcely any other Jonathan
lhan the son of Shima is meant, and therefore a
nephew of David. On Vtfi', counsellor, comp.
xxvi. 14; on the following attribute, "wise,"
xv. 22 ; on a " scribe " OfiiD> here not a name
of office, as in xviii. 16), ii. 55 ; Ezra vii. 6. —
And Jehiel .... was with the Una's sons, as
their instructor or tutor, an office mentioned only
here. Whether Hachmom the father of th:s
Jehiel be the same with the Haehmoni father
of Jashobam mentioned xi. 11 must remain un-
certain.— Ver. 33. And Ahithophel was coun-
sellor of the king, without doubt the same who
became notorious from the history of the revolt
of Absalom — comp. 2 Sam. xv. 31, xvi. 23,
xvii. 1 ff. ; Ps. xli. 10 — as Hushai the Archita
is the well-known opponent of this Ahithophel,
2 Sam. xv. 32, 37, xvi. 16.— Ver. 34. And after
Ahithophel was Jehoiada son of Benaiah and
Abiathar. That by the latter the well-kntTrn
high priest of the family of Ithamar (v. 27) is
meant cannot well be doubted ; whether with
regard to the previous name we are to think of
the Benaiah named ver. 5, captain of the third
division, son of Jehoiada the priest, so that
here a transposition of the names has ■ taken
place (Berth.), appears doubtful. It is perhaps
simpler to take the Jehoiada named as successor
to Ahithophel in the privy council of the king
for a son of that Benaiah who, after the well-
known Hebrew custom, bore the name of his
grandfather. We may observe, moreover, how
clearly the Chronist here again (as in ver. 7)
betrays his acquaintance with certain episodes in
the history of David, the special course of which
it does not lie within the scope of his plan to
narrate. — And the general of the king's army
was Joab; as such generalissimo, at the same
time in some sense minister of war, and there-
fore eo ipso belonging to the rank of king's coun-
sellors. Accordingly he appears, xxi. 2 ff. , in the
exercise of his office of counsellor in regard to the
census of the people.
In an apologetic respect, it is worthy of remark,
in regard to this list of the counsellors of David,
that, with the exception of Jehiel, names of
persons about David occurring also in the books
of Samuel and elsewhere in our books are con-
tained in it, but that it cannot be compiled by
the Chronist from the other accounts of the
history of this king, because it exhibits some-
thing peculiar, not elsewhere occurring, in its
statements of the functions of these men. "We
must therefore assume that this list comes from
the same source from which our historian has
drawn the previous lists (xxiii. -xxvi. and xxvii.
1-31)" (Berth.).
h. The Last Directions of David concerning the building of the Temple and the Succession of
Solomon, and his own Death: ch. xxviii., xxix.
1. Directions to Solomon concerning the building of the Temple: oh. xxviii.
Ch. XXVIII. 1. And David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the
tribes, and the captains of the divisions, that served the king, and the
captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and the stewards of all the
property and cattle of the king and his sons, with the courtiers and the heroes,
2 and all the valiant men in Jerusalem. And David the king stood up on his
feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren and my people. I had it in my heart
to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the
3 footstool of our God ; and I made ready for the building. But God said to
me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou hast been a
4 man of war, and hast shed blood. And the Lokd God of Israel chose me out
154 I. CHRONICLES.
of all my father's house to be king over Israel for ever : for He hath chosen
Judah to be the ruler, and in the house of Judah the house of my father ; and
among the sons of my father He liked me, to make me king over all Israel.
5 And of all my sons — for the Lord hath given me many sons — He hath chosen
Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lort> over
6 Israel. And He said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and
my courts ; for I have chosen him to be my son ; and I will he his father.
7 And I will establish his kingdom for ever, if he be strong to do my com-
8 mandments and my judgments as at this day. And now in the eyes of all
Israel, the congregation of the Lord, and in the ears of our God, keep and
seek all the commandments of the Lord your God, that ye may possess
9 the good land, and bequeath it to your sons after you for ever. And thou,
Solomon my son, know the God of thy father, and serve Him with a whole
heart, and with a willing mind; for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and
understandeth all the imagination of the thoughts : if thou seek Him, He
will be found of thee ; and if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever.
10 Take heed now; for the Lord hath chosen thee to build a house for the
sanctuary : be strong, and do it.
11 And David gave Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of its
buildings and its treasuries, and its upper rooms, and its inner parlours, and
12 the house of the mercy-seat. And the pattern of all that his spirit had in
thought for the courts of the house of the Lord, and for all the chambers
around for the treasures of the house of God, and for the treasures of the
13 holy things. And for the courses of the priests and the Levites, and for all
the work of the service of the house of the Lord, and for all the vessels of
14 the service of the house of the Lord. For gold by weight, for gold for all
instruments of every service ; and for all instruments of silver by weight, for
15 all instruments of every service. And the weight for the golden candlesticks,
and their lamps of gold ; by the weight of every candlestick and its lamps ;
and for the silver candlesticks, by weight for the candlestick and its lamps,
1 6 according1 to the use of each candlestick. And the gold by weight for the
17 tables of shew-bread for every table ; and silver for the tables of silver. And
the forks, and the sprinkling bowls, and the cans of pure gold ; and for the
golden tankards by weight for every tankard, and for the silver tankards by
18 weight for every tankard. And for the altar of incense, refined gold by
weight ; and for the pattern of the chariot ; the cherubim of gold that
spread out (their wings) and cover2 the ark of the covenant of the Lord.
19 "All this has He taught me in writing from the hand of the Lord upon me,
even all the works of the pattern."
20 And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and active, and do it :
fear not, nor be dismayed, for the Lord God, my God, is with thee ; He will
not fail thee, nor forsake thee, till all the work of the service of the house of
21 the Lord is completed. And, behold, the courses of the priests and the
Levites for all the service of the, house of God ; and with thee is in every
work every willing man of wisdom for all service ; and the princes and all
the people for all thy matters.
2. Contributions of the assembled Princes for building the Temple: oh. xxix. 1-9.
Ch. XXIX. 1. And David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son,
whom alone God hath chosen, is young and tender, and the work is great ;
2 for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God. And with all my
might I have prepared for the house of my God, gold for golden things, and
silver for silver, and brass for brazen, and iron for iron, and wood for wooden;
onyx-stones and set stones, rubies and mottled stones, and all kinds of pre-
3 cious stones, and marble stones in abundance. And, moreover, because I
delight in the house of God, 1 have a treasure of gold and silver which I have
giveD to the house of my God over and above all that I have prepared for
CHAP. XXVIII XXIX. 155
4 the holy house. Three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and
seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses.
5 The gold for golden, and the silver for silver, and for all work by the band of
artificers ; and who is willing to fill his hand this day unto the Lord t
6 And the princes of the houses, and the princes of the tribes of Israel, and
the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers of the king's work,
7 showed themselves willing. And gave, for the service of the house of God,
of gold, five thousand talents and ten thousand darics ; and of silver, ten
thousand talents ; and of brass, eighteen thousand talents ; and of iron, a
8 hundred thousand talents. And they with whom stones were found gave
them for the treasure of the house of the Lord, by the hand of Jehiel the
9 Gershonite. And the people were glad, because they were willing, because
with a perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord ; and David the king
also was exceedingly glad.
3. David's Thanksgiving: vers. 10—19.
10 And David blessed the Lord in the eyes of all the congregation; and
David said, Blessed be Thou, Lord God of Israel our father, for ever and
11 ever. Thine, 0 Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the beauty, and
the lustre, and the majesty ; for all in the heaven and in the earth is Thine :
12 Thine, 0 Lord, is the kingdom, and Thou art exalted as head over all. And
the riches and the glory come of Thee, and Thou rulest over all ; and in Thy
hand is might and power ; and in Thy hand it is to make all great and strong.
13, 14 And now, our God, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious name. For who
am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly in
15 this way 1 for all comes of Thee, and of Thy hand have we given Thee. For
we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers : our days on
1 6 the earth are as a shadow, and there is no hope. 0 Lord our God, all this
store that we have prepared to build Thee a house for Thy holy name, it3
17 cometh of Thy hand, and is all Thine own. And I know, 0 my God, that
Thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness : I, in the integrity of
my heart, have willingly offered all these things : and now Thy people who
18 are present I have seen with gladness to offer willingly unto Thee. 0 Lord
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the
imagination of the thoughts of the heart of Thy people, and stablish their
19 heart unto Thee. And give to Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep Thy
commandments, Thy testimonies, and Thy statutes, and to do all, and to
build the palace which I have prepared.
4. Close of the Public Assembly ; Solomon's Elevation to the Throne: vers. 20-25.
20 And David said to all the congregation, Bless now the Lord your God :
and all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers ; and they
21 bent and bowed down to the Lord, and to the king. And they killed sacri-
fices unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings unto the Lord, on the morrow
of that day, a thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, a thousand lambs, with
22 their drink-offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. And they
ate and drank before the Lord on that day with great gladness, and the
second time made Solomon the son of David king, and anointed him unto
23 the Lord to be ruler, and Zadok to be priest. And Solomon sat on the
throne of the Lord as king, instead of David his father; and he prospered,
24 and all Israel obeyed him. And all the princes, and the heroes, and also all
25 the sons of King David, submitted to Solomon the king. And the Lord
magnified Solomon exceedingly in the eyes of all Israel,, and bestowed on him
the majesty of the kingdom, which had not been on any king over Israel
before him.
5. Close of the History of David: vers. 26-30.
26, 27 And David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel. And the time that
156
I. CHRONICLES.
he reigned over all Israel was forty years ; in Hebron he reigned seven years,
28 and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three. And he died in a good old
age, full of days, riches, and glory ; and Solomon his son reigned in his stead.
29 And the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the
words of Samuel the seer, and in the words of Nathan the prophet, and in
30 the words of Gad the seer. With all his reign and his might, and the times
that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the
countries.
' For n*li31J3 a number of mss. and old editions read lYlfclJQ (" for the service ")■
» For D'Mbl WVhe!? the Sept and Vulg. read D'SSDni D'EHSn 1 comp. Exeg. Expl
» So the Kethib (KTl) i the Ken has tflil, referring to JlDnn.
EXEGETICAL.
1. Directions to Solomon concerning the build-
ing of the Temple : ch. xxviii. 1-21. — These
directions for building the temple David an-
nounces in a solemn assembly of the states or
representatives of the people, or as they are de-
signated in general : " all the princes of Israel "
(CICO- The several classes of these representa-
tives of the kingdom are there specified : — 1. " the
princes of the tribes " (see their enumeration in
xxvii. 16-22) ; 2. " the captains of the divisions
that served the king ; " see xxvii. 1-15; 3. "the
captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, "
the officers of the army, and those captains of
divisions, the commanders and chiefs of the
twelve corps of the army (xxvii. 1); 4. "the
stewards of all the property and cattle of the
king and his sons,' the officers of the royal
domains (xxvii. 25-31), who are here extended
by the addition (misunderstood by the Vulg.)
1^371 to the royal princes and their possessions ;
5. 'the courtiers,'' Q'D'HDi properly, eunuchs (so
the Sept. and Vulg. in our passage), but here
obviously in a wider sense, of officers of the royal
Court, or chamberlains in general ; comp. 1 Sam.
viii. 15; 1 King3 xxii. 19; 6. the "heroes,"
that is, the distinguished champions enumerated
in xi. 10 ff., so far as they not merely (as captains
of the divisions or over the thousands, etc. ) be-
longed to the active service, but perhaps as
occasional counsellors of the king, or otherwise
influential persons, were entitled to » prominent
position in the kingdom (hence the Sept. not
unsuitably: mis "SuiieTus) ; 7. all " the valiant
men" (7>n "li33"7D71 with 5 as nota ace),
every other person of note or importance, — a wide
phrase reverting to the general notion of the
"princes of Israel." — Ver. 2. And David the
king stood up on his feet, in order to speak ; for
before he was sitting from the weakness of age
(not reclining, as the Rabbinical expositors would
infer from 1 Kings i.). For the kindly humble
address, "my brethren," in the king's mouth,
comp. 1 Sam. xxx. 23 ; 2 Sam. xix. 13. — / had
it in my heart to build, literally, "I, in my heart
it was to build ;" comp. xxii. 7. — A house of
re#t, a house where the ark might abide at rest.
Along with the ark, on account of its special
holiness, is mentioned the mercy-seat (ver. 11),
and, indeed, described in a figurative way as
"the footstool of our God," as Jehovah is re-
garded as sitting on the cherubim of the cap-
poreth. — And I made ready for the building, I
prepared workmen and materials for it ; comp.
xxii. 2 ff. , 1 4 ff. ; as for the following verse xxii
8, and for ver. 4, ch. xi. 2, v. 2. — Ver. 5. To sit
upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over
Israel, the theocratic kingdom ; comp. the equiva-
lent briefer phrase: "to sit on Jehovah's throne,"
xxix. 23 and Ps. xlv. 7, where the correctly
interpreted Dt6k ^KD3, "thy God's throne,"
yields practically the same notion (see Moll, Der
Psalter, p. 237). God is the proper king of
Israel; but David, Solomon, etc., are only the
earthly representatives of His royalty. — Ver. 7.
And I will establish His kingdom. Comp. in
general xxii. 10 and xvii. 11 f. , and for the con-
dition : "if he be strong," etc., the quite similar
conditions which God, 1 Kings iii. 1 4, ix. 4, im-
poses on Solomon ; also 1 Kings viii. 61 (where also
the nffl Diss). — Ver. 8. Keep and seek all the
commandments, keep them earnestly, seek to keep
them with zeal. — That ye may possess the good
land. Comp. Deut. iv. 21; Lev. xxv. 46; Jer.
iii. 18. — Ver. 9. And thou, Solomon my son,
know the God of thy father, the God who so truly
helped me, thy father, in all troubles ; comp. the
emphatic "my God," ver. 20 and Ps. xviii. 3,
and similar passages. — And serve Him with a
whole heart, with an undivided mind, without
Si^K^i'a ; comp. xxix. 9 ; also xxix. 19 and 1 Kings
viii. 61. — Understandeth all the imagination of
the thoughts. The phrase : ' ' imagination of the
thoughts," as in Gen. vi. 5; the reference to the
omniscience of God, as in 1 Sam. xvi. 7; Ps. vii.
10, exxxix. 1 ff. — If thou seek Him, He will be
found of thee ; comp. Deut. iv. 29 ; Isa. Iv. 6 ; Jer.
xxix. 13 f. On the following strong expression:
" He will cast thee off" (^rW), comp. 2 Chron.
xi. 14, xxix. 19, and Lam. iii. 17. — Ver. 10. Be i
strong, and do it. In essentially the same words,
ver. 20, David again addresses Solomon, after the
interruption, vers. 11-19, occasioned by deliver-
ing the draft and plan of the holy buildings. —
Vers. 11-19. The Details of the Outline and Plan
for the Temple, as David laid it before his Son in
the public Assembly. We may imagine the
architects and other craftsmen, by whose help he
had this outline and plan drawn out, present in
the assembly, and explaining it at the king's
order. — And David gave <. . . the pattern of Out
court, rWaPi pattern, model, as Ex. xxv. 40 ;
CHAP. XXVIII. 11-19.
157
dPINH, the porch before the sanctuary, 2 Chron.
iii. 4; 1 Kings vi. 3. — And of its buildings, those
of the temple. The suffix must refer, not to the
D7IK, but only to JVn. "the temple, the house,"
T
to he supplied from the context. The huilJings
of the house are the holy place and the most
holy. — And its treasuries (pguj, cognate with
pjjj, Ezra vii. 20, Esth. iii. 9, iv. 7, occurs only
here), and its upper rooms (above the most holy
place, 2 Chron. iii. 9), and its inner parlours,
namely, the porch and the holy place ; for only
to these can the phrase refer, as immediately after
follows the special mention of the most holy
place, designated as the "house of the mercy-
seat" or "abode of the capporeth." — Ver. 12.
And the pattern of all that his spirit had in
thought (or what was before his mind) for the
courts . . . and all the chambers around, the cells
or rooms on the four sides of the court, that
served to keep "the treasures of the house of
God," that is, the treasure of the temple and the
"treasures of holy things," the stores of dedicated
things collected from the spoils of war (the same
distinction as in xxvi. 20). — Ver. 13 continues
the statement, of that for which the chambers or
cells of the court were designed. — And for the
courses of the priests and the Levites, for their
sojourn during their service, likewise for the
works belonging to this service (cooking of flesh,
preparing of shew-bread, etc. ), and for the keep-
ing of the requisite utensils, which last are enu-
merated in detail from ver. 14 on. — Ver. 14. For
gold. The p in 2!vh corresponds to that in
ftf3B';>rn?3?, ver. 12 ; the sentence begun in
ver. 11 thus extends to the close of this verse.
A new construction begins first in ver. 15, which
may be regarded as a continuation of that begun
in ver. 11. As to the object ppBtol, a jn>1 must
be supplied from ver. 11, but not certainly in the
same sense of giving, but in that of stating or
defining. Thus: "And (he stated) the weight
for the golden candlesticks and their lamps of
gold;" 3ni is freely subordinated to DnVli'Ol
(comp. 2 Chron. ix. 15). For the golden candle-
sticks of the sanctuary, comp. Ex. xxv. 31 f. ; 2
Chron. iv. 7. — According to the use of each candle-
stick, according to its set service, its import for
the holy service. For the var. : "for the service of
everyone" (mi3}Q), see Crit. Note. — Ver. 16.
And the gold by weight: pptJ'O, accus. of free
subordination. — For the tables of shew-bread for
every table ; and silver for the tables of silver.
Whereas elsewhere (Ex. xxv. 23 ff. ; 1 Kings vii.
48; and 2 Chron. xxix. 18) only one table of
shew-bread is spoken of, here several tables of
this kind are mentioned. As also, 2 Chron. iv.
8, a greater number of golden tables, namely, ten,
destined as it appears for the ten golden candle-
sticks, is spoken of, so in our passage (as in 2
Chron. iv. 19) a synecdoche appears to be used,
and the one golden table of shew-bread to be
included with the tables for the golden candle-
sticks. Silver tables (as silver candlesticks, ver.
15) are only here expressly mentioned : such may
be understood as included among the silver
articles mentioned on the occasion of the repair
of the temple by Joash (2 Chron. xxiv. 14; comp.
also 2 Kings xxv. 15). The statements of the
Rabbis, that the silver tables stood in the court,
and the silver candlesticks in the chambers of
the priests, may rest on an old tradition. — Ver.
17. And (gave him in pattern : the same supple-
ment as in ver. 15) the forks, namely, the flesh-
forks used in cooking the pieces of the sacrifices;
comp. Ex. xxvii. 3 ; 1 Kings vii. 50. For the
sprinkling-bowls (nip"ITD), eomp. also 2 Chron.
iv. 11, 22; for the "cans" or "cups" (nitJ'p,
o-mvSiik) that were used in libations, Ex. xxv. 29,
xxxvii. 16; Num. iv. 7. — Of pure gold; accus.
of free subordination, as in vers. 15, 16. — And
for the golden tankards. D'liDS, from "123,
cover, are covered vessels, and so tankards (not
cups) ; comp. Ezra i. 10, viii. 27, the only other
passages in which it occurs. — Ver. 18. The pattern
of the chariot, the cherubim, of gold. The term
pattern, fWOl7], recurs here, near the close of the
whole enumeration, from vers. 11 and 12, but
with p as nota accusat. The mercy-seat with its
cherubim appears here symbolized as the chariot
on which Jehovah sits or moves (comp. Ex. xxv.
22; Ps. xviii. 11, xcix. 1), — a very important
passage for the right understanding of Ezek. i.
15 ff. The cherubim themselves, though only
two in number, according to the present descrip-
tion, which represents the older and simpler idea,
exhibit as it were a chariot (observe that DOVISH
is not subordinate to D331D ** a genitive, but
co-ordinate with it, as in apposition) ; of a wheel-
work connected with it, an external exhibition of
the chariot idea, as Ezekiel depicts it, nothing is
indicated in the passage ; the Sept. and Vulg.
only, by taking D'OTISil as a genitive (ilp/m rui
Xipevlilft,: quadriga cherubim), have introduced
this foreign element. — That spread out (their
wings) and cover the ark of the covenant of the
Lord, literally, "for spreading and covering," that
is, they are represented spreading and covering
with their wings. Comp. for this use of p in the
sense of becoming something, or appearing as
somewhat, ch. xxix. 33 (?pD?, " as king "), also
Gen. ix. 5, Job xxxix. 16, and other passages, in
Ew. § 217, d (p. 553). The change of retina?
CZODI into D'rnbn) EfKnsn (Sept., Vulg., and
recent expositors, as Berth., Kamph., etc.) is
therefore unnecessary. J. H. Mich, correctly :
ut essent expandentes, etc. To D^bHS? it is easy
to supply QiBJan, "the wings," as object;
comp. Ex. xxv. 20, and 1 Kings viii. 7; 2 Chron.
v. 8. — Ver. 19 contains again words of David, as
the ipj/, "upon me," and the whole sense and
contents teach. — All this has He taught me in
writing from the hand of the Lord upon me. So
it seems the difficult and perhaps corrupt words
158
I. CHRONICLES.
^3fe>~ 'hs nirv I'D nnaa Van must be takon-
To ^3tJ»n we are to understand miT as subject,
and "me" (or perhaps "us") as object. Possibly
also i^iy might be connected with pi3S>>n (comp.
Prov. xxii. 11) ; but it is easier, on account of the
collocation, to connect it either with 7V\iV "TO or
with 3H33- Now, as the grammatically (Ps. xl.
8 : spy ans) admissible connection of the words
i^jj — 3J133 into one notion, " by a writing from
the hand of Jehovah given me as a rule" (Berth.),
yields a very harsh and obscure sense, and as,
moreover, the position of miT TD between 31133
and <bv renders this connection extremely diffi-
cult, nothing remains but the connection of
'by niiT TD, " a writing from the hand of
Jehovah being or coming upon me," by which
is designated a writing springing from divine
revelation, an immediate effect of divine inspira-
tion (comp. the known phrase: "the hand of
Jehovah came upon me," 2 Kings iii. 15; Ezek.
i. 3, iii. 14, etc.). This naturally refers, not to
the' law of Moses, as the Rabbinical expositors
think, but to the proposed building plan, draft,
etc., which David refers to divine teaching, in so
far as he did not conceive it arbitrarily, but
designed it under the influence of the Divine
Spirit (which, however, must have been effected
iu this case not directly by vision, as with Moses
on Sinai). Comp. moreover, on the transition
into the address without an introductory formula,
ch. xxii. 18 f., xxiii. 4 f.— Vers. 20, 21. Closing
Admonition and Promise to Solomon. — Be strong
and active; comp. ver. 10 and ch. xxii. 13. — For
the Lord God, my God, is with thee; comp. on
ver. 9. For the following promise: "He will
not fail thee (properly, ' withdraw from thee,'
namely, His hand) nor forsake thee," comp.
Deut. xxxi. 6,- 8 ; Ps. cxxxviii. 8 ; Josh. i. 5 ;
Heb. xiii. 5. — And behold the courses of the
priests. Personal attendance of the priests and
Levites, or only of a majority of representatives
of their order in the public assembly, can scarcely
be inferred from this 'yi n3.ni, just as the ?p$fl,
" and with thee, " does not necessitate the assump-
tion that the willing craftsmen stood by Solomon,
or were assembled around him. — Every willing
man of wisdom for all service, properly, "with
regard to every willing man." The p here is not
nota accus. (as ver. 1, xxvi. 26, xxix. 6), but yet
serves to give emphasis to yij-pg (Ew. § 310, a),
which, though it cannot be translated, is yet not
to be erased (against Berth. ). For the notion of
free-will (3"nj = 3I? 3*13, 2 Chron. xxix. 31), to
designate the higher wisdom and skill of a crafts-
man, comp. Ex. xxxv. 5, 22, and Latin phrases,
as arles ingenuae, liberates. We are to think,
moreover, of the same craftsmen as those named,
xxii. 15; 2 Chron. ii. 6. — For all thy matters:
f|i-l3T?3p to be explained according to xxvi.
82 (concerns, matters) scarcely: "for all thy
words or commands " (as J. H. Mich., Starke,
Keil, etc., think). .
2. Contributions of the assembled Princes for
building the Temple : ch. xxix. 1-9.— Unto all
the congregation, which consisted, ch. xxviii. 1,
merely of the "princes" or more eminent repre-
sentatives (notables) of the people.— Solomon, my
son, whom alone God hath chosen, properly a
parenthesis: "as the one (ins) hath God chosen
him." For "young and tender," comp. xxii. 5.
— For the palace is not for man. Only here and
ver. 19 stands the later word ni^il, to denote
the temple (with regard to its fort-like size and
strength) ; elsewhere either of the Persian royal
castle (Esth. i. 2, 5, ii. 3 ; Neh. i. 1) or of the
castle in the temple at Jerusalem. — "Ver. 2. On a,
comp. xxiii. 15. — Onyx-stones and set stones. For
nnb', onyx (sardonyx, etc.), or perhaps beryl,
comp. Gen. ii. 12; Ex. xxviii. 9, 20; Job xxviii.
16; on D'tM^D ^3N, "stones of settings," Ex.
xxv. 7, xxxv. 9, where also onyx-stones, designed
for the high priest's ephod and hoshen, are men-
tioned.— Rubies and mottled stones, and all hinds
of precious stones, and marble stones in abund-
ance. 7piS"\33N, properly stones of paint or
lead-glance (comp. 2 Kings ix. 35; Isa. liv. 11),
perhaps precious stones of very dark glancing
colour, of dark purple, as carbuncle or ruby (^Qj,
perhaps radically connected with rpft). The 133N
nDp"l, stones of various colours, striped with
veins (agate?), as nnp'1 ptf, "precious costly
stones," in general, %/*& '«, white marble (the
Sept. and Vulg. explain it by an anachronism of
Parian marble); comp. the contracted form tyjy,
Song v. 15; Esth. i. 6. — Ver. 3. Over and above
all that I have prepared for the holy house, liter-
ally, " upwards of all, out above all. " On ini^Sfl.
without a relative particle connecting it with the
foregoing pa, comp. xv. 12. — Ver. 4. Three
thousand talents of gold of the gold of Ophir, of
the finest and best gold ; comp. the excursus
after 2 Chron. ix. Three thousand talents of
gold, reckoned after the holy or Mosaic shekel,
would amount to ninety million thalers (about
£13,500,000), reckoned after the royal shekel to
half as much; and the 7000 talents of silver would
amount in the first case to fifteen million thalers
(about £2,250,000), in the second case to half
that sum. The greatness of this sum shows, at
all events, that this includes the whole of David's
private property ; comp. on xxii. 14 ff. — To over-
lay the walls of the houses, the proper temple
buildings (QVfl, as in xxviii. 11), the holy place
and the most holy, with the court and the upper
chambers, the inner walls of which, 2 Chron. iii.
4-9, were all hung with gold.- — Ver. 5. The gold
for golden, or literally, ' ' for the gold, for the
gold," etc.; comp. ver. 2. — And for all work by
the hand of artificers, for all works to be made by
the hand of craftsmen. — And who is willing
(313nn, show oneself willing, as ver. 6; Ezra ii
CHAP. XXIX. 6-17.
159
68) to fill his hand this day unto the Lord, to
provide himself with free-will offerings for Him ;
comp. Ex. xxviii. 41, xxxii. 29, and 2 Chron.
xiii. 9. The infinitive niS^D (along with
N;JD, 2 Chron. xiii. 9), also Dan. ix. 2; Ex.
xxxi. 5. — Ver. 6. The princes of tlie houses,
properly, " 6f the fathers;" niaXn for JV3
rfaKIT, eomp. xxiv. 31, xxvii. 1, etc. — With the
rulers of the king's work, literally, "and with
regard to the rulers;" before 'on rDNPt? 'HB>
the same superfluous untranslatable *> as in
xxviii. 21. These are "the stewards of all the
property and cattle of the king," xxviii. 1, the
officers of the royal domains. — Ver. 7. And gave,
for the service of the house of God, of gold five
thousand talents. We must suppose a partial
"signing" or guaranteeing of the sums named,
not an immediate bate paying down, especially as
the bulky contributions in the baser metals, the
18,000 talents of brass and the 100,000 talents
of iron, could not possibly be present in natura.
Even David's gifts of 3000 talents of gold ot
Ophir and 7000 talents of silver may be regarded
as not a proper direct delivery of these large
quantities of metals. Moreover, what the princes,
according to our passage, contributed was about a
half more than that given by David from bis
private means, namely — 1. 5000 talents of gold =
150 million thalers (about £22,500,000), or by
the other mode of reckoning, half that sum ;
2. 10,000 darics=75,000 thalers (about £11,250);
3. 10,000 talents of silver = twenty-four million
thalers (about £3,600,000); 4. 18,000 talents of
brass (copper), and 100,000 talents of iron ; 5.
Precious stones amounting to an indefinite sum.
rl3"nX> with x prosthetic here and Ezra viii. 27,
along with flQ3"Pt, Ezra ii. 69, Neh. vii. 70 ff.,
is not a Hebrew designation of the drachma (as
Ew. Oesch. i. 254 still thinks), but of the daric,
a Persian coin, containing 1 J ducats, or 7J thalers
(about 22s. 6d.) ; comp. Eckhell, Doctr. numm. i.
vol. iii. p. 551; J. Brandis, Das Miinz-, Maass-,
and Oewichtssystem in Vorderasien (1866), p.
244 ; see also Introd. § 3, a. In darics, the gold
coin most current in his time (it is not meant by
our author that it existed in David's time), the
Chron ist states a smaller part of the sum contri-
buted by the princes, and indeed that part which
they gave in coined pieces, while he expresses the
amount of uncoined gold that was offered in
talents. — Ver. 8. With whom stones were found,
the present possessors of precious stones. Against
Bertheau's rendering : ' ' and what was found there-
with in precious stones," is the fact that the sing.
toN, that is certainly to be taken distributively
(comp. Ew. § 319, a), cannot possibly refer to the
sums or quantities in vers. 6, 7. For the $er-
shonite Jehiel, comp. xxvi. 21 f., where the name
is Jehieli. — Ver. 9. Was exceedingly glad, liter-
ally, " was glad with a great gladness;" comp.
Zech. i. 14.
3. David's Thanksgiving : vers. 10-19. — Blessed
be Thou, Lord God of Israel our father. Among
the partriarchs, as whose well-tried tutelary God
«nd heavenly fountaur of bleesing Jehovah had
now again proved Himself to David (by the opera-
tion of so highly joyful an act of faith as the
free-will offering of the princes of the people),
Israel is here specially set forth, because his life
most resembled that of David, especially in this,
that the cry, " Lord, I am not worthy of the least
of all the mercies," etc. (Gen. xxxii. 10), might
and must for him also (see ver. 14) be the funda-
mental note of his prayer at the close of his fight
of faith. At the end of his confession, where the
expression is still more solemn, the address is
more full : "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel, our fathers." — Forever and ever; comp.
Ps. ciii. 17. — Ver. 11. Thine, O Lord, i? the great-
ness; comp. Ps. cxlv. 8; and on "power" (here
and ver. 12), Ps. xxi. 14; on "beauty" (here
and ver. 13), Ps. xcvi. 6; on "lustre" (nVJ,
less suitably rendered "victory"' by Luther),
1 Sam. xv. 29; on "majesty" (-^n, by Luther,
against the text: "thanks"), xvi. 27, Ps. xxi. 6.
The whole dnxology belongs to the apocalyptic in
its main figures, as Rev. iv. 11, v. 12, vii. 12,
etc. — Thine, 0 Lord, is the kingdom, and TJwu
art exalted as head over all. n3?DDi "king-
dom, sovereignty," as Ps. xlvii. 8 f. ; comp. Matt,
vi. 13. !"IE!OriD is n°t the participle, before
which riHN, "Thou art," should be supplied
(Berth.), but an infinitive noun, " the being
exalted ;" comp. 2 Kings ii. 21 ; Ew. § 160, e. On
"head over all," comp. xttpaXm bvrtp vdfrx, Eph.
i. 22. — Ver. 12. And the riches and the glory;
the same connection, Prov. iii. 16; comp. also
ver. 28; 2 Chron. xvii. 5; 1 Kings iii. 13. — Ver.
13. And noio, our God, we thank Thee., properly,
"now are we thanking and praising Thy name : ''
the participles express the constancy of the work ;
eomp. xxiii. 5.— Thy glorious name, literally,
"the name of Thy glory, "as Luther here renders,
while hehas, ver. 3, put "holy house" for "house
of holiness. " — Ver. 14. For (literally, "and for;"
131, as Judg. x. 10) who am I, and what is my
people, that we should be able ? J"I3 *1¥J?, pro-
perly, "to hold or retain strength, " then valere,
be able; comp. 2 Chron. xiii. 20; Dan. x. 8, 16,
xi. 6. — In this way, as our just completed collec-
tion of free- will offerings for the temple (vers. 3-8)
has proved. On J1K13, comp. 2 Chron. xxxii. 15.
— Ver. 15. For we are strangers before Thee, and
sojourners ; comp. Ps.. xxxix. 13; Heb. xi. 13,
xiii. 14. Even in this strong assertion of the
vanity and uncertainty of earthly life (on b, comp.
Job viii. 9; Ps. xc. 9f., cii. 12; and Jer. xiv. 8)
appears, as in the foregoing verse, which recalls
Gen. xxxii. 10, an allusion to that which Jacob
confessed at the end of his earthly career ; comp.
Gen. xlvii. 9.— Ver. 16. All this store. |ien,
heap of money, wealth, as Eccl. v. 9. For the
var. "it" (referring to "the heap") for "her,"
see Crit. Note. — Ver. 17. In the integrity of my
heart. 23? "IE>'\ M Dent. ix. 5; comp. the fore-
going Q'HB',D, "uprightness," Ps. xvii. 2. — Thy
people who are present, " have found themselve*
here." On n for "1B>N, comp. xxvi. 28 and ver. 8;
160
I. CHRONICLES.
on finding oneself = being present, eomp. xxviii. 1 ;
2 Cbron. v. 11. — Ver. 18. Keep this, the spirit of
willingness, which expresses itself in these gifts.
— Imagination of the thoughts, as xxviii. 9. —
Staljlish their heart (or "prepare"), as 1 Sam.
vii. 3. — Ver. 19. On a, comp. ver. 9; on b
(rrvan), ver. i-
4. Close of the public Assembly. Solomon's
Elevation to the Throne : vers. 20-25. — And all
the congregation blessed ; 7113 with p, as ver.
13 : mil. aI1<i ??n with p. And they . .
bowed down to the Lord, they did obeisance before
God and the king as His earthly type and repre-
sentative. For the combination of Tip and
ninnB'n, denoting now divine, now human,
respect, eomp. Gen. xxiv. 26 , Ex. xii. 27, xxxiv.
8; 1 Kings i. 16, 31 ; and Ps. xcv. 6, etc.— Ver. 21.
And they hilled sacrifices unto the Lord, and
offered burnt-offerings. The same phrases are
united, only in inverse order, 1 Sam. vi. 15. OsrQf
denotes here animal sacrifices in general, but in
b it signifies, in contrast with the before-men-
tioned burnt-offerings, peace-offerings (D1D7EJ',
Ex. xxiv. 5) in connection with the proper joy-
ful feasts. — On the morrow of that day ; eomp.
Lev. xxiii. 11; Jonah iv. 7. — Ver. 22. And they
ate and drank. This describes the joyful feast, as
idi. 39 ; 1 Kings iv. 20 ; Dent. xii. 7, xvi. 10.
— And the second time made . . . king. ]"T3"'.
distinct from xxiii. 1, where a first solemn ele-
vation (proclamation) of Solomon to be the
successor of his father was reported, with which,
however, the ceremony of anointing was not con-
nected. To the present second elevation corre-
sponds that reported 1 Kin^s i. 32 ff., as the
mention there of Zadok as taking part in this
solemn act of anointing shows. — Anointed him
unto the Lord (according to the will of the Lord)
to be ruler, "P33? ; this is here for the sharper
contrast with the following jnb? I eomp. more-
over, xxviii. 4 ; 1 Kings i. 35. — And Zadok to be
priest. With this notice, peculiar to the Chronist,
began the degradation of the other high priest,
Abiathar, of the line of Ithamar, as Solomon
formally completed it after his father's death
(1 Kings ii. 26 ff.), already in the lifetime of
David : it was prepared by Zadok alone being
anointed in the presence of the states along with
the young king. — Ver. 23. And Solomon sat on
the throne of the Lord as king. For the anti-
cipatory nature of this notice, eomp. on xxiii. 1 ;
for " the throne of the Lord," on xxviii. 5. — And
he prospered ; and all Israel obeyed him, accord-
ing to the hope of David expressed before, xxii.
13, regarding him. For px JJDB> = obeyed, eomp.
Dent, xxxiv. 9. — Ver. 24. Also all the sons of
King David submitted to Solomon the king,
literally, "gave hand under" (eomp. 2 Chron.
xxx _8 ; Lam. v. 6). We may observe the slight
allusion to the soon suppressed attempt of
Adonijah (1 Kings i. 5 ff.) which is contained in
this statement, quite after the manner of the
Chronist (see Principles of History and Ethics,
No. 1). — Ver. 25. Magnified . . . exceedingly;
eomp. xxii. 5. — And bestowed upon him tlu
majesty of the kingdom. py JJ"U, as Ps. vih. 2 ;
■tf I"), as ver. 11. — Which had not been on any king
over Israel before him. The construction is as
partly in Eccl. i. 16, partly in 1 Kings iii. 12.
The phrase is somewhat hyperbolical, as there
were only two kings of Israel before him (Ish-
bosheth our author is wont to ignore, as ver. 27
shows).
5. Close of the History of David : vers. 26-30.
— And the time that he reigned oner all Israel,
inclusive of the seven years of his residence in
Hebron (which is more exactly fixed, 2 Sam. v. 5,
at seven and a half years). — Ver. 28. In a good
old age; eomp. Gen. xv. 15, xxv. 8. — Full
(" satisfied " ; eomp. Job xlii. 17) of days,
riches, and glory. For the combination -|E>j>
11231, sea ou ver- 12. — Ver. 29. And the acts
. . first and last. The author here indicates
the simple order which he laid down for his now
finished representation of the life of David ;
see Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 2. —
Behold, they are written in, properly "on";
eomp. ix. 1. For the sources now named, see
Introd. § 5, II. — Ver. 30. With all his reign and
his might; fayVQJI, nere ^s " display of might, "
the power shown by him, his brave deeds ;
eomp. 1 Kings xvi. 5. — And the times that went
over him, the events that befell him. DVlJ?!"!, as
Job xxiv. 1; Ps. xxxi. 16. — And over all the
kingdoms of the countries, with which David
came into friendly or hostile contact, as Phoenicia,
Philistia, Edom, Moab, etc. For the phrase,
eomp. 2 Chron. xii. 8, xvii. 10, xx. 29.
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS, APOLO-
GETIC AND HOMILETIC NOTES ON CH. X.-XXIX.
1. On the historical and practical point of
view under which the Chronist regards the brief
account of the downfall of Saul and his house,
with which he opens his full description of the
history of David, he explains himself very clearly
in the two closing verses of eh. x. Saul's king-
dom must, after a brief existence, make way for
that of David, on the simple ground that it was
not erected on the foundation of right faith in
Jehovah the God of the covenant, and willing
submission to Him ; that its possessor had not
once only, but constantly, cast to the winds that
earnest warning voice of the prophet, ' ' Obedience
is better than sacrifice," 1 Sam. xv. 22, and
neglected even in the last hour to return to such
a course, which was alone pleasing to God.
Comp. Bengel's appropriate note on those two
verses (p. 16 of the " Beitrage zu J. A. Bengel's
Schrifterklarung, aus handschriftl. Aufzeichnun-
gen mitgetheilt von Dr. Osk. Waehter," Leipz.
1865) : " It is worthy of remark that Saul is not
expressly charged, when he died in his sin,
with his long hate of David, but rather with the
unbelief in which be kept not the word of God,
and sought counsel at Endor. David indeed is
out of the country a considerable time before
Saul's death Even at the last Saul
might have obtained pardon, if he had earnestly
returned to God, and entreated Him. But he lost
all." — Comp. also Schlier, " Kbnig Saul" (Bibel
CHAP. X.-XXIX.
ic:
slwnden, Nordlingen 1867), towards the end, and
the homiletic notes of Erdmann on 1 Sara. xxxi.
(Bibelwerk, vi. 337).
2. That our author aimed at no exhaustive
treatment of the history of David in its external
and internal course — that he rather laboured as
partly an excerpt or, partly a supplem enter, of
earlier writers, and so wished to furnish some-
thing regarding the history of David contained
in the present books of Samuel and Kings,
similar in many respects to that which John the
Evangelist did for the evangelical history pre-
sented by the synoptics, — this he himself indi-
cates in the closing words just considered, when,
xxix. 29, 30, he points for that which he may
have omitted to the historical works of the pro-
phets Samuel, Nathan, and Gad as his chief
sources. But even before he repeatedly indicates
his acquaintance with essential elements of the
history of David, which, according to his plan,
he does not report. Thus, in the notice prefixed
as preface or introduction, concerning the down-
fall of Saul and his house, where he certainly
alludes to the incident of the necromancer of
Kndor, but does not report it (x. 13 f.), and xx.
5, where he names Goliath, but presumes the
history of the slaughter by the youthful shepherd
David as known ; likewise xii. 1, where he men-
tions the times of the exile and proscription of
David under Saul, without entering into the
particulars at -least of its well-known catastrophes
and vicissitudes ; xi. 1 and xii. 23, where he
likewise points to the rival kingdom of Saul and
Abner during the residence of David at Hebron ;
xx. 1, where the proceedings at Jerusalem during
the siege of Rabbath Ammon by Joab are slightly
indicated ; xxvii. 23, 24, where, by the mention
of Ahithophel and Hushai, a similar reference is
made to the rebellion of Absalom ; and xxix. 24,
where the attempt of Adonijah is in like manner
touched upon. The omitted parts are, as must
have been often manifest, almost always of such
a nature as would have served, if brought into
the field, to disturb and in some points obscure
the lustre of the picture, and throw many a
shadow on the otherwise almost uniform light.
It is the first growing and youthful but arduously
soaring aloft, further, the suffering and per-
secuted David, not less the despised and derided
by all bystanders far and near (but comp. xv.
29) ; lastly, the deeply guilty and penitent one,
whose picture the Chronist avoids to draw, while
all the more earnestly he collects all that appears
fitted to represent the hero king in his greatness,
and the activity of his reign as an uninterrupted
chain of splendid theocratic events. To finish a
picture that presents David in the meridian
height of his glory and mighty achievements is
the obvious aim of all that our author adds in the
way of supplement on the ground of his sources
to the life-picture of the great king as given in
the books of Samuel. Such are the whole con-
tents of oh. xii. (the brave men who stood by
David even during the reign of Saul, and the
number of the warriors out of all the tribes who
made him king in Hebron) ; those of ch. xv. and
xvi. (the full delineation of the preparatory,
accompanying, and concluding solemnities in the
introduction of the ark into its new abode on
Zion) ; finally, those of the closing ch. xxii.-
xxix., on the internal history of the kingdom
and the preparations for the building of the
temple, which coincide only in subordinate points
with the much more summary parallel sect ions of
Samuel and 1 Kings, but on the whole exhibit
the peculiarity and special tendency of our author
in full force, and in so far, notwithstanding their
dry statistical character and tedious lists of names
and numbers, are of special interest (comp. No.
2). The preference of our author for the exhibi-
tion of all the brilliant traits of the history of
David, or, if you will, his panegyristic idealizing
tendency and method, is shown also in the short
remarks of a reflective kind at the close of the
several sections, which almost always issue in the
exhibition of some brilliant aspect of the reign
of David, or of the state of the people and the
theocracy under him ; for example, passages such
as these : " And David became greater and
greater, and Jehovah Zebaoth was with him,"
xi. 9 ; " Day by day they came to David to help
him, until the camp was great, like a camp of
God," xii. 22; "His kingdom was lift up on
high, because of His people Israel," xiv. 2 ;
" And D.ivid's fame went out into all lands ; and
the Lord brought his fear upon all nations,"
xiv. 17 ; " And David reigned over all Israel,
and executed judgment and justice for all his
people," xviii. 14 ; "Is not the Lord your God
with you, and hath He not given you rest on
every side ? For He hath given the inhabitants
of the land into my hand, and the land is sub-
dued before the Lord and His people," xxii. 18 ;
" But David took not . . . because the Lord
had promised to increase as the stars of heaven, "
xxvii. 23; "And he died in a good old age,
full of days, riches, and glory, " xxix. 28 ; " And
the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the
eyes of all Israel, and bestowed on him the
majesty of the kingdom, which had not been on
any king over Israel before him," xxix. 25. And
the enumerations and arrangements of the names
of David's heroes, servants, spiritual and temporal
officers (princes), counsellors, etc., subserve the
same optimistic and idealizing tendency as pre-
sented by the author ; and the ever-recurring
preference in these enumerations for symbolic
numbers, especially for three and thirty (see ch.
xii.), seven (the supreme officers of the kingdom
and the crown, xviii. 14 if., and the counsellors
of the king, xxvii. 32 ff. ), and twelve or twenty-
four, which latter numbers appear as the prin-
ciple regulating the whole spiritual (Levitical-
priestly) and temporal hierarchy of officers in
the kingdom of David (see especially ch. xxiii.-
xxvii. ).
3. Next to the selection of material, the ar-
rangement of it, the order followed in the history
of David, is characteristic for the author's con-
ception of this brilliant period of the history of
salvation before the exile. This order, however,
is, as the same closing remark, xxix. 29, to which
we owe the above explanation of the choice of
material by the author indicates, an extremely
simple and elementary one. The author distin-
guishes "the first and last acts of David;" he
divides his material between the two great heads
of the earlier and later events of the reign of
David (or of the entrance and exit of David)
But among the first acts he does not understand
David's youth, with his persecutions by Saul, etc
(so that the last acts would embrace the period of
his reign, as in the present division of the books
of Samuel, the second of which treats of his
162
I. CHRONICLES.
reigii), but the course of events till shortly before
the end of his life, that is, until he took measures
for the building of the temple, and the regular
transference of the kingdom to his successor,
which latter the author regards as the last acts.
The point of division separating the last acts from
the first is to be sought neither in ch. x. 13 f., for
the narrative of the downfall of Saul closing with
these verses is merely the preface or introduction
to the acts of David ; nor in xii. 40 or xiii. 1, for
here, where the accounts of the elevation of Dav.d
to the throne of all Israel, and the close of the
seven years' reign at Hebron, come to an end, the
author clearly intends no deeper section (against
Kamph. ). In truth, the transition from the first
to the last acts takes place in xxii. 1, where, after
representing the glorious external (military and
political) course of the forty years' reign of the
king, his provisions for transferring as well the
sovereignty as the still unsolved problem of the
building of the temple to his son Solomon begins
to be described — where, accordingly, as it is said
in the further course of the narrative, xxiii. 1 :
" David was old and full of days ; anil he made
his son Solomon king over Israel" (eomp. the
remarks made, p. 142, on the generalizing import
of those words). It is a peculiar trait of the
Clironist, distinguishing in a characteristic way
his view and method of history from that of the
author of the books of Samuel, that lie draws a
sharp line between the evening of David's life as
his 'U^am, and the mid-day as his irpuTx (or
between the completion and continuance of his
reign), and weaves into the representation of the
evening of his life a full retrospect of the whole
internal aspect of the royal household under
David. The picture thus drawn of the Levitical
and priestly, and of the military and civil,
government and official hierarchy of the king
(xxiii. -xxvii.), forms, together with its frame of
reports concerning the collections and prepara-
tions of David, and the chiefs of the people for
the temple to be built by Solomon (xxii. and
xxviii. , xxix.), as it were, the legacy of David to
his son, the testament of one glorious king to his
no less glorious (according to the peculiar Levi-
tical and hierarchical conception of our author
indeed, xxix. 25, still more glorious) heir and
successor. It is on account of Solomon, the
temple-builder, that the author dwells so long
on this legacy of his father preparing and stipu-
lating for the building, and that this part of his
work rises to the importance of a second half of
the history of his father, to an episode in the life
of David, comparable with the so-called report of
travels by Luke in the third Gospel, or the fare-
well addresses of our Lord in John xiii.-xvi. ,
bearing in a still higher degree the character of a
retrospect and legacy. Beside this very minute
representation of the close of David's life, that
under the hands of our author, notwithstanding
its comparatively brief duration, has assumed the
form of an autumn almost equal in length with the
preceding summer of life, the spring with its
vicissitude of clear sunshine and rough storm is
quite cast into the shade ; it appears, indeed, by
the merely occasional allusions to its incidents
which are contained in ch. x.-xii., intentionally
reduced to a vanishing point in the development
of the whole. Yet, in the section relating to the
catastrophe of Saul, ch. x., the author has fur-
nished an independent preface or introduction to
the chief object of his representation, ajid so has
given to the whole a threefold arrangement, in
which, however, by far the greatest importance
belongs extensively and intensively to the second
and third parts.
4. The statement of the Chronist has suffered
nothing in credibility by this peculiar arrange-
ment and distribution, especially by his dwelling
so long on the preparations for building the
temple, and the measures taken for transferring
the kingdom to Solomon, which are so briefly
handled in the introduction to the books of
Kings. The solid walls of the old sources appear
through the cover corresponding to his individual
view and bent, which he has imparted to the
building he has erected. This holds as well of
the sections on the external government, peculiar
to his statement, as of the closing accounts of the
king setting his house in order and handing it
over to his successor. ' It appears particularly
fitted to awaken confidence in his statement, that
no special preference for the wonderful is to be
remarked in the sections peculiar to him ; that, in
fact, some of these sections — for example, xii.,
xxiii. ff., and xxvii. if. — report only that which
corresponds to the occurrences of every-day life,
which might arise in the profane history of any
kingdom or people. And even there, where his
statement runs parallel with that of the older
historical books, scarcely anywhere does any
stronger preference appear for the wonderful or
extraordinary than in those documents, except,
pe: haps, his account of the census and the plague,
which has certainly a trace of the miraculous
more than the older parallel text (xxi. 26). At
the most, the suspicion of unhistorical exaggera-
tion might rest on some of the surprisingly high
numbers, as they appear in the present text, xii.
23-40, xxii., and xxix. 4 ff., unless partly the
obvious possibility of occasional corruption, partly
the almost inevitable necessity of the assumption
that smaller values than those usually assumed
are to be admitted, served very much to diminish
the ground which these passages present for criti-
cal assaults. Comp. that which is remarked on
them in detail (xii. 23 ff., p. 106 f., and xxii.
14, p. 137 f. ), and see, moreover, the Apologetic
Remarks on ch. xv. 16, p. 119 ff.
5. Homiletic hints for the history of David in
rich selection are to be found in Erdmann's ela-
boration of the books of Samuel (vol. vi. of the
1 Comp , with regard to the credibility of the statement
concerning David's lust directions to Solomon, especially
th^ giving of the instructions for the building of the
temple, the remark of Bevtheau on xxviii. 11-19: "The
uh.'le section thus ;.hows that David not only made pre-
parations for buil ling the temple by providing materials,
but also gave definite orders for the execution of the work
and the making of the vessels to Solomon, an-l that he pro-
ceeded, not according to his own invention and design, hut
was directed by divine revelation. ... In the books of Kings,
nothing of this occurs; but if we must gather from the
accounts of Chronicles, that David not only thought of the
temple, but made preparations for it, which could not, have
consisted in an uncertain collection of materials, we shall
not be able to avoid assuming that a communication was
made according to which, even In David's time, the plan of
the temple was fixed. To execute the building itself was
not permitted to David ; but he had completed the prepara-
tions so far, that Solomon in the fourth year of his reigii
was able to proceed with the building, and to finish it in the
eleventh (1 Kings vi.). The report of David's preparation,
which extended to the fixing of the plan for the building, is
the histoilcal foundation for the statement In our verses, in
which the free handling of the historical material, according
l o modei n views, is as obvious as in the remaining sectionl
of the last two chapters of the first book of Chronicles."
CHAP. I.
163
Bibtlw.). With respect to the sections peculiar
to the Chronist, a small gleaning may here be
presented of some noteworthy practical hints
from older expositors: —
On ch. xii. 38-40, Starke, after Burmann,
remarks : " What is here said of David is a tine
figure (type) of che Messiah. ... He also at first
had only a small following ; but after He came
to His glory, the kingdom of God burst forth
mightily, and subjects to Him were collected in
all the world. ... To David come even those of
the tribe of Benjamin, the brethren of Saul, the
bitter enemy of David ; so had Christ disciples
from the Jews, even from the Pharisees, His
deadly foes ; and as we by nature are all His
foes, He vet converts us to His love and to faith
in Him. ... At David's anointing was great joy ;
on all sides was provided store of eating and
drinking ; even so believers rejoiced at and after
Christ's ascension, and because they had all things
common." On ch. xvi. 27, comp. the remark
(suitable also to the contents of xxiii.-xxvi.) of
Bengel, p. 17 : " This is so fine in David ; he
has gone as nigh to the Levites as it was possible
for him to do, as if he were one of them ; and yet
he has invaded no right. How finely devotion
and valour are combined ! Something quite
peculiar has taken place in David's heart." On
xxix. 30 he remarks : "How earnest is the dear
David become in his old age ! How he has
come as nigh as possible to the building of the
temple 1 "
2. SOLOMON.— 2 Chron. i.-ix.
a. His Solemn Sacrifice at Gibeon, and his Riches. — Ch. i.
«. The Sacrifice at Gibeon, and the Dream of Solomon : vera. 1-13.
Ch. I. 1. And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and
2 the Lord his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly. And
Solomon said unto all Israel, to the captains of thousands, and of hundreds,
and to the judges, and to every ruler in all Israel, the chiefs of houses.
3 And Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that
was at Gibeon ; for there was the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the
4 servant of God had made in the wilderness. But the ark of God had David
brought up from Kiriath-jearim to the place which David had prepared for
5 it : for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem. And the brazen altar, that
Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there1 before the
tabernacle of the Lord ; and Solomon and the congregation sought him.
6 And Solomon offered there before the Lord, on the brazen altar which
belonged to the tent of meeting ; and he offered upon it a thousand burnt-
offerings.
7 In that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, Ask
8 what I shall give thee. And Solomon said unto God, Thou hast showed
great mercy unto David my father, and hast made me king in his stead.
9 Now, 0 Lord God, Thy word unto David my father must be true ; for Thou
10 hast made me king over a people numerous as the dust of the earth. Give
me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and in before this people;
11 for who can judge this Thy great people. And God said unto Solomon,
Because this was in thy heart, and thou hast not asked riches, treasures, and
glory, nor the life of thine enemies, neither hast thou asked long life ; but
hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my
12 people, over whom I have made thee king. Wisdom and knowledge are
given unto thee, and riches and treasures and glory will I give thee, such as
none of the kings that were before thee have had, and none after thee shall
13 have the like. And Solomon came from2 the high place that was at Gibeon
to Jerusalem, from before the tent of meeting ; and he reigned over Israel. 8
/3. Solomon's Power and Wealth: vers. 14-17.
14 And Solomon gathered chariots and riders : and he had a thousand and
four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand riders ; and he placed them in
15 the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem. And the king made silver
and gold in Jerusalem as stones ; and cedars he made as the sycamores that
16 are in the Shephelah for abundance. And the export of horses for Solomon
was out of Egypt ; and the company of the king's merchants fetched a troop
164
II. CHRONICLES.
17 for a certain price. And they brought up, and took out of Egypt a chariot
for six hundred silver shekels, and a horse for a hundred and fifty : and
they brougat them out for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.
So according to the reading DE*, which is attested by the Sept , Vulg , some mss., and most prints while fw
the almost unmeaning Dt? (poauit, he had set) the majority of mss. and the Chald. and the Syr. testify.
2 T,e Sept, Vulg., Luther, etc., correctly: nD3TO ; the i"ID3? of the Masoretes, yielding no tolerable sense,
appears to have crept into the text by looking back at ver. 3.
* The Peschitc has " over all Israel ; " comp. 1 Kings iv. 1.
EXI.GETICAL.
1. Preliminary Remark, and elucidation of
ver. 1. — The accounts contained in the fore-
going two small sections, to which 1 Kings iii.
4-15 and x. 26-29 are parallel, serve to introduce
the report of the building and dedication of the
temple, which occupy far the greatest space in
the representation given by our author of the
history of Solomon (i. 18-vii.). As general
superscription is prefixed ver. 1: "And Solo-
mon the son of David was strengthened in his
kingdom, " properly, "on," or "with, his king-
dom," in«^>o-^ ; comp. Stably pinrm,
xvii. 1, and xii. 13, xiii. 21, xxi. 4, which
parallels likewise show that p^nfin, "be strength-
ened," does not refer to pretenders to the crown,
by setting aside of whom confirmation follows ;
and hence there is here no concealed allusion to
Adouijah (1 Kings ii. ). — And the Lord his God
was with him (comp. 1 Chron. xi. 9), and magni-
fied hivi exceedingly ; comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 25,
xxii. 5.
2. The Sacrifice at Gibeon : vers. 2-6 ; comp.
1 Kings iii. 4. — And Solomon said unto all Israel,
to the captains, etc. This addition of the chiefs
of the people and representatives of the kingdom
at the sacrifice is not mentioned in the book of
Kings ; but the matter is understood of itself
(comp. the similar cases in the history of David,
l Chron. xiii. 1 f., xxiii. 2, xxviii. 1). — The
chiefs of houses. Before it*>'tO, 7 is to be supplied,
as the whole phrase is an explanatory apposition
to ?N")K'',"PD?- — Ver. 4. For there was the tent
of meeting of God. Comp. on 1 Chron. v. 30 ff. ,
xvi. 39 f. — Ver. 4. But the ark of God had
David, etc. ; comp. 1 Chron. xiii. and xv. For
the elliptical construction |^ri3, to (the place)
which ho prepared for it, where the article in 3
suppli"* the place of the relative "IC»K, comp.
1 Chron. xv. 12, xxvi. 28; also Judg. v. 27;
Ruth i. 5. — Ver. 5. And the brazen altar . . .
was there before the tabernacle of the Lord, that
is, the Gibeonite sanctuary was still the legal, as
it were the official and historically rightful place
for burnt - offerings : comp. 1 Chron. xxi. 29 f.,
where, on the occasion of the choice of the floor
of Oman on Moriah for a place of burnt-offering,
it is shown why David could not go to Gibeon to
offer there. On Bezaleel's construction of the brazen
(copper) altar of burnt-offering, see Ex. xxxi. 2,
xxxvii. 1. On the reading Qtj», as undoubtedly
to be preferred to the Masoretic Qjy (which arose
from an unwarranted reference to Ex. xl. 29), see
Crit. Note. — And Solomon and the congregation
sought him, the Lord, not the altar ; comp.
Qi,-f>{< EHIi 1 Chron. xxi. 30 ; 2 Chron. xv. 2.
Yet, for the reference of the verb to the altar, may
be quoted (Luther: "was wont to seek it"), at all
events, Amos v. 5 ; comp. also 1 Chron. xxi. 28. —
Ver. 6. There before the Lord, on the brazen altar
which was at the tent of meeting. In the Heb. ,
niiT1 'OQ? stands before the relative sentence
lyiO bi"IN7 "IB'X- Because the altar of burnt-
offering had its place before the tabernacle (Ex.
xl. 6), it is designated as belonging to it; comp.
1 Kings vi. 22.
3. God's Revelation to Solomon : vers. 7-13 ;
comp. 1 Kings iii. 5-15. — In that night, that
followed the offering. That the manifestation of
God to Solomon was effected by a nocturnal
vision, seems at least to be indicated here, but is
expressly stated in 1 Kings iii. 5, 15. — Ver. 8.
Thou hast showed great mercy unto David my
father. The fuller speech of Solomon in 1 Kings
iii. 6-10 appears here (vers. 8-10) much abbre-
viated.— Ver. 9. Thy word . . . must be true,
properly, "must be established" ; comp. 1 Chron.
xvii. 23; 2 Chron. vi. 17; 1 Kings viii. 26.— Ver.
10. Give me now wisdom and knowledge. jna
(here with Pattach in the second syllable ; else-
where JHD; also vers. 11, 12) denotes knowledge.
insight, and is found, besides the present passage,
only in Dan. i. i, 17 and Eccl. x. 20.— That I
may go out and in before this people, "may know
all that belongs thereto, may worthily govern and
defend them" (Starke); the phrase, reminding us
of Dent. xxxi. 2, 1 Sam. xviii. 13, 16, 1 Kings
iii. 7, denotes the unchecked public activity of
the king toward his people. — Ver. 11. Because
this was in thy heart ; comp. 1 Chron. xxii. 7. —
Riches, treasures, and glory. The same combina-
tion appears in Eccl. vi. 2 ; CD33, treasures,
also in Eccl. v. 18 (with Itjiy) and Josh, xxii, 8.
— Ver. 12. Wisdom . . . given to thee. The con-
struction 7]^> pro, as in Esth. iii. 11 (1 Kings iii.
12, n3n, with the perf. ipinj). In the following
words, the Lord promises to Solomon riches,
treasures, and glory indeed, but not long life, as
in 1 Kings iii. 14. Whether this omission is in-
tentional (because Solomon, on account of his
subsequent fall, did not attain to old age) appears
doubtful in the condensing manner of our author,
which shows itself even in this promise of the
Lord. On the ethical - eudsemonistic sentence
CBIAP. I. 18-11.
165
contained in vers. 11, 12 may be compared the
word of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount : " Seek
ye first, "etc., Matt. v. 32.— Ver. 13. And Solomon
came from the high, place. On the correctness of
this reading (riDariD), see Crit. Note. The fol-
lowing addition : ' 'from the tent of meeting, " which
appears superfluous after "from the high place,"
points again to the Gibeonite place of offering,
and to the legal validity of the offerings presented
there. Of the burnt and peace offerings, with the
6acrificial feast, 1 Kings iii. 15, on the return of
Solomon to Jerusalem before the ark, our author
makes no mention, not because in his view the
offering presented at the brazen altar in Gibeon
only had legal validity (as Thenius thinks, in
defiance of the express statements of our author,
1 Chron. xxi. 18, 26 ff.), but simply because these
offerings, as well as the history there following
(1 Kings iii. 26-28) of the strife between the two
women, and its settlement by4he wise judgment
of Solomon, appeared to be of no special import-
ance for his plan (chiefly regarding the brilliant,
glorious, and magnificent features of Solomon's
administration). — And he reigned over Israel.
These closing words of our verse are introductory
to what follows, and would stand more suitably at
the head of the following section, vers. 14-17, as
they are found, 1 Kings iv. 1, in this more suit-
able position, and are there enlarged by the
addition of -jjg before ^JOS1'', which the Syr.
exhibits here (see Crit. Note).
4. Solomon's Power and Wealth: vers. 14-17. —
This short account of that which Solomon had in
chariots, riders, and treasures, the Chronist pre-
sents as proof of the instant fulfilment of the
promise of God to him in this passage, while in
1 Kings x. 26-29 it is found near the close of the
reign of Solomon (parallel to the fuller account of
a similar nature in 2 Chron. ix. 13 ff. ). That
accordingly that which is here recorded by our
author is adduced a second time, the first time
partly abbreviated, partly completed by additions
(see ix. 25-28), Thenius (on 1 Kings x. 26 ff.)
explains by the assumption of a second occurrence
of the section in his sources, and an inadvertent
admission of both accounts, the identity of which
was discovered too late. More correctly, Berth.,
Keil, etc., explain that the Chronist used his
sources in a free and independent way, and ac-
cordingly of purpose admitted the partial repeti-
tion of the present account in ch. ix. 25 ff. — And
he placed them in the cliuriot cities. Instead of
DrPS'l, "laid them" (so also ix. 25^ stands in
1 Kings x. 26 less definitely: DI"I3SV "and he
brought them " ; with regard to the number of
the chariots (1400) and riders (12,000), the two
texts agree. The "chariot cities" are cities in
which the chariots and riders were stationed.
They probably lay, partly near rich pasture
grounds, partly in the neighbourhood of Egypt,
principally in the south of the country ; and
the conjecture that the Simeonite towns Beth-
marchaboth and Hazar-susim (1 Chron. iv. 31)
belonged to them (Then., Berth., Kamph.) is on
this account the more probable. — Ver. 15. And
the king made silver and gold in Jerusalem, as
stones. That the words "and gold" (jTHnTINl),
which are wanting in the parallels ix. 27 and
1 Kings x. 27, are to be erased, with the Pesch.,
in our passage also is very improbable ; and the
Sept. and Vulg. testify for their genuineness in
this place. For 6, comp. on 1 Chron. xxvii. 28.
— Ver. 16. And the export of horses for Solomon,
properly, "which belonged to Solomon." — The
company of the king's merchants fetched a troop
for a certain price. Even so 1 Kings x. 28, only
that for the nipO there NlpD is here twice
written. For the correct understanding of the
passage, see Bahr, Bibelw. vol. vii. p. 103. —
Ver. 17. And they brought up, and took out of
Egypt; 1 Kings x. 29: "and there was fetched
and brought out " (XSRI TwVTft instead of our
WVi'l vJJsl)> otherwise literally as our passage,
except that, perhaps by a corruption of the text,
the *? here wanting before Qix 1350 is rightly
supplied. For the exposition, see also Bahr as
above.
o. The Building and the Dedication of the Temple. — Ch. i. 18-vii.
a. Treaty with the Phoenician King, and Preparations for Building: ch. i. 18— ii.
Ch. i. 18. And Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the Lord, and
1 a house for his kingdom. Ch. II. And Solomon told out seventy thousand
men to bear burdens, and eighty thousand to hew in the mountain, and three
thousand and six hundred to oversee them.
2 And Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst
with David my father, and sentest him cedars to build him a house to dwell
3 in, so do also with me. Behold, I build a house to the name of the Lord my
God, to dedicate it to Him, to offer sweet incense before Him, and the shew-
bread continually, and the burntofferings for the morning and the evening,
on the Sabbaths and the new moons, and the feasts of the Lord our God :
4 for ever this is ordained for Israel. And the house which I build is great ;
5 for our God is greater than all gods. But who is able to build Him a house ?
For the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him ; and who am I,
6 that I should build Him a house, but to offer incense before Him? And
now send me a wise man to work in gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and
166
II. CHRONICLES.
in purple, and crimson, and blue, and who knoweth to make graven work
with the wise men that are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David
7 my father appointed. And send me cedar-trees, cypresses, and sandal-wood
out of Lebanon ; for I know that thy servants can cut timber in Lebanon ;
8 and, behold, my servants shall be with thy servants. And shall prepare me
wood in abundance ; for the house which I build is to be great and wonderful.
9 And, behold, for the hewers, who fell the trees, I give of wheat as food1 for
thy servants, twenty thousand cors, and of barley twenty thousand cors, and
of wine twenty thousand baths, and of oil twenty thousand baths.
10 And Huram king of Tyre answered in a letter, and sent to Solomon:
Because the Lord loveth His people, He hath set thee over them as king.
1 1 And Huram said, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, that made heaven and
earth, who hath given to David the king a wise son, endued with prudence and
understanding, that may build a house for the Lord, and a house for his king-
12, 13 dom. And now I send a wise man of understanding, Huram my father, son
of a woman of the daughters of Dan ; and his father was a Tyrian, who can
work in gold, and silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and wood, in purple, blue,
and byssus, and crimson, and can do all graving, and devise every device that
is given to him with thy wise men, and the wise men of my lord David thy
14 father. And now the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which
15 my lord spake of, let him send his servants. And we shall fell timber out of
Lebanon according to all thy need, and bring it to thee in floats to the sea of
Joppa, and thou shalt take it up to Jerusalem.
16 And Solomon counted all the men that were strangers in the land of
Israel, after the number which David his father had counted, and they were
found to be a hundred and fifty thousand, and three thousand and six
1 7 hundred. And he made seventy thousand of them bearers of burdens, and
eighty thousand hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred
overseers to keep the people at work.
1 So according to the probable correct reading 117310 (= flPb^D), as the parallel 1 Kings v. 25 exhibits it for
tha unmeaning /IISD (" wheat of beating," "beaten-out wheat"?).
EXEGETICAL.
1. Transition from the Foregoing to the Keport
of the building of the Temple: ch. i. 18— ii. 1. —
And Solomon determined to build. So according
to the Vulg., Luther, and most of the ancients,
while some moderns, as Berth., Kamph., take
"1DX, with allusion to ch. i. 2, 1 Ghron. xxi. 17,
in the sense of "command." The context,
especially the circumstance that instead of the
execution of the building itself only preparations
for it follow, favours the older view. — A house
for the name of the Lord (comp. 1 Kings v. 17),
and a house for his kingdom, that is, a royal
palace for himself, the building of which is not
more particularly described (as 1 Kings vii. 1-12),
but which is mentioned several times, as ch. ii.
11, vii. 11, viii. 1.— Ch. ii. 1. And Solomon told
out seventy thousand, etc. This statement, re-
curring, vers. 16, 17, in another connection, and
in a fuller and more definite form, concerninc the
70,000 + 80,000 + 3600, in all 153,600, workmen
to whom Solomon committed the labours pre-
liminary to the building of the temple, stands
here in briefer form, to indicate beforehand the
magnitude of the measures undertaken by the
king.
2. Solomon's Embassy to Huram of Tyre : vers.
2-9 ; comp. 1 Kings v. 15-26, which account,
agreeing with the present in all essential respects,
partly indeed to the letter, is opened with a
notice of an embassy sent first by Huram to
Solomon (to congratulate him on his accession to
the throne), which our author has omitted as not
sufficiently important. — And Solomon sent to
Huram king of Tyre. On the three forms of
the name, Huram (Chron.), Hiram (1 Kings v.
15), and Hirom (1 Kings v. 24, 32, vii. 40), of
which the last (in Menander in Joseph, c. Ap. i.
18, 21 : E'ipto/ies ; in Herod and Syncell. : slpa/ies)
appears to be the most original, comp. Bahr on
1 Kings v. 15, where, with justice, the doubts of
Clericus, Thenius, Ew., Berth., etc., regarding
the identity of the present Huram with the like-
named contemporary and friend of David, are set
aside. Hitzig {Oesch. des V. Isr. p. 10 ; comp. p.
155) gives as the probable time of the reign of
Huram or Hirom, 1031-1000 B.C. (?).— As thou
didst with David my father, and sentest him
cedars; comp. 1 Chron. xiv. 1. The consequent to
this antecedent is wanting ; according to ver. 6 f.,
it must run thus : " So do also to me, and send
me cedars." This construction is like that else-
where after asseverations and oaths ; comp. also
Ps. lvi. 76 (Ew. §§ 355, 356). Moreover, iD the
parallel account 1 Kings v. 16 ff., Solomon does
not expressly remind Hiram of the aid which he
had already given to his father David, but only
of this, that David had been prevented by Ilia
wars from executing the project of building the
CHAP. II. 3-11.
167
temple. Hence it is clear, from the various
differences between the present and the previous
form of the letter of Solomon, that it is not an ■
authentic original document that is here given,
hut the result of free handling of the fundamental
thoughts of older sources by the one as well as
the other writer. — Ver. 3. Behold, I build,
literally, " Behold me building," future of state ;
see Ew. § 306, d.—To offer sweet incense before
Him, literally, "to perfume," YDpnb, with which
infinitive (defining the foregoing Bi'ipn? more
exactly) are zeugmatieally connected the other
objects named, " shew-bread " and "burnt-offer-
ing." For the "sweet incense " and its burning
every morning and evening on the altar of in-
;ense, comp. Ex. xxv. 6, xxx. 7 f. ; for the
continual laying of shew-bread ("PDA H31JJD),
Ex. xxv. 30 ; for the burnt-offering to be made
every morning and evening, and on Sabbaths,
new moons, and feast days, Num. xxviii. 29 and
1 Chron. xxiii. 31. — For ever this is ordained fur
Israel; comp. the passage already cited, 1 Chron.
xxiii. 31, and the rj^iy npn? often occurring in
the law, for example, Num. xix. 10. — On ver. 4,
comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 1, and Ex. xviii. 11, Deut.
x. 17. — Ver. 5. But who is able, literally, " who
will show power ;" comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 14. On
the following asseveration: "the heaven, and
heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him," comp.
Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple,
ch. vi. 18 ; 1 Kings viii. 27. Obviously we have
here a favourite saying of Solomon the theologian
and philosopher: that our author has here, of
his own will, put this formula in his mouth is
improbable. — And who am I, that I should build
Him a house, but to offer, etc. ; that is, not a
house for dwelling in, but only for sacrifice and
worship (the incense, as symbol of prayer, is here
mentioned instead of all offerings), may we build
for Jehovah. — Ver. 6. And now send me a wise
man (skilful, see ver. 12; 1 Chron. xxii. 15;
Ex. xxxi. 6) to work in gold. That, besides the
works in brass and other metals, as they were
actually executed by the craftsmen here men-
tioned, according to ch. iv. 11-16 and 1 Kings
vii. 13 ff., skill also in weaving purple, hewing
stone, and carving wood is ascribed to them,
need not seem strange in Solomon's letter. But
it seems surprising that, ver. 13, King Huram
also in his reply makes him exercise all these
crafts. Yet ancient history knows several in-
stances of universal geuius in art ; comp.
Dffidalus, and one Tutilo in St. Gall of the
Christian times. On purple QljnK, later form
of )D;nX)> comp. Ex. xxv. 4 ; Dan. v. 7 ; on
crimson (^D"13 only here, ver. 13, and iii. 14,
probably an old Persic word), the ty# ni6in
elsewhere used to denote this fabric ; on blue or
violet (ni>Dn)) Ex. xxv. 4. — And who knoweth to
make graven work, literally, "to grave gravings,"
here of every kind of sculpture in metal or wood
(comp. rnpiQ"i32, ver- 13 ; also * Kings vi- 29) ;
elsewhere, specially of graving precious stones,
Ex. xxviii. 9, 11, 30, xxxix. 6 ; Zech. iii. 9.—
With tlie wise men, etc. ; comp. 1 Chron, xxii. 3,
15, xxviii. 21. In construction, D'DaruVDJJ Soe*
wit rfE>y?i "to work." — Ver. 7. And send me
. . . sandal-wood out of Lebanon. If the alguni-
wood (Q'EU^K-'XjO here named along with cedars
and cypresses be actually sandal -wood, which,
in the obvious identity of its name with D'SDJX.
1 Kings x. 11, can scarcely be doubted, our
author, in allowing it to come from Lebanon,
involves Solomon in an inaccuracy (at least in
expression) ; for, according to his own later state-
ment (ch. ix. 10; 1 Chron. *.. 11), algums be-
longed rather to the products of Ophir. — Ver. 8.
Prepare me wood in abundance ; the infin. p3i"lt>1
is the continuation of the imperat. vy n?&, ver.
7 ; Keil's attempt to subordinate it to the previous
clause is too artificial : "to prepare for me wood
in abundance." On b, comp. ver. 4.— Ver. 9.
And, behold, for the hewers, who fell the trees.
D'Otoh^ (with introductory •>) is more exactly
defined by the added D^yn TTlbi', and for this
reason, that 2DT1 (= the afterwards more usual
3Xn ; comp. vers 1, 17) appears to our author to
need interpretation ; comp. besides, for 3on,
Deut. xxix. 10; Josh. ix. 21, 23, 27.—/ give
wheat as food for thy servants. For JP3J3 in-
stead of the defective ni3D, see Crit. Note. —
Twenty thousand cors. In this enumeration of
the provisions in grain, wine, and oil offered by
Solomon, our report seems to be more detailed
than the parallel 1 Kings v. 25, which reports
only 20,000 cors of wheat for the household of
king Hiram, and twenty cors of the finest
(beaten) oil for the same, as given by Solomon.
But, in truth, the two passages speak of quite
different supplies : there of a yearly contribution,
which Solomon paid to the Tyrian king during
the building at Tyre, hut here of the provisions
which he sent to the woodcutters placed at his
disposal by Huram in Lebanon (so correctly Keil
and Bahr on 1 Kings v. 25 ; otherwise Thenius,
Bertheau, etc. , who here find statements that are
partly contradictory).
3. Huram's Answer: vers. 10-15 ; comp. 1 Kings
v. 21-25. — Became the Lord loveth His people,
etc. Instead of this compliment (comp. ch. ix. 8 ;
1 Kings x. 9), in the parallel text 1 Kings v. 22,
Hiram begins his letter immediately with the
declaration : "I have heard the things thou
sentest to me for." On the contrary, an expres-
sion of joy concerning Solomon's message as orally
given by Hiram precedes the composing and send-
ing of the reply. — Ver. 11. And Huram said,
namely, as in the foregoing verse ; 3H33, "in
writing." — Blessed be the Lord . . . that made
heaven and earth. Are we to see in this doxology
of the Phoenician king, readily following into
Solomon's religious thought and phrase (which
rises above that in 1 Kings v. 21), the product of
a half-poetic fiction, after the manner of a writer
after the exile (as Dan. ii. 28, iii. 29 ff., iv. 31
ff.)? It is perhaps more natural to take intt
168
II. CHRONICLES.
account here partly the courtesies in expression,
which friendly sovereigns might and must use,
partly the community of speech, and even of
religious tradition, which existed between the
Phoenicians and Hebrews. — A wise son endowed
with prudence and understanding ; comp. 1 Chron.
xii. 32, xxii. 12. — Ver. 12. Huram my father.
The introductory p before the accusative, as ch.
v. 26. Luther takes 13s f°r an element of the
proper name of the craftsman, who was called
Huram-abi (or, ch. iv. IB, Huram-abiv). Most of
the ancients as well as moderns take it here, as
in ch. iv. 16, as a tropical appellative or name of
honour = master, by comparison with Gen. xlv. 8.
— Ver. 13. The son of a woman of the daughters
of Dan, that is, perhaps the city Dan in the tribe
of Naphtali ; see 1 Kings vii. 14 and the ex-
positors on this passage, especially Thenius and
Bahr, whereas certainly Keil (with Berth.,
Kamph. , etc.) defends the more difficult and
artificial assumption, that the mother of this
craftsman belonged by birth to the tribe of Dan,
but by her first husband to that of Naphtali. —
Who can work in gold, etc. The Phoenician king
enhances the praise of his craftsman by recount-
ing a still greater number of crafts than those
mentioned by Solomon, ver. 6. Hence the
mention of stone and wood (after brass and iron),
of byssus (p2, as 1 Chron. xv. 27), and of
"devising every device that is given to him."
Comp. for the last phrase, the remarks made, Ex.
xxxi. 4, xxxv. 33, on Bezaleel. — On ver. 14, comp.
ver. 9 ; the there expressed offer by Solomon of
food for his people Huram expressly accepts. —
Ver. 15. According to all thy need. Til's, "need,"
only here in the Old Test, (in Aram, very com-
mon) ; likewise the following nilDQl, "floats,"
for which, 1 Kings v. 23, DiiaM- — To the sea of
Joppa, the sea at Joppa, the port of Jerusalem.
Also, with respect to this reply of Huram, and its
relation to the often-deviating parallel text 1
Kings v. 21 ff., the above remark (ver. 2) on
the two texts of the letter of Solomon applies.
Neither text is wholly independent of the other,
and neither coincides exactly with a presumed
original. Both exhibit certainly a freely imitat-
ing or rather extracting (partly also interpolating ;
see especially the additions made by our author,
ver. 13) treatment of the original text ; as also
1 Josephus, Antiq. viii. 2. 6 f., in his rendering of
■ the pieces, generally agrees with 1 Kings v.,
; but allows himself many peculiar forms of its
language. The statements of this historian, that
the ivriypnip'>. of the two letters were extant both
in the Old Testament and in the public archives
of Tyre (Antiq. viii. 2. 8), mu?t therefore be
received cum grano sails, and must refer not so
much to the form as to the substance of the docu-
ments. Eupolemus, in Euseb. Praip. evany. ix.
33, 34, has copied still more freely than Josephui
the correspondence between Solomon and Hiram.
4. Expanded Repetition of the Number of
Workmen stated in ver. 1 : vers. 16, 17. — And
Solomon counted all the men that were strangers
in the land of Israel, all the serfs of Canaan-
itish descent under the people of Israel ; comp.
1 Chron. xxii. 2, to which place there is here
express reference (by the following words :
"after the number [nap, 'muster,' only here
in 0. T.] which David his father had counted ").
— Ver. 17. The eighty thousand "hewers" (y$h)
in the mountain are chiefly to be regarded as
hewers of stone (comp. 1 Chron. xxii. 2), but
partly as fellers of timber. — And three thousand
and six hundred overseers (D'nSJDi comp. Ezra
iii. 8, 9), to keep the people at work, "to make
them work " ; comp. Ex. vi. 5. With the
present statements of the number of workmen
levied by Solomon agree those contained in
1 Kings v. 27-30, with two points of difference :
— 1. Of the 30,000 socagers levied out of Israel
itself, there first named, that were te cut timbers
successively in three parties of 10, 0( 0 each, our
text says nothing, as the enumeration of our
author is perhaps confined intentionally to the
Qi-13, perhaps, however, through a mistake in
quite overlooking the statement in question; 2.
instead of 3600 overseers, the author of 1 Kings
v. 30 names only 3300 ; perhaps he had only in
view those of lower rank, and not the higher,
who, according to 1 Kings ix. 23, amounted in
all to 550, namely, 250 Israelites (2 Chron. viii.
10) and 300 strangers. As the Chronist men-
tions here only the strangers, he enumerates only
these 3000 non-Israelite upper overseers, and
thus arrives at the total of 3600 □TTX3Q- He
was aware also of the existence of 250 Israelite
upper overseers, as is clear from ch. viii. 40 ot
our book.
&. The Building of the Temple, and Making of the Holy Vessels : ch. iii. 1-v. 1.
Ch. hi. 1. And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on
mount Moriah, which was shown to his father David, and which he had pre-
2 pared in the place of David, in the floor of Oman the Jebusite. And he
began to build in the second month, on the second1 day in the fourth year oi
his reign.
3 And this is the foundation of Solomon, to build the house of God : the
length after the former measure was sixty cubits, and the breadth twenty
4 cubits. And the porch that was before the length, before the breadth of the
house, was twenty cubits, and the height a hundred and twenty^ ; and b
5 overlaid it within with pure gold. And the great house he lined with cypress,
6 and overlaid it with fine gold, and made thereon palms and garjands- . A.nd
he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty ; and the gold was
CHAP. IH.-V. 1. 169
7 gold of Parvaim. And lie overlaid the house, the beams, the sills, and its
walls and its doors, with gold, and graved cherubim on the walls.
8 And he made the house of the most holy, that its length before the
breadth of the house was twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits ; and
9 overlaid it with fine gold, to six hundred talents. And the weight of the
nails was fifty shekels of gold : and he overlaid the upper rooms with gold.
10 And he made in the house of the most holy two cherubim of sculptured
11 work, and overlaid them with gold. And the wings of the cherubim were
twenty cubits long ; the wing of the one was five cubits, touching the wall of
the house, and the other wing five cubits, touching the wing of the ctier
12 cherub. And the wing of the other cherub was five cubits, touching the wall
of the house, and the other wing five cubits, joining the wing of the first
1 3 cherub. The wings of these cherubim spread forth twenty cubits ; and they
stood on their feet, and their faces to the house.
14 And he made the veil of blue, and purple, and crimson, and byssus, and
raised cherubim thereon.
15 And he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five3 cubits height;
16 and the capital that was on the top was five cubits. And he made chains in
the ring,* and put them on the pillars ; and he made a hundred pomegranates,
17 and put them on the chains. And he set up the pillars before the temple,
one on the right and one on the left ; and he called the name of the right
pillar Jachin, and the name of the left Boaz.
Ch. IV. 1. And he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits its length, and twenty
2 cubits its breadth, and twenty cubits its height. And he made the sea
molten ; ten cubits from brim to brim, round about, and five cubits its height;
3 and a line of thirty cubits compassed it about. And figures of oxen6 were
under it, compassing it round about ; ten in a cubit, encircling the sea around :
4 two rows the oxen formed, cast out of its mass. It stood upon twelve oxen,
three looking northward, and three looking westward, and three looking
southward, and three looking eastward ; and the sea was set on them above,
5 and all their hinder parts were inwards. And its thickness was a hand-
breadth, and its brim was wrought like the brim of a cup, as a lily blossom,
6 holding in it (many) baths ; it contained three thousand.6 And he made ten
lavers, and put five on the right and five on the left, to wash in them ; the
work of the burnt-offering they washed in them ; but the sea was for the
7 priests to wash in. And he .made ten candlesticks of gold, after their plan,
8 and set them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left. And he
made ten tables, and placed them in the temple, five on the right, and five on
9 the left : and he made basons of gold a hundred. And he made the court of
the priests, and the great court, and doors for the court, and overlaid the
10 door-leaves with brass. And he set the sea on the right side eastward, over
against the south.
11 And Huram made the pots, and the shovels, and the bowls : and Huram'
finished the work which he made for King Solomon in the house of God-
12 The two pillars, and the balls, and the capitals on the top of the two pillars,
and the two grates to cover the two balls of the capitals which were on the
13 top of the pillars. And the four hundred pomegranates on the two grates;
two rows of pomegranates on each grate, to cover the two balls of the capitals
14 which were upon the two8 pillars. And he made9 stands, and he made lavers
15, 16 upon the stands. One sea, and twelve oxen under it. And the pots, and
the shovels, and the forks,10 and all their vessels, made Huram his father for
17 King Solomon, for the house of the Lord, of bright brass. In the plain of
Jordan the king cast them, in the clay ground11 between Succoth and Zere-
18 dathah. And Solomon made all these vessels in great abundance ; for the
weight of the brass was not found out.
19 And Solomon made all the vessels that were for the house of God, the
20 golden altar, and the tables with the shew-bread on them. And the candle-
sticks with their lamps, to burn after their rule before the oracle of costly
170
II. CHRONICLES.
21 gold. And the flowers, and the lamps, and the snuffers : this was the most
22 perfect gold.12 And the knives, and the bowls, and the censers, and the
extinguishers of costly gold : and the door of the house, its inner leaves to
the most holy place, and the door leaves of the house for the temple, of gold.
Ch. V. 1. Then was finished all the work that Solomon made for the house of the
Lord : and Solomon brought in the holy gifts of David his father ; and the
silver, and the gold, and all the instruments he put among the treasures of
the house of God.
1 ,3U'3, which the Sept. and Vulg. do not express, appears a gloss brought into the text by the repetition of the
foregoing tj$n.
2 D'HE'JJl ilND appears a defective reading, as the Sept. cod. Al„ Syr., and Ar. have 20 for 120. Comp. the Exeg.
Expl. ,
3 According to the parallels 1 Kings vii. 15, 2 Kings xxv. 17, etc., instead of thirty-five (."; must apparently be
read eighteen (fT)'
' So according to the emendation of Berth.: TT13, instead of the Masoretic TIPIS (Sept. u rS ?«£<», which
yields no suitable sense.
5 D,_lp3 appears a slip of the pen for D'JJpS (1 Kings vii. 24), as in 6, 1p3il for D^pSH-
• For D^S^N Db6b> is to be read, according to 1 Kings vii 2G, D'B^X (2000) ; the DB'PB' before WSOU
eeems to have come into the text from the fourfold HCV^' in the verse before.
7 The Kelkib has here Hiram (D"lTI), the only time this reading occurs in Chronicles.
'For ''iQ'?]} read ^^'711, although ^JQ stands also in 1 Kings vii. 42; but see Sept. there.
» nij'J) seems wrongly written for "1K>J?, as the second time for mtJ>JJ. Comp. 1 Kings Til. 43.
10 ni2?TQ is perhaps written wrongly for nipltD, " sprinkling cups," ver. 11. Comp. 1 Kings vii. 44
ii For ^2V3 some prints give *3U3-
12 The words 3HT rH/3D X^H are not represented in the Sept.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — From the description
of the building of the temple in 1 Kings vi. and
vii., the present account is distinguished — 1. By
this, thai in the introduction more precise state-
ments are made with respect to the plan of the
building, but less precise with respect to the time
when it began, than there (comp. ch. iii. 1, 2
with 1 Kings vi. 1) ; 2. By this, that our author
describes, in unbroken connection, first (ch. iii.
3-17) the magnitude and arrangement of the
edifice itself, then (ch. iv. 1-22) those of its
several furnishings in the court and the sanc-
tuary, whereas in 1 Kings vi. and vii. this
description meets with two considerable inter-
ruptions, inasmuch as — a. an account of a divine
promise given to the king during the building
(ch. vi. 11-13), and — b. a description of a palace-
building of Solomon, partly concurrent with that
of the temple (ch. vii. 1-11), are there inserted;
3. By a somewhat different arrangement of the
several objects enumerated and described in 1
Kings ; 4. By the greater fulness and circum-
stantiality of the description, as contained in
1 Kings (for example, with respect to the ten
brazen stands, ch. vii. 27-38, which our author,
iv. 14, only slightly mentions); and 5. By the
here again remarkable excerpting habit of the
Chronist. In the following exposition, only that
which is peculiar to our author will be fully dis-
cussed ; but with regard to that which he has in
common with 1 Kings, or which he, compared
with the more ample details there, only briefly
notices, reference will be made to the exposition
of Bahr (Bibelw. vii. pp. 38-70), which is cnauc-
terized by solidity and scientific ability.
1. Place and Time of building the Temple:
ch. iii. 1, 2. — And Solomon began. . . . on mouiJ.
Moriah. Only here is the site of the temple so
named ; but the designation is no doubt identical
with "the land of Moriah" (ns"vit3n r*"lN, "land
of the appearing of the Lord"), Gen. xxii. 2. The
place of the celebrated sacrifice of Abraham was
even that floor of Oman on which David pre-
sented his offering, and which he had conse-
quently chosen for the site of the temple, the hill
lying north-east of Zion, which is now called "the
Haram," after the holy mosque of the Mahomme-
dans standing on it. Comp. Rosen, Das Haram,
Goth i 18fi6, and the plan and description in Ph.
Wolff's Jerusalem (3d edit. 1872), p. 89 ff.— Which
was shown to his father David, as the future site
of the temple; see 1 Chron. xxi. 15 ff. Against
this most usual exposition it may certainly be ob-
jected (with Keil) that the Niphal njTO else-
where denotes, not "be shown," but "be seen,
appear." Yet the rendering of Keil: "where He
(Jehovah) appeared to his father David" (so also
the Sept.), has this defect, that the subject
Jehovah has to be supplied, and that -|t?N lias
to be taken in the sense of DC' "lEW, as elsewhere
only in the phrase -|C>K DipB3 (Ew. § 331, c, 3)—
(and) which he had prepared in the place of David,
which site he (Solomon) had prepared on the place
fixed by David. So Berth., Kamph., etc., and in
CHAP. III. 2-13
171
the main Luther, Starke, and other ancients (for
example, Bambaoh: quam domum prceparavit
Salomo in loco Davidis). On the contrary, the
Sept., Vulg., Syr., etc., translate as if DlpD3
stood before nan -|B»K, " in the place which
David had prepared" (the building of the temple);
and Keil, in accordance with his supplying of
Jehovah as subject to ntOJ, interprets: "who
(David) had prepared the house, that is, the
building of it, in the place appointed of David."
None of these expositions is quite satisfactory ;
whence it is natural to suppose some corruption
of the text. — Ver. 2. Anil he began to build in
the second month, in the second. As 'j$3 cannot
well (comp. Luther, etc.) signify " on the second
day," for this would be expressed by D'JB'B
jjHhi> or the like (with the cardinal number),
it is strongly to be suspected that the word has
come into the text by an error of transcription ;
comp. Crit. Note. The second month is Ziph,
corresponding nearly with our May (comp. 1 Kings
vi. 37). — In the fourth year of his reign, that is,
as Solomon reigned from 1015, about the year
1012 B.C. (comp. Hitzig, Gesch. p. 10 f., whose
chronological determinations otherwise contain
much that is arbitrary ; among other things, the
assumption that Solomon reigned from 1035 B.C.,
thus, on the whole, not forty but sixty years).
2. The building of the Temple itself ; and first,
of the Porch and the Holy Place (or the Front
and Middle Room) : vers. 3-7. — And this is the
foundation of Solomon; these are the fundamental
proportions which he employed in building. The
inf. Hoph. IDin is used substantively, as in
Ezra iii. 1 1. — The length after the former measure,
the Mosaic or holy cubit, that, Ezek. xl. 5, xliii.
13, was a handbreadth longer than the civic cubit
of the later time, in and after the exile (comp. on
1 Chron. xxii. 13 f.). Only the length and the
width of the temple are here given, not its height,
which was, 1 Kings vi. 2, thirty cubits. — Ver. 4.
And the porch, that was before the length, that
extended in front of the oblong house as its en-
trance,— before the, breadth of the house, was
twenty cubits, was measured in front of the width
of the house, twenty cubits. That the breadth
or depth of this porch was not twenty cubits, but
only ten (1 Kings vi. 3), is not here said, but
follows of necessity from the following statements
concerning the size of the most holy place com-
pared with that of the holy place, which was twice
as long (comp. ver. 3 with ver. 8). — And the
height a hundred and twenty. A certainly erro-
neous statement ; a front building of 1 20 cubits
height, before a house only thirty cubits high,
could not be called D7IX, hut would have been a
^UD, "tower" (Keil). Behind the present de-
fective reading is perhaps concealed the state-
ment that the breadth of the porch was ten
cubits. Berth, and Kamph. wish to arrange the
text after 1 Kings vi. 3 : " And the porch, which
was before the house, its breadth was ten cubits
before it, and the length, which was before the
breadth of the house, was twenty cubits." But
there are some objections to this emendation; see
Keil, p 235 (Remark 1).— Ver. 5. And the great
house he lined with cypress. The holy place is called
the great house, as forming the chief room of the
whole house. " Line," nan, coinciding essen-
tially with the foregoing nSV, "overlay," stands
here twice, first of lining the stone with wood,
and then of overlaying or plating this wood with
gold. — Made thereon palms and garlands, applied
to it ornaments of palms and garlands (according
to 1 Kings vi. 18, in the form of bas-reliefs cut
in the panels of the wall). D'lBFl = the fem.
Hilton used in the same sense, 1 Kings vi. 29,
35, figures of palms ; this masc. form occurs
also Ezek. xli. 28. J"li-|t5HK>, properly, chains of
gold wire, — see ver. 16 and Ex. xxviii. 14, — but
here ornaments wound like a chain on the gilded
walls, representing garlands. — Ver. 6. And he
garnished the house with precious stones for
beauty; comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 2, and Bahr on
1 Kings vi. 7. — And the gold was gold of Par-
vaim, from Parvaim, a country, as the etymon
of the probable Indian name seems to indicate,
situated in the east, but of unknown, and not to be
determined, site. On its conjectured identity with
Ophir, and the opinions regarding it, see the ex-
cursus after eh. viii. — Ver. 7. And he overlaid the
house, the beams, those of the ceiling, as those
next named, the sills that are under the doors.
Somewhat more precise than the present state-
ments concerning the internal decorations of the
house (the holy place with its porch, which are
here in question, as ver. 8 ff. show) are those
contained in 1 Kings vi. 18, 29, 30.
3. The Most Holy Place, with its Cherubic
Figures and Veil; vers. 8-14. — And he made the
house of the most holy, that its length . . . twenty
cubits. That, besides the length and breadth, the
height also was the same, and thus its form was
cubic, see 1 Kings vi. 20. Our author does not
specially set forth this certainly symbolic circum-
stance ; on the contrary, his love of the orna-
mental and magnificent leads him to set forth
another circumstance omitted in 1 Kings, that
the weight of the gold plating for the inner wal I
of the most holy place was 600 talents. — Ver. 9.
And the weight of the nails, that served for fasten-
ing the gold plate on the wooden lining of the
walls. And this statement concerning the weight
of the nails being fifty shekels is peculiar to our
author, and characteristic of him; as also the
following one in b, concerning the inner gilding
of the upper chambers over the most holy place
(comp. 1 Chron. xxviii. 11). — Ver. 10. Two
cherubim of sculptured work, literally, ' ' a work
of imagery. " D'JJVJJV, from the Arab, root zua,
finxit, formavit, only here in the O. T. — Overlaid
them with gold, a remark occurring also 1 Kings
vi. 28, but there forming the end of tl £ descrip-
tion of the cherubim. — Vers. 10-12. The descrip-
tion of the size and position of the four out-
spread wings, each five cubits long, is clumsy
and circumstantial, after the Eastern fashion, but
at the same time perfectly obvious and clear.
The expressions for the mutual contact of the
tips of the wings are ^jn and (once ver. 12)
p2"T, properly ; cleave, adlwerere. — Ver. 13. The
wings of these cherubim spread forth twenty
cubits, literally, "were spreading forth (effected
172
II. CHRONICLES
an expansion of) twenty cubits ;" comp. on CHS,
1 Chron. xxviii. 18 ; 2 Chron. v. 8. Against
Berth., who would expel ^333 out of the text ;
see Keil on this passage. — Stood on their feet, and
their faces to the house, that is, to the holy place,
not to one another, as the faces of the cherubs on
the mercy-seat (Ex. xxv. 20). That they had in
this upright position a height of ten cubits, the
author of 1 Kings (vi. 26) affirms in his more
exact statement of the proportions. Are we en-
titled to infer from the statement of our author
the human form of the cherubim ? This appears
at all events very probable; eomp. Bahr on 1
Kings vi. 23 ff., and Riehm, "Die Cherubim in
der Stiftshiitte und im Tempel," Theol. Stud,
und Krit. 1871, iii. p. 399 ff., where (as in the
treatise De natura et notions symbolica cheru-
borum, 1864) this theologian certainly, for the
oldest time, conceives the cherubim as theophanic
storm-clouds, and represents them in the form of
birds, but, for the latter time (and certainly for
that of Solomon), affirms a change of this prey-
bird form to a winged human form. Similarly
H. Schultz, Alttestamentl. Theol. i. 337 ft'., and
Dillmann, Art. ' ' Cherubim "in Schenkel's Bibel-
Lexikon. — Ver. 14. And he made the veil of blue,
and purple, etc., thus of the same four materials
of which the veil in the tabernacle had been
made, and interwoven with the same cherubic
figures as it was ; see Ex. xxvi. 81. On this
("DhS, the inner veil between the holy and the
most holy place, the older description of the
temple in 1 Kings vi. 21 says nothing.
4. The Two Pillars Jachin and Boaz : vers.
15-17 ; comp. the much fuller description in 1
Kings vii. 15-22, 41, 42 (also ch. iv. 12 f.).—
And he made before the house (m the porch) two
pillars of thirty and five cubits height; in 1 Kings,
rather of eighteen cubits ; see Crit. Note. — A nd
the capital that was on the top. Instead of the
nSSil, head-piece (from nSV, cover, overlay), the
parallel 1 Kings vii. 16 gives the term niDS,
"crown, pommel." — Ver. 16. Andhe made chains
in the ring, in the girdle-formed network encir-
cling the top of the pillars, that served for the
fastening of the pomegranates, and is otherwise
called r03B>, network, but here T3"l, collar
(comp. Gen. xli. 42 ; Ezek. xvi. 11) ; for -pm
is certainly to be read instead of Tai, which
gives no tolerable sense, and has drawn away the
old translations to strange explanations (Vulg. :
quasi catenulas in oraculo ; Syr. and Arab.:
"chains of fifty cubits length," that is, reaching
from the most holy place to the pillars, etc. ) ;
comp. the Crit. Note. Moreover, the term i>21
seems to be a synonym rather of the rD3b, net-
work, mentioned ch. iv. 12, 13, than of the
ni?3, "balls, rolls," mentioned in the same place
(against Keil). — Made a hundred pomegranates,
and put them on the chains, perhaps so "that
there was an apple on every link of the chain-like
ornament" (Berth.). The number 100, whichis
given also in Jer. Iii. 23, determines also merely
the one of the two rows of pomegranates which
hung on every ring or girdle of the network.
That each of these bore 100 apples, and thus the
sum total of all the apples on both pillars
amounted to 400, is stated ch. iv. 13, in accord-
ance with 1 Kings vii. 42. On ver. 1 7, especially
on the names Jachin and Boaz. see Bafir on 1
Kings vii. 21.
5. The Holy Furniture of the Temple and its
Court : ch. iv. 1-10. — Ver. 1. The brazen altar.
A nd lie made an altar of brass, the altar of bunit-
offering. See more particularly concerning its
construction, more exactly described in Ezek. xliii.
13-17, and its probably terrace-like appearance, in
Keil, ArcJiceol. p. 127, with the plan, plate iii.
fig. 2. That our verse has no parallel in 1 Kings
vi. and vii. is perhaps only accidental, but may
arise from this, that there only articles made by
Huram (Hiram) are fully described, to which the
altar of burnt-offering did not belong. It is,
moreover, only incidentally mentioned in 1 Kings,
namely, in ch. viii. 22, 64, on occasion of the
dedication of the temple, and again in ch. ix. 25.
— Vers. 2-5. The Brazen Sea ; comp. 1 Kings
vii. 23-26 and the expositors thereon. — A line of
thirty cubits compassed it about, formed the mea-
sure of its circumference (the actual existence of
such a line is not to be supposed). — Ver. 3. And
figures of oxen were under it, instead of which
1 Kings vii. 24 has: "and colocynths (or flower
buds, according to Bahr) were under the brim of
it round about." Our Q'lpa therefore appears
an error of transcription for D^'pS, as in the
second member "ipan for D'ypan.— Ver. 5. Hold-
ing in it (many) baths ; it contained three thou-
sand. According to 1 Kings vii. 26, rather only
2000, which number alone suits the size of the
vessel as described in ver. 2 (comp. Crit. Note).
Moreover, the ^y, "it contained," is by no
means disturbing, as Berth, and Kamph. think,
who condemn it as a gloss coming into the text
from 1 Kings. The pleonastic phrase rather suits
the effort of the author to represent the size of
the vessel as very great ; and the construction is
essentially the same as in the following verse. —
Ver. 6. The Ten Lavers, with the incidental
Statement of the Use of the Brazen Sea.— And he
made ten lavers. Much more full is 1 Kings vii.
27-38, where the stands bearing these lavers are
described with special minuteness. — To wash in
them ; the work of the burnt-offering they washed
in them, the flesh of the burnt-offerings to be
burned on the altar. On n^lfl, scour, rinse, as a
synonym of J>m, comp. Josh. iv. 4 ; Ezek. xL
38— Ver. 7. The Golden Candlesticks in the Holy
Place. The notice of these is wanting, as we!' as
the following one referring to the ten tables, and
the next referring to the two courts, in the parallel
text 1 Kings vii. 39, perhaps from a gap in the
text. Yet incidental references to these objects
are found there; see ch. vi. 36, vii. 12, 48, 49.—
After their plan, properly, according to their
right, Dt3SB>D3, a reference to Ex. xxv. 31 ff.—
Ver. 8. And he made ten tables, on .which to place
the ten candlesticks, scarcely for the shew-bread,
as seems to follow from ver. 19; see rather on this
passage, as on 1 Chron. xxviii. 16 (against Light-
foot), Starke, Bahr, Keil, etc.— And lie mad*
CHAP. IV. 9-V. 1.
173
basins of gold, bowls or tankards for pouring the
libation; comp. Amos vi. 6; scarcely bowls for
receiving the blood of the victim (as Berth,
thinks). — Ver. 9. And he made the courts of the
priests, the smaller or inner court (1 Kings vi. 36,
vii. 12), or also the upper court, as it is called,
Jer. xxxvi. 10, on account of its greater elevation.
— And the great court, the outer (mivn con-
nected with ivn) > comp. Ezek. xliii. 14 ff., xlv. 19,
where it is distinguished as the "lower"or "new"
court, from the inner or upper court of the priests.
A more precise description of this outer court is
wanting as well in 1 Kings vi. and vii. , where it
is not even mentioned, as in our passage, where
only its door leaves overlaid with brass are men-
tioned.— Ver. 10. Addendum concerning the
Position of the Brazen Sea ; comp. 1 Kings vii.
396.
6. The Brass 'Works of Huram : vers. 11-18.
The list is opened with the " pots, shovels, and
bowls," objects belonging to the furniture of the
altar of burnt-offering in the court, that belong
properly to the foregoing section. Even so
3 Kings vii. 40, where likewise with ^s) in the
middle of the verse we pass to all that was made
by Huram. — TJie pots, and the shovels, and the
bowls. niTDn (for which 1 Kings vii. 40, defec-
tively: niTBH) are the pots for taking away the
ashes ; D^'H, the shovels for removing the ashes
from the altar ; niplltDH (perhaps to be distin-
guished from D'plTOi t^e sprinkling -bowls or
wine tankards in ver. 86), the bowls for receiving
and sprinkling the blood. — And Huram finished
the work. Comp. from this to the end of the
section the almost literally agreeing verses 1
Kings vii. 406-47, and Bahr on the passage. For
the partial deviations and errors in our text, see
Crit. Note. — Ver. 16. And all their vessels.
Most recent expositors (also Keil) wish to read,
after 1 Kings vii. 45: "all these vessels," -^3 flN
n?S4TI Dv3n, because we cannot think in the
"vessels" of the vessels hitherto named. But
might not the forms (models) be meant in which
the various vessels were cast? The allusion to
the foundries of the king in the next verse makes
this very probable ; but the reading n^Nil iu
1 Kings vii. 45 appears by no means absolutely
settled. — Made Huram his father. For V3X,
see on ch. ii. 12. — Of bright brass, py-ifi riKTIJ,
accus. materia; ; in 2 Kings the equivalent n^nj
ODD stands for this. — Ver. 17. In the plain of
Jordan (properly, in the circuit of Jordan) the king
cast them, in the clay ground, properly, " in the
densities of the ground," nDIND ,3y3 (or, if the
reading 13573 is to be preferred, sing. : in the den-
sity of the ground; s» <rZ Tx%ti <rm yris, Sept.).
According to theolder exegesis, the phrase denoted:
in the clay ground, in argillosa terra (Vulg.).
The designation of the hard forms for the casting,
which Berth, thinks are mentioned here, should
rather be the Drr63"73 of ver. 16. — Between
Succoth and Zeredathah. In 1 Kings vii. 46 the
name of the second place is Zarthan, which is onlj
another form of Zeredathah ; comp. Jud™. vii. 22.
— Ver. 18. For the weight of the brass was not
found out, or was not determined (Berth.); that
is, there was so great a quantity, that, etc. (comp.
ch. v. 6).
7. Enumeration of the Golden Vessels of the
Sanctuary, with the Close of the whole Account
of the Building : ver. 19-ch. v. 1; comp..l Kings
vii. 48-51, which section also deviates much in
its first verses from the present one. — And Ike
tables with the shew-bread on them. Oi .ginally,
perhaps, only an inexact expression (synecdoche),
as in 1 Chron. xxviii. 16, this mention of the
DIEPPE' nas here certainly the appearance of a
multiplicity of tables for the shew-bread. But
1 Kings vii. 48 names quite distinctly only one
table. — Ver. 20. And the candlesticks . . . to burn
after their rule (DStJ'sa, as ver. 7) before the
oracle, the " debir," that is, the most holy place.
The candlesticks had accordingly their place in
the holy place immediately before the veil ; and
so the altar of incense (comp. Heb. ix. 4). — Ver.
21. And the flowers, and the lamps. Comp. Bahr
on 1 Kings vii. 49. — This was the most perfect
gold. 3nT J1TOD, properly, " perfections of
gold" ; the elsewhere not occurring nfao (equi-
valent to fed, Pa. 1. 2, or ^3D, Ezek. xxiii.
12) appears unintelligible to the Sept., and henca
the whole clause is omitted. As it appears super-
fluous along with the costly gold at the close of
the verse before, and is wanting in 1 Kings vii.
49, it awakens critical suspicion. — Ver. 22. And
the. knives, serving perhaps to clean the lamps
(with the snuffers), but also for other purposes.
Their place among the vessels of the temple is
attested also by 2 Kings xii. 14; Jer. lii. 18. For
the next named bowls see on ver. 11. The ]"liS3
(trays for the incense) and niWID (extinguishers)
are also named 1 Kings vii. 50: on the contrary,
the fliSD (basons) named there first are wanting
here. — And the door of the house. )V3n 11)131
appears to be a general collective phrase for the
"opening, doorway, outlet of the house ;" for it
includes two doors, that into the holy place, and
that into the holy of holies. The parallel 1 Kings
vii. 50: JV3H riu"lW> ninani, leads to the con-
jecture that rinSI is perhaps an error for J"|}J"iaii
"and the hinges" (in which case also lnin^^
must be put for yiflirita)- Ch. v. 1 agrees almost
to the letter with 1 Kings vii. 51. The \ before
tpsrrriK is best rendered by "namely"; comr.
ch. iv. 19; less probable is the rendering: "as
well the silver as also the gold " (Keil). Foi
these gifts of David, see the account in 1 Chron.
xviii. lOf. ; also 1 Chron. xxvi. 26 f., xxix. 3 if.
174 II. CHRONICLES.
y. The Dedication of the Temple: ch. v. 2-vii. 10.
1. Removal of the Ark from Zion to the Temple: ch. v. 2-14.
9, Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes,
the chiefs of the fathers of the sons of Israel, to Jerusalem, to bring up the ark
3 of the covenant of the Lord from the city of David, which is Zion. And all
the men of Israel assembled unto the king in the feast, which was the seventh
4 month. And all the elders of Israel came; and the Levites bore the ark.
5 And they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels
6 that were in the tent ; the priests, the Levites,1 brought them up. And king
Solomon, and all the assembly of Israel that assembled with him before the ark,
sacrificed sheep and oxen, that could not be told or numbered for multitude.
7 And the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord into its place, into
the oracle of the house, the most holy place, under the wings of the cherubim.
8 For the cherubim spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the
9 cherubim covered the ark and its staves above. And they made the staves so
long that the ends of the staves were seen from the ark,2 before the oracle, but
10 they were not seen without : and they were there unto this day. Nothing was in
the ark save the two tables, which Moses put into it at Horeb, where the Lord
11 made [a covenant] with the sons of Israel, when they came out of Egypt. And it
came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place — for all the priests
I % that were present had sanctified themselves, without observing the courses. And
the Levites, the singers all of them, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, and their
sons and brethren, arrayed in byssus, with cymbals, and psalteries, and harps,
stood at the east of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests
13 sounding with trumpets.8 And the trumpeters and singers were as one [man] to
sound aloud with one voice to praise and thank the Lord, and when they lifted
up the voice with trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of song, and with
praising the Lord : For He is good ; for His mercy endureth for ever : then the
14 house was filled with the cloud of the house of the Lord. And the priests
could not stand to minister before the cloud ; for th« glory of the Lord filled the
house of God.
2. Solomon praises the Lord on his Entrance into the new Temple : ch. vi. 1-11.
Ch. vi. 1. Then said Solomon, The Lord hath said that He would dwell in dark-
2 ness. And I, even I, have built a house of abiding for Thee, and a place for Thy
dwelling for ever.
3 And the king turned his face, and blessed the whole congregation of Israel :
4 and all the congregation of Israel stood. And he said, Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel, who hath spoken with His mouth to David my father, and by His
5 hands hath fulfilled it, saying, From the day that I brought my people out of
the land of Egypt, I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build a
house, that my name might be there ; and I chose no man to be ruler over my
6 people Israel. And I chose Jerusalem, that my name might be there ; and I
7 chose David to be over my people Israel. And it was in the heart of David my
8 father to build a house to the name of the Lord God of Israel. And the Lord
said to David my father, Because it was in thy heart to build a house to my
9 name, thou hast done well that it was in thy heart. But thou shalt not build
the house ; but thy son, that cometh forth out of thy loins, he shall build to my
1 0 name. And the Lord hath established His word that He hath spoken ; and I
am risen up instead of David my father, and am set on the throne of Israel, as
the Lord hath spoken ; and I have built the house to the name of the Lord God
II of Israel. And there I have put the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord
that He made with the children of Israel.
3. Solomon's Prayer of Dedication : ch. vi. 12-42.
lii Ana ne stood before the altar of the Lord, before all the congregation of
CHAP. V. 2-VII. 10. 175
13 Israel, and spread forth his hands. For Solomon had made a scaffold of brass,
and set it in the midst of the [outer] court ; its length was five cubits, its breadth
five cubits, and its height three cubits ; and he stood upon it, and kneeled down
on his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands
14 towards heaven, And said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like Thee in
the heaven nor in the earth, who keepest the covenant and the mercy unto Thy
15 servants that walk before Thee with all their heart. Who hast kept with Thy
servant David that which Thou hast spoken to him ; and Thou speakest with Thy
16 mouth, and hast fulfilled it with Thy hand, as it is this day. And now, Lord
God of Israel, keep with Thy servant David my father that which Thou hast
spoken to him, saying, There shall not be cut off from thee a man in my sight to
sit upon the throne of Israel, only if thy sons take heed to their way to walk in
17 my law, as thou hast walked before me. And now, Lord God of Israel, let Thy
1 8 word be verified which Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant David. But will
God in truth dwell with men on the earth 1 Behold, heaven, and the heaven of
19 heavens, cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have built ! But
have respect unto the prayer of Thy servant, and to his supplication, 0 Lord my
God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which Thy servant prayeth before
20 Thee. That Thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, to the
place where Thou hast said that Thou wilt put Thy name ; to hearken unto the
21 prayer which Thy servant prayeth in this place. And hearken unto the suppli-
cation of Thy servant and of Thy people Israel, which they shall make in this
place, and hear Thou from Thy dwelling-place, from heaven ; yea, hear, and for-
22 give, If a man sin against his neighbours, and he lay on him an oath to make
23 him swear, and he enter into an oath before Thine altar in this house : Then
hear Thou from heaven, and do, and judge Thy servants, to requite the wicked,
and bring his way upon his own head ; and to justify the righteous, and give him
24 according to his righteousness. And if Thy people Israel be smitten before the
enemy, because they have sinned against Thee, and shall return and confess Thy
25 name, and pray and entreat before Thee in this house : Then hear Thou from
heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the
26 land which Thou gavest to them and to their fathers. When the heaven is shut
up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against Thee, and they pray in
this place, and confess Thy name, and turn from their sin, because Thou dost
27 humble them: Then hear Thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy servants
and of Thy people Israel, because Thou teachest them the good way in which
they should walk, and send rain upon the land which Thou hast given unto Thy
28 people for an inheritance. If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence,
blasting, or mildew, locust or waster ; if their enemies besiege them in the land
29 of their gates ; if there be any plague or sickness. Every prayer, every suppli-
cation that shall be made by any man or by all Thy people Israel, when they
shall know every man his own plague and his own pain, and shall spread his
30 hands to this house : Then hear Thou from heaven, Thy dwelling-place, and
forgive, and render unto every man according to all his ways, as Thou knowest
31 his heart ; for Thou alone knowest the heart of the sons of man. That they
may fear Thee to walk in Thy ways, all the days that they live on the ground
32 which Thou gavest to our fathers. And also to the stranger, who is not of Thy
people Israel, but cometh from a far country for sake of Thy great name and
Thy mighty hand, and Thy outstretched arm ; if they come and pray towards
33 this house : Then hear Thou 4 from the heaven, from Thy dwelling-place, and do
all that the stranger calleth to Thee for, that all peoples of the earth may know Thy
name, and fear Thee as Thy people Israel, and may know that Thy name is called
34 upon this house which I have built. If Thy people go out to war against their
enemies in the way that Thou shalt send them, and they pray unto Thee toward
this city which Thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built to Thy name :
35 Then hear Thou from the heaven their prayer and their supplication, and main-
36 tain their right. If tliey sin against Thee, for there is no man that sinneth not,
and Thou be angry with them, and give them up before their enemies, and their
:75
II. CHRONICLES.
37
38
39
captors take them to a far or near land. And they turn their heart in the land
in which they are captive, and turn and pray unto Thee in the land of theii
captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have been wrong and wicked. And
they return to Thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of
their captivity, whither they have taken them, and pray toward the land which
Thou gavest to their fathers, and the city which Thou hast chosen, and toward
the house which I have built to Thy name : Then hear Thou from the heaven,
from Thy dwelling-place, their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their
40 right, and forgive Thy people who have sinned against Thee. Now, my God,
let Thine eyes now be open, and Thine ears attent unto the prayer of this place.
41 And now arise, 0 Lord God, unto Thy rest, Thou and the ark of Thy strength :
let Thy priests, 0 Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let Thy saints be
42 glad for the good. 0 Lord God, turn not away the face of Thy anointed ; re-
member the mercies of David Thy servant.
4. The Divine Confirmation of the Dedication of the Temple: ch. vii. 1-10.
Ch. vii. 1. And when Solomon had ended [his] prayer, the fire came down from
heaven and consumed the burnt-offering and the sacrifices ; and the glory of the
2 Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord,
3 because the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. And all the sons
of Israel saw the fire come down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, and
they bowed down their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshipped and
4 praised the Lord ; for He is good ; for His mercy endureth for ever. And the
5 king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. And king Solomon
offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty
thousand sheep : and the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.
6 And the priests stood at their posts, and the Levites with instruments of song of
the Lord, which David the king had made, to thank the Lord, that His mercy
endureth for ever, when David praised by their hand ; and the priests blew the
7 trumpets 5 before them, and all Israel stood. And Solomon hallowed the middle
of the court that was before the house of the Lord ; for there he offered the
burnt-offerings and the fat of the peace-offerings : because the brazen altar which
Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt-offerings, and the meat-
8 offerings, and the fat. And Solomon kept the feast at that time seven days, and
all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from Hamath to the river of
9 Egypt. And they made on the eighth day a solemn assembly ; for they kept the
10 dedication of the altar seven days, aud the feast seven days. And in the twenty
and third day of the seventh month he sent away the people to their tents, glad
and merry in heart for the goodness that the Lord had shown to David, and to
Solomon, and to Israel his people.
1 Before Ds1?n is to be supplied *!, according to 1 Kings viii. 4.
2 p"lXn"}D appears to be an error of transcription for £Hj-)n~JD.
» Kethib: D^VVTO \ Keri: D'TVriD ', so Ter. 13 and ch. vii. 6. Comp. Exeg. Expl. on 1 Chron. XV. 24.
* nnNl, supported by all the witnesses, Bertheau, without reason, changes into fifiX (after 1 Kings viii. 48).
» Ken D^SriD, as above, ch. v. 12, 13.
fire from heaven is narrated (vii. 1-3 ; comp. the
similar account in the history of the census and
the plague, 1 Chron. xxi. 26 f.).
1. Removal of the Ark from Zion to the
Temple : ch. v. 2-14 ; comp. 1 Kings viii. 1-11
(and thereon, Bahr, Bibelw. vii. 72 fl'.). — Ver. 3.
In thefeast, which was the seventh month. Accord-
ing to 1 Kings, the statement : "in the month
Ethanim," appears to have fallen out before
these words, though also KHnn might he •
mistake for tf^na, "in the seventh month "-
EXEG^TICAL.
Pkei.iminaky Remabk. — The first three sec-
tions or acts of this account agree with the
parallel 1 Kings viii. , mostly to the letter ; only
a notice referring to the part of the priests,
Levites, and singers in the solemnity in vi. 11-13
is peculiar to our author. In the fourth section
(vii. 1-10) is found the more considerable devia-
tion, that instead of the blessing pronounced by
Solomon on the community of Israel (1 Kings
riii. 51-61), the consuming of the offerings by
CHAP. V. 5-VI. 42.
177
Ver. 6. The supplement of a i between Q'orDn
and 2,1?n(see Crit. Note) seems indispensable ;
' ' for even if Levitical priests bore the ark and
the holy vessels of the tabernacle into the temple,
yet it is certain that the tabernacle itself (its
boards, curtains, and coverings) was not con-
veyed by the priests, but only by the Levites,
into the temple to be preserved as sacred relics.
The copula i is perhaps left out only by a copyist,
who thought of Q^n D^POn, Josh. iii. 3 ; Deut.
xvii. 9, 18 " (Keil).— Ver. 10. The two tables
which Moses put into it at Horeb, properly,
"gave," |ro, as Ex. xl. 20. More clear and lull
is the parallel text 1 Kings viii. 9 : rVHn "It^N
Qti', "which he had put there." — Ver. 11. For
all the priests that were present had sanctified
themselves. These words begin the longer
parenthesis inserted by the Clironist in the
statement, 1 Kings viii. 10, concerning the
priests, Levites, and singers, which extends to
ver. 136. "That were present," literally, "that
were found" ; comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 17 ; Ezra
viii. 25. — Without observing the courses ; that is,
on account of the greatness of the solemnity, and
the multitude of persons required, the series of
exchanging courses of the priests (1 Chron. xxiv. )
could not be observed ; all the courses must
together sanctify themselves and co-operate. For
the construction "liDKv t'X, comp. 1 Chron.
xxiii. 26 ; Ew. § 321, b.— Ver. 12. All of them,
Asaph, etc., properly, "as to all, Asaph," etc. ;
the introductory p, as 1 Chron. v. 25 (see on
this passage). — Sounding with trumpets. For
D^li'SnD, see on 1 Chron. xv. 24 ; comp. also
the remarks on the temple musicians and their
instruments, 1 Chron. xv. 17-28. — Ver. 13. And
the trumpeters and singers were as one man,
literally, ' ' and it came to pass as one concern-
ing the trumpeters and singers (p, as before), that
they sounded loud with one voice." For the
construction jj'OK>nP DTI, comp. Ew. § 237, and
on the import of JPDB'n, 1 Chron. xv. 16. The
iriN Mp, "with one voice, " is properly redundant,
but is added to the ycffiib to strengthen the
notion already lying in inx, "one" of the
unisono of the trumpet sound, and the singing of
the many voices. — When they lifted up the voice,
literally, "and as the lifting of the voice";
comp. Ezra iii. 12, ix. 1. The words connect
iigain with ver. 11a, and so prepare for the con-
clusion, which, however, is formed by the last
words of the verse : Then the house was filled
with the cloud of the house of the Lord, the well-
known light-cloud (shechinah) dwelling in the
tabernacle since the time of Moses, the manifesta-
tion of the gracious presence of God in His cove-
nant sanctuary. For ver. 14, comp. 1 Kings viii.
11, and Bahr thereon.
2. Solomon praises the Lord on his Entrance
into the new temple : ch. vi. 1-11 ; agreeing
almost literally with 1 Kings viii. 12-21. — We
notice some of the never very important devia-
tions of our text. — On ver. 1, comp. Lev. xvi. 1.
— Ver. 2. And I, even I, have built, etc. Instead
°f TM3 'JXV with its emphatic accentuation of
the subject, 1 Kings viii. 13 gives W33 flla,
"I have surely built," etc. — Ver. 4. Blessed be
the Lord . . . who hath spoken with His mouth,
etc., a reference to 1 Chron. xi. 2, which promise,
is here repeated with great fulness, resting indeed
on the words of Nathan contained in 1 Chron.
xvii. 4-14, to which allusion is made, especially
from ver. 8. — Ver. 5. From the day that I
brought my people, etc. From this to ver. 7,
the speech of Solomon, compared with 1 Kings
viii. 16 f., appears enlarged, especially by the
sentences there wanting, ver. 56: "and I chose
no man to be ruler," etc., and ver. 6a: "and I
chose Jerusalem." — Ver. 11. And there I have
put the ark. Somewhat otherwise 1 Kings viii.
21 : "And I have set there a place for the ark "
(tilXri DlpD for the simple ;i-)$<n).
3. Solomon's Prayer of Consecration : vers.
12-42 ; except the introduction, ver. 13, and
the close, vers. 40-42, very closely agreeing with
1 Kings viii. 22-53. — Ver. 13. For Solomon had
made a scaffold of brass. This whole parenthesis,
with the notice concerning the brazen scaffold
(properly, "basin," "ii>3, pot-shaped elevation,
platform ; comp. Neh. ix. 4) in the court, is
wanting in 1 Kings ; whether omitted by an old
error of the transcriber, as Then, and Berth,
think, must remain doubtful. — Ver. 21. And
hear Thou from Thy dwelling-place, from heaven,
for which 1 Kings viii. 30 : " hear to Thy dwelling-
place, to heaven," perhaps by a mistake in copy-
ing.— Ver. 33. Then hear Thou, literally, "and
Thou hear " ; the 1 before HHS, introducing the
conclusion, is wanting in 1 Kings viii. 43, for
which reason Berth, would here also exclude it
from the text, contrary to all the mss. — Vers. 40-42
form a close of the speech of Solomon, deviating
greatly from 1 Kings viii. 50-53. Of the allusion
there to the deliverance of Israel, as the heritage
of the Lord, from the iron furnace of Egypt, and
of the promises given by Moses (vers. 51, 53),
there is here nothing. On the contrary, the
petition there : "Let Thine eyes be open," etc.
(ver. 52), is here notably enlarged and strength-
ened by the important summons : "Now, arise
. . . unto Thy rest, Thou and the ark of Thy
strength." This summons to the solemn and
formal taking possession of the temple, to which
the following narrative of the fire coming down
on the sacrifice corresponds, is justly declared by
Thenius to be original, and defended against the
assumption that it is an arbitrary addition made
by the Chronist (Berth., etc.) ; for, in consequence
of the absence of this summons to take possession
of the sanctuary, the point of the whole prayer
is wanting in 1 Kings viii., and the suspicion is
raised that there some lines have fallen out at the
end. Yet, in respect of form, our author, in his
rendering of the close of the prayer, might have
rested partly on other old documents, particularly
on Ps. cxxxii. 8-10, a passage which coincides
almost verbally with vers. 41, 42 (but possibly
also the Psalmist might have borrowed from the
original edition of Solomon's prayer, correctly
retained in our passage), and on Isa. lv. 3, where
"the mercies of David" occur, coinciding ver-
bally with our passage (ver. 426), and intended,
178
II. CHRONICLES.
indeed, in the same sense (denoting the Lord's
merciful dealings with David, not David's pious
deeds, as Keil thinks) ; comp. also Ps. lxxxix.
50. — And now arise, 0 Lord God, to Thy rust,
enter now the rest to which the throne of Thy
glory has attained. rM for ilJTOD. 011iy else"
where in Esth. ix. 16-18, and there in the form
piij ; comp. also Num. x. 36 : nh«3, as tnere is
here a significant accord with the words of Moses
referring to the setting out and resting of the ark
in the wilderness. — And let Thy saints be glad for
the good (3it33, as Job xx. 18 ; Ps. civ. 28).
The parallel Ps. cxxxii. 9 has here more briefly :
"and let Thy saints shout for joy" (133"!'' ior
31133 ^nDt:''1)- — Ver. 42. Turn not away the
face of Thine anointed, refuse not his prayer ;
comp. 1 Kings ii. 16. For the "mercies of
David," see above.
4. The Divine Confirmation of the Dedication
of the Temple : ch. vii. 1-10. The first part of
this section, vers. 1-3, is wanting in 1 Kings viii. ;
the second, except ver. 6, which is there wanting,
agrees almost verbally with 1 Kings viii. 62-66.
— And when Solomon. . . the fire came down from
heaven. Both this account of the descent of a
miraculous fire from heaven consuming the sacri-
fice, and that of the filling of the house with the
glory of the Lord, along with the adoring worship
of the whole community before God wonderfully
manifesting Himself, are peculiar to the Chronist.
In 1 Kings viii. 54-61, instead of this is found an
address of Solomon to the assembly, with the ex-
pression of thanks to God for His goodness to
Israel, and the petition for the further manifesta-
tion of His mercy and grace. The difference,
that our author relates something miraculous on
which the books of Kings are silent, is similar to
that in the history of the census and the pesti-
lence, 1 Chron. xxi. 26. Yet the earlier account of
the miraculous filling of the house with the glory
of God (v. 11-14^ is also found in the author of
] Kings viii. 10. Thus both narratives agree in
attesting a miraculous appearance at the temple
dedication ; but that of the older writer places
this wonder before the prayer of Solomon, without
placing a second miracle at the end of this prayer,
whereas the Chronist reports a twofold coming of
glory of the Lord, the first before the prayer, the
second after it, and connected with the consuming
of the offering by heavenly fire (or, as it may be
supposed, with Keil, consisting in this operation
of fire). Arbitrary reduplication of the miracle
that had already taken place according to the
oldest record and shaping of the supposed second
wonder according to the model from the Mosaic
time, Lev. ix. 23 f., are charged by modern
criticism (Then., Berth., Kamph., etc.) against
the Chronist or the younger narrative adopted by
him. But it may at least be assumed that the
tendency of the Chronist to the history of worship
was the occasion of his mentioning the second
wonder, whereas the author of the books of Kings,
in accordance with his attention to the history of
the kingdom, took less interest in this. It was
scarcely abhorrence of the miraculous, or preference
of the natural and conceivable, on the part of the
latter, that, led him to avoid the account of the
miraculous consuming of the offering ; comp. his
account of the col responding wonder m the history
of Elijah (I Kings xviii.), on which our authcr io
silent on other grounds ; and see, moreover,
Evangelical and Ethical Beflections after ch. ix.,
No. 3. — And consumed the burnt-offering and the
sacrifices, the offerings mentioned ch. v. 6, which
the king and the people had slain at the entrance
of the ark in the temple, and which were slain
during the prayer of dedication, but not yet
burnt" partly on the altar of burnt-offering, partly
on other altars erected specially for them in the
inner courts (ver. 7). — Ver. 3. And all the sons of
Israel saw the fire come down. So also in the
original fact of the Mosaic history, Lev. ix. 24.—
And they bowed down . . . on the pavement. For
this pavement (nSV"l) °r flooring in the court,
that we may not certainly conceive to be mosaic
work of ornamental variegated stone, as in the
Persian citadel at Susa, Esth. i. 6, comp. Ezek.
xl. 17, 18. — Vers. 4-10. The solemnities of sacri-
fice and festival, even to the addition concerning
the musical part in ver. 6, are described in exact
accordance with 1 Kings viii. 62 ff., even with
regard to the number of the victims offered. For
these great but not incredibly great numbers
(22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep), comp. partly
the remarks on the great feast at Hebron, 1 Chron.
xii. 39, partly the notice justly quoted by Berth,
from Josephus, De bello Jud. vi. 9. 3, according to
which, even in the Boman times, within a few
hours, 256,500 passover lambs were slain at Jeru-
salem. These colossal offerings and festivals
exceed our conception quite as much as the num-
bers attesting the magnitude of the present steam
or railway trade, or of the modern warfare, tran-
scend the imagination of the ancients. — Ver. 6.
And the priests stood at their posts, literally,
"watches"; comp. ch. viii. 14, xxxv. 2; the
Vnlg. rightly in substance: in ojjiciis sitis; to
suppose a standing of the priests accoj ling to
their divisions (Berth.) is unnecessary. -When
David praised by their hand, that is, (.securing
the song of praise arranged by David, so that he,
as it were, praised God by their musical perform-
ance. The Vulg. translate in substance correctly,
but somewhat freely: hymnos David canentes per
manus suas (similarly the Sept.). On the whole
verse, comp. the similar but somewhat more
diffuse notice of the co-operation of the priests
and Levites in the solemnity, ch. v. 11-13.—
Ver. 7. And Solomon hallowed the middle of the
court, " the court immediately before the temple
forming the middle of the sacred square " (Then.).
This whole inner space had Solomon formed as it
were into a great altar of sacrifice, on account of
the multitude of offerings to be presented. The
notice is plainly supplementary, on which account
t;'7jp»1 (with the l relat. of mere sequence o(
thought) may be rendered by the pluperfect.—
Ver. 8. And Solomon kept the feast at that time,
namely, the feast of tabernacles ; comp. Lev.
xxiii. 36; Num. xxix. 35 ff. On the now f<°'cw-
ing notes of time, and their greater clearness than
those of the parallel 1 Kings viii. 65 f. , see Bahr
on this passage. — Ver. 10. He sent away the
people to their t-ents, that is, their homes ;
comp. 1 Sam. xiii. 2 ; Ps. lxxviii. 55; and ch. x. 16
(1 Kings xii. 16). — For the goodness that the Lord
had shown to David and to Solomon, In 1 Kings
viii. 66, "and to Solomon " is wanting ; but the
arbitrary addition of this expression is not there-
fore to be charged on the Chronist (again st Th eniua).
CHAP. VII. 11-19.
179
I. Revelation of the Lord to Solomon on the Completion of the Temple and his House:
ch. vii. 11-22.
Ch. vii. 11. And Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house; and
in all that came into Solomon's heart to do in the house of the Lokd, and in his
12 own house, he succeeded. And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and
said to him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a
13 house of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven and there be no rain, or if I command
14 the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people. And my
people, on whom my name is called, humble themselves, and pray, and seek my
face, and turn from their wicked ways : then will I hear from heaven, and forgive
15 their sin, and heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent
16 to the prayer of this place. And now I have chosen and sanctified this house,
that my name may be there for ever ; and mine eyes and my heart shall be there
17 always. And thou, if thou walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do
according to all that I have commanded thee, and observe my statutes and my
18 judgments : Then will I establish the throne of thy kingdom, as I have
covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not be cut off from thee
19 a man to rule in Israel. But if ye [and yonr children]1 turn away, and forsake my
statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and go and serve
20 other gods, and worship them : Then will I pluck them out of my land which I
have given them ; and this house, which I have sanctified to my name, will I cast
21 out of my sight, and make it a proverb and a byword among all nations. And
this house, which was high,2 every passer-by shall be astonished at it, and he
22 shall say, Why hath the Lord done this unto this land and to this house ? And
they shall answer, Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who
brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and
worshipped them, and served them : therefore hath He brought all this evil upon
them.
DiTJ^ seems to have fallen ont after DAN, not merely according to 1 Kings ix. 6, tut according to the suffix
of the Sd per. in DTltJ>fl3 (and also OTV), ver. 20.
2 For pv#> which the Vulg. does not give, and the Pesch. and Arab, render by "desolation," D*aV (ruinse) appears
to have originally stood in the text; thus instead of |VPV nTT""iyX there was probably D*15!? PPiT, tuina fiet.
In the parallel text 1 Kings ix. 8, Indeed, ]iyV stands, and the Sept. renders our passage: xcti i oTxoe ovtos i
EXEGETICAL.
The parallel text 1 Kings ix. 1-9 agrees in
substance, but often not in words, with our
section ; in particular, the latter contains some
farther extensions and explanations of what is
there commanded, and a longer independent
addition, ver. 126-ver. 16a.
Ver. 115. — And all that came into Solomon's
heart. This is a paraphrase of "y& pC'rVPSTIKI.
"and all the desire of Solomon"; comp. also
for pg?n, desire, viii. 6.— Ver. 12. The Lord
appeared to Solomon by night. The addition :
" the second time, as He had appeared to him at
Gibeon, " 1 Kings ix. 2, is wanting here. On the
contrary, 1 Kings ix. wants all that follows from
" have chosen this place for myself " to " have
chosen and sanctified this house," ver. 16. — Ver.
13. If I shut up heaven and there be no rain ;
comp. vi. 26, 28, where, among other land plagues,
the three here mentioned, drought, locust, and
pestilence, are named. The twofold jn is here
equivalent to the DK, "if," appearing in the
third place ; comp. Isa. liv. 15 ; Jer. iii. 1 ; Job
xl. 23 ; and see our remark on the latter passage. —
Ver. 14. And my people . . . humble themselves.
Comp. vi. 33 ; Deut. xxviii. 10 ; Jer. xv. 16 ; on
ver. 15, comp. vi. 40 ; on ver. 16, comp. vi. 5,
6. — Ver. 17. And do according to all, literally,
" to do, " etc. The ) before pSii'V? is redundant,
and must apparently be erased according to
1 Kings ix. — -Ver. 18. As I have covenanted
with David thy father. ifTO without the object
JV"13 appears to be a mistake for.»JVT2n ; but
comp. v. 10. — There shall not be cut off from
thee a man to rule in Israel. For this in 1 Kings
ix. 5 is : . . . " a man on the throne of Israel."
Our ^{OE^D ^BAD seems to be an unintentional
variation of the text there, arising from a recollec-
tion of Mic. v. 1. — Ver. 19. But if ye turn amay.
For the necessary supplement of 03^31, "and
180 JI. CHRONICLES.
your children," comp. Crit. Note. — Ver. 20.
Tlien will I pluck them ; ETU (for the rP"On in
1 Kings ix. 7) in this sense also Deut. xxix.
27 ; 1 Kings xiv. 15. For the following : "cast-
ing oat" of God's sight, comp. Deut. ix. 17, Rev.
ii. 5 ; for a "proverb and a byword among all
all nations," Deut. xxviii. 37, Jer. xxiv. 9. —
Ver. 21. And this house, which was high. In
favour of tk> here probably necessary emenda-
tion Q«y iTTlS comp., besides the remark in tha
Crit. Note, Mic. iii. 12 ; Jer. xxvi. 18 ; Ps.
lxxix. 1. For the following: "every passei-by
shall be astonished," comp. Jer. xviii. 16, xix. 8.
— Why hath the Lord done this. For n!33
1 Kings has the more usual and intelligibla
c. The External Glory of Solomon's Kingdom, and his End.— Ch. viii., ix.
x. Solomon's Building, Serfs, Divine Worship, and Navigation : ch. viii.
Ch. viii. 1. And after the course of twenty years, in which Solomon built the house
2 of the Lord, and his own house. The cities which Huram had given to
Solomon, Solomon built, and caused the sons of Israel to dwell in them.
3, 4 And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah, and subdued it. And he built
Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the cities of stores which he had built in
5 Hamath. And he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether,
6 fenced cities, with walls, gates, and bars. And Baalath, and all the cities of
stores that Solomon had, and all the chariot-cities and cities of the riders,
and all the desire of Solomon which he desired to build in Jerusalem, and in
Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
7 All the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the
8 Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel. Of
their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel had
9 not consumed, these Solomon levied for serfs unto this da^. But of the sons
of Israel1 Solomon made none to be servants for his work ; but they were
soldiers, and captains of his knights,2 and captains of his chariots and riders.
10 And these were the chiefs of King Solomon's officers,3 even two hundred and
fifty, that bare rule over the people.
1 1 And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh from the city of David
unto the house that he had built for her : for he said, My wife shall not
dwell in the house of David king of Israel ; for the places are holy into
which the ark of God hath come.
1 2 Then Solomon offered burnt-offerings unto the Lord on the altar of the
13 Lord, which he had built before the porch. And by a daily rule, each day
he offered according to the command of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on
the new moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times a year, in the feast of
unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.
14 And he appointed, after the order of David his father, the courses of the
priests for their service, and the Levites for their charges, to praise and to
minister before the priests by a daily rule each day, and the porters in their
courses at every gate : for so was the command of David the man of God.
15 And they departed not from the command4 of the king to the priests and
16 Levites for all things and for the treasures. And all the work of Solomon
was prepared unto the day of the foundation of the house of the Lord, and
until it was finished : the house of the Lord was complete.
17 Then went Solomon to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth, on the sea-side in the
18 land of Edom. And Huram sent him by the hand of his servants, ships and
servants knowing the sea ; and they went with Solomon's servants to Ophir,
and fetched thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them
to King Solomon.
1 IB'K af'er ?N"IB^ ""J 3~ Jt3^ must apparently be erased, a9 it la wanting in some mss., and likewise in 1 Kingi
t*. 22.
» For VK*W nfc» is perhaps to be read, as 1 Kings ix., VB^E-"! Tnfc% " and his captains and his knighte."
• Ktthib: DWBH (comp 1 Chron. xviii. 13; 2 Chron. xtII. 2) ; Keri: D"QJ?3n (so 1 Kings ix. 28).
CHAP. VIII. 1-7.
181
* For rflVO some mss. have niVISD, though the construction with "HD by no means requires this change; comp.
Ew. § 282, a. As little is it necessary, on account of the Sept. and Vulg., which have the plur. (ivrt\&.s, mandatu
regit), to point JlteD-
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — Here brief notes and
aphoristic accounts, mostly referring to the ex-
ternal occasions and events of the reign of
Solomon, are put together, as in the parallel
1 Kings ix. 10-28, in such a way that they form
as it were a gleaning to the report of the chief
work of his reign, the building of the temple.
The order is in both places the same : 1. The
building or finishing of several cities ; 2. The
arrangement of the service for these buildings ;
3. The report of the dwelling assigned to the
daughter of the Egyptian king ; 4. Regulations
concerning sacrifice ; 5. Navigation to Ophir.
But the contents of these five paragraphs differ
much from one another in the two narratives,
especially the first relating to the building of the
cities (vers. 1-6 ; comp. 1 Kings ix. 10-19),
where it is clear that we have extracts, not
merely differing in the mode of selection from the
same sources, and aiding to complete each other,
but (with respect to one point at least) actually
contradicting one another ; see on vers. 1, 2.
1. Solomon's building of Cities : vers. 1-6. —
And after the course of twenty years, seven years
during which the temple was built, and thirteen
years during which the royal palace was built,
1 Kings vi. 38, vii. 1. With the same date the
statement in 1 Kings ix. 10 opens. — Ver. 2. The
cities which Huram had given to Solomon, Solo-
mon built, completed and fortified (comp. vers.
4, 5, and 1 Kings ix. 13). — And caused the sons
of Israel to dwell in them, transplanted Israelites
as colonists into them ; comp. 2 Kings xvii.
1 Kings ix. 10-13, deviating from the present
statement, speaks rather of twenty Israelitish
cities not far from Tyre (in "Galil") which
Solomon ceded or pledged to the Phoenician king,
to indemnify him for the building materials and
moneys received from him. These obviously
contradictory statements it has been attempted
to harmonize in two ways — 1. By the assumption
that Solomon first ceded the twenty cities to
Huram, who, however, because they were in bad
condition, or were little worth to him (comp.
1 Kings ix. 12 : "and they pleased him not;"
and ver. 13 : "he called them — contemptuously —
the land of Cabul"), restored them to him,
whereupon Solomon built them up (Josephus,
Antiq. viii. 5. 3; Seb. Schmidt, Starke, recently
Keil) ; 2. By the assumption that Solomon gave
Huram twenty Israelitish cities, for which the
latter gave him twenty Phoenician cities ; and the
author of 1 Kings speaks exclusively of the former
gift, but the Chronist only of the latter (Kimehi
and other Rabbis). The former of these two sup-
positions, for which there is some ground in 1
Kings ix. 12 f., is decidedly preferable. Yet
there is much to say for the assumption of
modern critics, that our passage contains a re-
modelling of the old statement in Kings in
favour of Solomon ; see Biihr on 1 Kings ix.—
Ver. 3. And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah, and
eubdued it, "prevailed over it" (^>JJ pin, as ch.
txvii. 5 ; "Dan. xi. 5). By Hamath-zobah is to
be understood, not a city Haraath in the land of
Zobah, but rather the land of Hamath not fai
from Zobah, the Syrian kingdom of Hamath
bordering on Zobah ; comp. ver. 4, from which
it is clear that a district or kingdom, not a city.
is meant, as in 1 Chron. xviii. 3, where (in the
designation of Hadadezer as " king of Zooah
towards Hamath") inversely the situation :t
Zobah is determined by that of the neighbouring
Hamath. For the designation of bordering, or
being in the immediate neighbourhood, by the
status constr. , comp. the connection often occur-
ring in Numbers and Joshua: "the Jordan of
Jericho" for "the Jordan by Jericho," Num.
xxii. 1, xxvi. 3, 63, xxxi. 12, xxxiii. 48, xxxv. 1,
xxxvi. 13, Josh. xiii. 32, etc., and above, 1
Chron. vi. 63 (which see). Moreover, the account
of the subjugation of Hamath by Solomon is
peculiar to our book. The fact, indeed, is pre-
supposed in 2 Kings xiv. 28, but is not directly
mentioned by the author of the books of Kings.
— And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all
the cities . . in Hamath, the latter obviously
to protect the borders of this newly- conquered
country against the hostile King Rezon of Zobah
(and more lately of Damascus) ; see 1 Kings xi.
23 ff. Tadmor or Palmyra, for only this cele-
brated old city of the wilderness can be meant by
the expressed addition "121133, appears here con-
nected with the kingdom of Hamath, or border-
ing on it, and made by Solomon to be a border
fortress of it. This notice also, so far at least as
Tadmor is concerned, is wanting in 1 Kings ix. ;
for the Tammor named there, among other cities
fortified by Solomon, ver. 18 (for which the Keri
puts iblfl)) appears rather to be a place in South
Palestine, perhaps identical with the Tamar men-
tioned Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28, the Ba/ixfi of
the Onomasticon of Eusebius, and the present
Kurnub ; comp. Movers, Chron. p. 210 ; Hitzig,
Oesch. p. 160 ; and Bahr on 1 Kings ix. 18.
There is no sufficient reason to doubt the truth
of the present statement of the Chronist regard-
ing Palmyra ; the whole old Oriental tradition
(even the Arabic legends in Schultens, Index
geogr. s.v. "ibln) testifies to it. — Ver. 5. And
he built Upper and Nether Beth-horon; comp. on
1 Chron. vii. 24, and for the second accusative
of the object liVD ,_iy> "fenced cities," ch. xi.
10, xiv. 6. — Ver. 6. And Baalath, and all the
cities of stores, cities for the collection of provi-
sions, magazine-cities, as in ver. 4 ; comp. ch.
xvii. 12, xxxii. 28, and Biihr on 1 Kings ix. 19.
Moreover, of the places here mentioned, Upper
Beth-horon is not named in 1 Kings ix. 15-18,
but, on the contrary, the here wanting Hazor,
Megiddo, and Gezer (ver. 15).
2. Arrangement of the Serfs : vers. 7-10 ; comp.
1 Kings ix. 20-23, where, however, as the super-
scription, ver. 15 : "and this is the mode of the
levy," shows, a closer connection of this section
with the previous statements regarding the build-
ings (vers. 15-19) subsists, whereas here the sec-
tion appears to follow the preceding one, without
182
II. CHRONICLES.
any connecting link. — Ver. 8. Of their sons who
were left after them in the land. )(p be fore
DrP23 must apparently be taken as the partitive
\o (some of their sons) ; but a hyperbaton may
also be assumed : -|g?K Dn\)3"|» for '3~|0 "tfc'N
(Keil). The jd is by no means to be expunged
because it is wanting in 1 Kings ix. 21 (against
Berth.). — Ver. 9. Bat of the sons of Israel Solo-
mon made none. On the probable spuriousness
of the -|j>'{{ before JJ-JJ x$, and on the perhaps
necessary alteration of the VB'vE' *"li?. "captains
of his knights," into "his captains and his
knights," see Grit. Notes. —Ver. 10. And these
were the chiefs of Kintj Solomon's officers. So
according to the Keri, coinciding with 1 Kings
ix. 23 ; the Kethib DM'SSf1 ,1tJ' would give the
sense: "chiefs of the overseers." The number
250 is confirmed by the Sept. and Vulg. in our
passage, whereas the same translators and
Josephus, in the parallel 1 Kings ix. 28, present
the higher number 550. The explanation of this
difference see on ch. ii. 17 ; in our passage only
the israelitish overseers or taskmasters, in 1 Kings
ix. 23 the Canaanitish also, are counted.
3. The Change of the Dwelling-place of the
Daughter of Pharaoh : ver. 11. — The daughter
<y Pharaoh. This is most probably the daughter
of Psusennes, the last king of the twenty-first
(Tanitie) dynasty. In 1 Kings ix. 24 this notice
is more easily introduced, as it is preceded by an
account of the marriage of Solomon with this
daughter of Pharaoh, 1 Kings iii. 1 f., which is
wholly wanting in Chronicles. — For he said, My
wife shall not dwell. This reason for the removal
of his wife is not found in 1 Kings ix. 24, yet, by
its allusion to the special sanctifying of the house
of David by the presence of the ark, it corresponds
with the mode of thought characteristic of the
Chronist. — Are holy, the places into which the
ark of the Lord came ; ntsn has here in some
sort a neuter. significance ; conip. Ew. § 318, 6.
The statement, 1 Kings ix. 24b, that at the time
of this transference of the daughter of Pharaoh
Solomon built Millo, is wholly wanting in our
passage, as not sufficiently important for the ten-
dency of our author.
4. Eegulations concerning Sacrifice : vers.
12-16 ; comp. 1 Kings ix. 25, where the corre-
sponding report appears in a considerably shorter
form. — Then Solomon offered burnt-offerings unto
the Lord. "Then," namely, after the building
of the temple was completed, and the dedication
finished. — On the altar of the Lord, which he had
built, on that which had been erected by him in
the new sanctuary, no longer on that before the
tabernacle in Gibeon, as formerly in the beginning
of his reign, ch. iii. 1. — Ver. 13. And by daily
rule eacli. day he offered, "and in the matter
of a day in the day to offer ; " the 1 before
-\2~\3 is explicative, "namely," and the 3 before
•yy7] is the so-called 3 essentia;: "consisting,
namely, in the daily, in that which is appointed
for every day," according to the law Lev. xxiii.
87. The infinitive n^JIi"6 stands in the later
usage for the infin. absol. (Ew. § 280, d) ; comp.
for example, 1 Chron. ix. 25, xiii. 4, xv. 2. — And
on the solemn feasts, three times a year, on the
three great festivals, which are then named in
order. — Ver. 14. And he appointed, after the
order of David his father, the courses of the
priests; comp. 1 Chron. xxiv. 25, 26, and for
the designation of David as "the man of God,"
Neh. xii. 24. — Ver. 15. And they departed not
from the command of the king. See the Crit
Note, and comp. for the second member, 1 Chron.
xxvi. 20-28. — Ver. 16. And all the work of
Solomon was prepared. |3nl, as in xxix. 25,
xxxv. 10, 16. What is meant here by rON^O
is shown by the following 'ui 1D1D, which may
be taken either (with Karnph.) as genitive de-
pending on Qvn, or (with Berth., Keil, etc. ) as
apposition to rQiOD. " unt° this day, namely,
the founding," etc. In the former case, which
appears to us preferable, for the construction with
-|y, perhaps Ezra viii. 29 might be compared. —
The house of the Lord was complete, set up in all
its parts, finished as a house of God. The notice,
which is found literally the same in 1 Kings ix.
25, is meant to denote, not perhaps the building,
but rather the fitting up and arrangement of the
temple for divine worship, as brought to final
completion. It cannot therefore be regarded
(with Berth.) as the subscription to all that
precedes from ch. i. 18, but closes only the pre-
sent paragraph referring to worship, which forms
a sort of appendix to the account of the temple
building.
5. The Navigation to Ophir : vers. 17, 18. —
Then went Solomon. Comp. 1 Kings ix. 26,
where the reference to this trade with Ophir,
otherwise agreeing pretty closely with our passage
(26-28), begins with the words : "And Solomon
made ships" (ntJ>J? ''JNI instead of the present
"pH tX)- By "then" our author transfers these
nautical undertakings in general to the second
half of the reign of Solomon, or the time after
the building of the temple and the palace. For
Ezion-geber and Eloth on the sea (1 Kings more
exactly : "Ezion-geber beside Eloth," and then,
"on the shore of the sea"), comp. the expositors
on 1 Kings ix. — Ver. 18. And Huram sent Mm
. . . ships. It is no more necessary to suppose a
transport of ships ready made across the isthmus
of Suez than a circumnavigation of Africa. The
assumption of a supply of timber for ships, and
of mariners, by the Phoenician king, is quite
sufficient ; and with this (which is defended by
Keil, Bahr, etc.) our passage appears to be not
contradictory to 1 Kings ix. 27. — And fetched
thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold.
According to 1 Kings ix. 28, the profit amounted
only to 420 talents, a difference which may be
explained either by assuming a change of the
numeral 3 into J, or » fault of memory on the
part of one of the two reporters (perhaps a round
number chosen by the Chronist). Moreover, it
appears to be not a single gain, but the sum total
of the gold gained in the repeated voyages to
Ophir that is here spoken of ; comp. ch. ix. 13.
Appendix.— It is necessary to go somewhat
fully into the question of the situation of Ophir,
CHAP. VIII.
183
on account of the many scientific memoirs recently
published on it, especially in geographical litera-
ture and travels (comp. our former brief remarks
on Job xxii. 24, and those of Bahr on 1 Kings
x. 22).
1. As Ezion-geber on the Red Sea is quite
definitely given, both in 2 Chron. viii. 17 f. and
1 Kings ix. 26-28, as the starting-point of the
voyages under Solomon to Ophir, and as Jeho-
shaphat's later attempt to renew this trade, 1
Kings xxii. 49, 2 Chron. xx. 35, was made from
the same port, all those conjectures concerning
the site of Ophir are to be accounted null that
place it anywhere west of Phoenicia and Palestine,
whether near the coast of the Mediterranean or
any of its bays, or beyond the Mediterranean, in
the region of the new world. This includes — a.
the opinions of Hardt, Calmet, Oldermann, of
whom the first sought Ophir in Phoenicia, the
second in Armenia, and the third in Iberia ; b.
the different hypotheses referring to certain
coasts, islands, or lands of America or Oceanica,
as the opinion of Columbus that the Ophir of
Solomon was rediscovered in the country of
Haiti ; that of the Spanish navigator Mendana,
under Philip n., who in 1567 designated a group
of islands, abounding in gold, and inhabited by
cannibals, east of New Guinea, which he took for
Ophir by the name of Solomon's Archipelago ;
that of Arias Montanus, Vatablus, Osiander, P.
Fr. Pfefft'lius, etc., who identified the gold
regions of Peru and Mexico first with Parvaim
(eh. iii. 6, Parvaim = Peruaim, double Peru, the
two Perus), and then also with Ophir ; that of
the French engineer Ouffroy de Thoron^in an
article in the Genevan journal Let Globe, 1869),
who thinks that the name Ophir is rather to be
found in the Japura, a branch of the Amazon,
and in accordance with this, transfers Parvaim
and Tarshish (ch. ix. 21) to Brazil ; and the
partly still more extravagant and uncritical
fancies of Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, George
Brown, in his Palclorama (German edit. Erl.
1867), etc. Comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, xiv. 353 ff. ;
Ausland 1872, No. 23, p. 532 ; Globus, vol.
xvii. p. 382 f., and vol. xxi. p. 244 ; and Pressel,
Art. "Ophir" in Herzog's lieal-Encycl. x. 656.
From the notices of Parvaim (ch. iii. 6) and
Tarshish (ch. ix. 21) in our book, not the least
hint can be drawn in favour of a western Ophir,
or of a western direction of the Ophir trade. For,
with regard to Parvaim, the single and quite
incidental mention of the gold of Parvaim leaves
room for all possible conjectures concerning the
import of the name, ' while yet an eastern situa-
tion for this gold country is in itself the most
1 It has been attempted tn identify Parvaim with Bar-
bara, or Pal'tiatia, a town standing, according to Plin. //
S. vi 32, on the Tigris (CasteJl. Lex heptagl. 3uii2); to affirm
it--=3epharv.iim, 2 Kings xvii. 24. on the one hand, and
= Siphron, Num. xxxiv. 8, on the other, and accordingly to
refer it to che gold-bearing Chrysorrhoas in Syria (Haren-
berg, Brem., and Verd. Bibl. ir. 44) ; to explain the name as
the Bame with Ophir, and identify the Parvaitn-Ophir either
with Peru (Arias Mont., etc. ; Bee abovt-) or with Taptobane,
now Ceylon (Bocliarr, Phaleg, ii. 27; Hall. Al.lg. Welthistorie,
iii. 413; and Starke, iSynops. on 2 Chron. iii. 6) ; or lastly, to
explain tile mime from the Indian, and so compare either
the Sanscr. purva, "before, eastern" tWUford in Asiat.
Researches, viii. 276: Gesen. Th. ii. 112-5), or paru, "moun-
tain "' ( Parvaim = ^tiv/jM tpri), as Hirzig on Dan x. 5, who,
however, transfers this double mountain to South Arabia.
Comp. aKo Leyrer'a (Art " Parvaim " in Herzog's Real.-
Encycl.) reference to the Paryadros range on the gold-bear-
ing Phasis in Colchis, as well as the combination of Knobel
preferred in the text.
probable (see on ch. iii. 6) ; and of all the con-
jectures regarding it, that of Knobel, in which he
combines the name with Sepharvaim = Sephar,
Gen. x. 30, and places it in the Joktanide South
Arabia, or Oman (Volkertaf. p. 161), has most in
its favour ; see No. 5. With regard to the ship?
of Solomon sailing to Tarshish, as ch. ix. 21
seems to affirm, this rests most probably on a
misunderstanding of the phrase : "ships of Tar-
shish " (see on the passage); and, accordingly, the
various hypotheses on the relation of Tarshish to
Opliir which have been invented (as that of
Michaelis, Spicileg. geogr. Hear. i. 98 ff.): that
Hiram's and Solomon's fleets sailed beyond Tar-
shisli, that is, beyond Spain, round Africa, as the
Phoenicians did 400 years later under Pharaoh
IS echo, but in the opposite direction, to Ophir in
the East Indies ; that of Weston in the Classic.
Joum. 1821, Sept., p. 17 f., and of Keil in the
Dorpat Contributions, 1833, ii. 240, and in his
earlier Comm. on the Books of Kings, 1846, p.
311, according to which the Ophir voyages pro-
ceeded from Ezion-geber, and the Tarshish or
Spanish voyages from Joppa ; that of Seetzen,
" Ueber Ophir" in Von Zach's Monallicher
Korrespondenz, xix. p. 331 ff., who, in 2 Chron.
ix. 21, finds a promontory Tarsis on the Kara-
manian coast of the Persian Gulf, which is men-
tioned in the old accounts concerning the Periplus
of Nearchus, and endeavours to render profable
his removal of Ophir to South Arabia), — are
wholly superfluous and groundless.
2. If the eastern situation of Ophir stand, we
may take the name first as a general designation
of all possible gold-yielding lands east of Pales-
tine, and therefore as an equally indefinite and
vague geographical notion with that of Kush in
Hebrew antiquity, Scythia among the Greeks,
India in the Middle Ages, or Tartary, the Levant,
etc., in modern times. But it is against this
indefinite and therefore very convenient assump-
tion of Jos. Acosta, Heeren, Hartmann, Tychsen,
and Zeune, that, according to all the notices ir.
history of the voyages to Ophir, this must have
been a definite country, or, in other words, that
the end of this voyage should, no more than
Ezion-geber its starting-point, be robbed of its
concrete import, and generalized into the inde-
finite.
3. Among the gold-producing coasts east of
Palestine, East India, in particular some province,
coast, or island of East India, appears to have a
specially high claim to identification with Ophir ;
for — 1. The name Opliir finds its most con-
venient meaning in Indian words or local names,
whether we combine the form usual in the Sept.
iwpiptii or 2ou$lp (also 2c*/$*ipa, 2a^fly«), as well as
the Coptic designation : Sophir, for India, with
the Sanscr. Supdra, "fair coast" (Lassen, Ind.
Alterthumskunde, i. 107), and with lovriipa. of
Ptolemy = OiSTwupa. in the Peripl. , or refer to
the pastoral tribe of the Abhira, between the
mouths of the Indus and the Gulf of Cambay.
2. Several of the commodities brought to Pales-
tine from Ophir, namely, the peacocks, apes, and
the almuggim or sandal-wood (see 2 Chron. ix. 10,
21, and comp. 1 Kings x. 12, 22), are specifically
Indian products, that seem to have been brought
only thence, and whose export from any non-
Indian emporium is scarcely conceivable. 3. The
names also of those imports seem capable of a spe-
cially easy explanation from the Indian language ;
184
II. CHRONICLES.
comp. with Q'Qp, "apes," the Sanscr. Kapi,
with CP3F1, peacocks, the Sanscr. Cikhi, Mala-
bar, toghei, with D^D^X or D^BSPK the Sanscr.
migu (valgum). 4. The length of the voyage,
■which, according to 2 Chron. ix. 21 (1 Kings x.
22), required so much time, that only once in
three years the fleet of Tarshish came and brought
gold and other costly wares of Ophir, appears to
indicate a country that was at least as far as East
India from the northern point of the Red Sea.
For these reasons, and partly also on account of
some old traditions pointing to India, for instance,
in.Iosephus, Antiq. viii. 6. 4, a number of eminent
scholars since Bochart (Phaleg, ii. 27 ff.), W.
Ouseley and Hadr. Reland (Dissert, miscel. No.
TV., de Ophir), of the moderns, especially Lassen
(Ind. Alterthumskunde), Ritter (Erdkunde, xiv.
346-431), and Kiepert (in the Xationalzeitung
1872, No. xlvi.), have declared themselves for
some coast of India as corresponding to the
ancient Ophir. — But several objections may be
made to these arguments: To 1. That suitable
coincidences of names or accordances with Ophir
are presented in East Africa and Arabia as well
as in those localities of India (see below); besides,
neither the region of Sufara or Supara (near Goa),
nor that of Abhira, south-east of the Delta of
Indus, is gold-producing, or even specially near
any gold district. To 2. That almug-wood, apes,
and peacocks, if really exclusive products of India
(what may be doubted with regard to the almug-
wood from 2 Chron. ii. 7, and cannot be asserted
respecting the apes), might very well be brought,
not directly from India, but from a port of Arabia,
or even East Africa, whither Indian or other ships
had carried them. To 3. That the etyma of the
names almuggini, kophim, and tukkiim are
Indian, as above quoted, is by no means indubit-
ably certain ; for in "almuggini," which does not
much resemble the Sanscr. valgu, tlK Arabic
article al- seems rather to be present. That □1>3n
i3 = the Malabar tdghai may be doubted on
strong philological grounds (see Rodiger in Gesen.
Thes. p. 1502); and apes might be called D'Sp,
from the Greek K*iTtf, xnfSos, which, according to
Aristot. Hist, animal ii. 8, Strabo, Plin., etc.,
designates an ..Ethiopian species of ape. More-
over, the latest Egyptology has found the latter
name (in the form hap, kaph, kaji) also on
the primeval Egyptian monuments, which renders
its Sanscrit origin altogether doubtful (see Diimi-
chen, Die Flotte einer egyptischen Kbnigin, 1868 ;
and comp. R. Rosier in the Ausland, 1872, p.
6481. To 4. That no weight is to be attached to
the length of the voyage, when we consider the
slow method of the ancients, especially of the
ancient sea voyages (comp. Odyss. xv. 454 ff. ) ;
and this argument might be urged as well in
favour of the southern East Africa; even the
defenders ef the hypotheses implying still farther
regions (see No. 1) might avail themselves of it.
4. If from all this the determination of the site
of Ophir in East India seems doubtful and pre-
carious, it fares little better with that which has
been further urged in favour of the East African
coast, especially Sofala, on the channel of Mozam-
bique (about 20° south lat.). Following the steps
A the Portuguese travellers of the 16th and 17th
centuries, as de Barros, Juan dos Santos, Th,
Lopez, Montesquieu, d'Anville, J. Bruce, Robert-
son in the last century, and recently Quatremere
(Mimoire sur le pays d'Ophir in the Mh, . de
I'Instit. roy. 1845, torn. xv. ii. p. 350 sq. ), Movers
(Die Phonizier, ii. 3, 58 ff.), the British geogra-
phers R. Murchison and J. Crawfurd, and recently
the eminent African traveller Karl Mauch, the
geographer Petermann partly approving his views
(see his Mitthe.ilungen, etc., 1S72, p. 4, p.
121 ff. ), also the director of missions, Wange-
mann (Kreuzzeitung of 30th Jan. 1872), and an
anonymous reporter in Ausland (1872, No.
10), have endeavoured to render probable the
identity of Sofala or some neighbouring South
African coast with Ophir. The chief grounds for
this view are : 1. To the name Ophir appears to
correspond, if not that of Sofala (which seems
rather to lead to n,>SK>, "lowland"), yet that of
a mountain Fura or Afura, with ancient, pro-
bably Phoenician, ruins, of which the Portuguese
were cognisant in the 16th and 17th centuries
(see dos Santos, ^Ethiopia orientalis, Evora 1609),
and which have been lately rediscovered by K.
Mauch, and have been with great probability
identified with the Zcmbabye or Zimbaoe of the
Portuguese, the Agysymba of Ptolemy. 2. The
wealth of East Africa in gold excels that of East
India, especially the East Indian coast ; and with
regard to the coast of Sofala and the ancient
Agysymba or Zimbaoe, its wealth in gob dust
and minerals is celebrated by antiquity. The
situation of the mountain Fura with the ruins
mentioned, dos Santos defines briefly as "in the
gold land " (tracto do ouro). 3. The wealth also
of East Africa in ivory (D^anjEJ, 2 Chron. ix. 21;
1 Kings x. 22) was much greater than that of
India ; apes also and precious stones the East
African emporia could certainly furnish in great
abundance. 4. The report of Ilerodotus iv. 42
concerning the circumnavigation of Africa by
Necho, proves that the Phoenicians were wont to
extend their voyages from the Red Sea far south-
ward along the east coast of Africa. 5. The rains
lately discovered again by Mauch of the ancient
Zimbaoe on the Fura or Afura mountains, with
their rough cyclopean stone walls built without
mortar, on an average fifteen feet thick and thirty
feet high (see the particulars in Manch's letters to
the missionaries Griitzner and Merensky in Peter-
mann as quoted, and in a recent letter of Mauch
to the African traveller Ed. Mohr, published in
the Weserzeitung , Dec. 1872), bear a very ancient
stamp ; the ornaments wrought on them point at
least to a time before the Portuguese and the
Arabs, and could apparently be derived only from
the Phoenicians or Jews, because numerous cedar
beams, employed apparently for ceilings, are found
in them, and also because one of the two dis-
covered buildings presents, as Mauch asserts, "an
imitation of Solomon's temple, a fortress and
house of God at the same time " (?). But none
of these reasons is decisive ; for in regard to — 1.
The etymology Ophir = Afura, Fura, h&r about
the same precarious value as the combination
with the Sanscr. Abhira ; Ofir or Ofar (Ofra; see
No. 5) of South Arabia has at leas as good a
claim to be taken for the biblical Ophir as that
region of inner Africa first named by recent
writers, which lies, moreover, 200 leagues land-
ward from the coast of Sofala. To 2. (Meal' traces
CHAP. VIII.
185
that the golden wealth of the region in question
was known to the Phoenicians or to the people
before the Christian era are still wanting. To 3.
Along with ivory, apes, etc., the often quoted
classical passages of the Old Testament name
also quite distinctly the non-African products,
peacocks and (probably) sandal- wood, as imported
by the traders of Solomon. To 4. The circum-
navigation of Africa under Necho proves nothing
for a much earlier period ; it is described by
Herodotus quite distinctly as something unheard
of, quite new and isolated ; and from Ptolemy and
the old geographers it is evident that the east
coast of Africa was known and accessible to the
ancients only as far as Prasum promont., the pre-
sent Cape Delgado, 10-11° south lat., and not
farther south. To 5. The existence of the ruins
of Zimbaoe before the Portuguese and Arabs, the
presence of cedar-wood (?), the supposed partial
resemblance to the construction of Solomon's
temple, by no means prove its Phoenician or
ancient Israelitish origin ; to establish this would
require much more exact and extensive investiga-
tions than those carried on by Mauch in his flying
visit of last vear (comp. also Petermann as quoted,
p. 125).
5. The greatest abundance of probabilities, but
certainly nothing more definite or decisive than
probabilities, li -s with those learned investigators
who seek Ophir somewhere in South Arabia, as
the Arabian geographers Edrisi and Abulfeda,
partly also Bochart, further Niebuhr, Seetzen (in
v. Zach as quoted), Volney, Gosselin, Vincent,
Rosenniuller, Gesenius, Ewald, Knobel ( Volker-
tafel, p. 190 f.), Hitzig (Gesch. Israels, p. 156 f.),
Bahr, and Keil (on 1 Kings x. 22), the English
geographer C. Beke, the French traveller Jos.
Halgvy, Pressel also (Art. " Ophir " in Herzog as
quoted), and Albr. Koscher (Ptolemaus und die
Handelsstrassen in Centralafrika, Gotha 1857),
the latter two with the peculiar modification that
they take an island near the coast of South Arabia,
perhaps Dahlak in the Red Sea (so especially
Roscher), or Socotora (so Pressel), for the proper
Ophir, whence Solomon's traders fetched the
various products mentioned. If now the latter as-
sumption, which rests on the report by Eupolemus,
in Euseb. Prcep. evang. ix. 30, of an " island
Urphe or Uphre " (Oiitynpt), situated in the
Erythraean Sea, rich in gold mines, and already
found by David, appears very precarious on ac-
count of the doubtful character of its voucher,
yet the following arguments, that are scarcely to
be invalidated, speak for South Arabia in general :
1 . In Gen. x. 29 occurs the name Ophir among
rhe Joktanite tribes of South Arabia, and signifi-
cantly indeed along with another tribe, that like-
wise bears the name of a gold land, Havilah (Gen.
ii. 11). 2. The Arabian geographer Edrisi knew
in the present Oman in the south-east of Arabia
no less than three places whose names accord
with Ophir — are, indeed, essentially like in sound,
namely — a. Ofar, two days' journey landwards from
Sohar, the present Sur ; b. Afir or Ghafir in El
Ahsa ; c. A Mount Ofir in Bahrein (see Edrisi in
Jaubert, i. 147, 152 ff.). 3. Many biblical passages
attest the great wealth in gold of South Arabia',
with special reference to Saba, situated in the
south-west, as the account of the queen of Sheba
in ch. ix. (1 Kings x.); Ps. lxxii. 15; Isa. Ix. 6;
Ezek. xxvii. 22 ; likewise more generally, without
special reference to the south-west, several classical
authors, as Strabo, xvi. pp. 777, 784 ; Diodorus, ii.
50, iii. 44, etc. (comp. Bochart, Phaleg, ii. 27).
4. The passages of Scripture testify in part that
Arabia was rich also in precious stones, especially
Isa. Ix. and Ezek. xxvii. ; and Strabo, as quotecf,
attests that it produced silver, at least in the
country of the Nabatajans. 5. The remaining
products named in ch. ix. 10, 21, and 1 Kings x."
12, 22, which might come only from India, or only
from Africa, as ivory, apes, peacocks, sandal-
wood, must be brought by Arabian and Indiiu
traders to the marts of Arabia Felix, as well to
the eastern (Oman, Ophir) as the western (Sheba)
part of the south coast, and thence again exchanged
into the Phoenician and Hebrew fleets. The high
antiquity, reaching far beyond the time of Solo-
mon, of such a trade through South AralSa of
Hither Asia, at least with India (therefore also
with Africa, especially with ^Ethiopia and Upper
Egypt), is attested in the surest and fullest manner ;
see Lassen, Ind. Alterthumsfainde, ii. 593-596 ;
Movers, Phoniz. ii. 3, pp. 247, 256. If accordingly
we are to seek Ophir with the greatest probability
in south-eastern Arabia, the present Oman, there
is still mueh that is obscure in reference to its
situation, its mines and metals, its ports, its
relation to the neighbouring Sabsea. More exact
investigations into the situation of the regions in
question, which Moslem fanaticism has almost
secluded from Europeans, and for the scientific
exploration of which important contributions
have been made only in recent times, by v. Wrede,
"W. Munzinger, Joseph Halevy, and H. v. Maltzan,
will alone yield authentic disclosures in this direc-
tion. Whether we are warranted in making so
sharp a separation of the Ophir of Gen. x. 29 as
a country belonging to Arabia, and of that of the
books of Kings and Chronicles as a region possibly
far removed from Arabia, as the French Vivien de
St. Martin declared to be necessary, against Jos.
Halevy in a session of the Paris Geographical
Society (comp. also F. v. Hellwald in the Ausland,
1872, No. 23, p. 536), appears doubtful. It is
difficult to produce exegetical grounds for such a
separation of the two Ophirs ; the juxtaposition
of that of Genesis besides a neighbouring Havilah,
without doubt also a gold - producing district,
appears to favour the opposite conclusion (see
above, 1 [and Introd. § 6]).
[To the note at the end of § 6, Introd., may be
added the following considerations: 1. It is ob-
vious that the voyage to Ophir, 1 Kings ix. 28,
x. 11, 2 Chron. viii. 18, ix. 10, in quest of gold,
almug-trees, and precious stones, was distinct
from that to Tarshish, 1 Kings x. 22, 2 Chron.
ix. 21, for gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks,
which was made in three years. 2. It is certain
that the former, and most probable that the latter,
voyage proceeded from Ezion-geber or Elath on the
eastern gulf of the Red Sea, 1 Kings ix. 26, xxii.
48; 2 Chron. viii. 17, xx. 36. In this way the
trade of Solomon did not interfere with that of
Hiram his ally, which proceeded directly from the
seaboard of Phoenicia. 3. Ships going to Tar-
shish, which was the longer voyage, might visit
Ophir by the way, 1 Kings xxii. 48; 2 Chron.
xx. 36. As Tarshish was of the line of Javan,
and belonged to the west, his country could only
be reached from the Red Sea by doubling the
Cape of Good Hope. This would account for the
three years spent on the voyage. It would also
favour the probability that Ophir »as to be found
186 II. CHRONICLES.
on the coast of the Red Sea, either in Arabia or
Africa, or both. 4. There are traces in Scripture
of the name of a country, especially if it be also
the name of the tribe, travelling with the tribe.
Thus Asshur, Havilah, Cush, Tarshish, and
Ophir may have changed their centre in the
course of ages. In particular, Ophir may have
had settlements on the east and west of the Red
Sea : and Tarshish may have ranged over the
south as well as the north of the Straits of
Gibraltar. Hence Solomon's traders may have
met with Tarshish even on the gold coast of
Africa, especially as the coast of this country was
particularly inviting to ancient mariners from its
slight indentations. As all this is possible, if
not probabh, we are not warranted in assuming
a contradiction, or even an inaccuracy, in the
report of the writer of Chronicles. — J. G. M."1
p. The Visit of the Queen ofSheha: ch. ix. 1-12.
Ch IX. 1. And the queen of Sheba heard the fame of Solomon, and she came to
prove Solomon with riddles to Jerusalem, with a very great company, and
camels bearing spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones ; and she
2 came to Solomon, and spake to him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon
answered her all her questions, and there was nothing hid from Solomon
3 that he answered her not. And the queen of Sheba saw the wisdom of
4- Solomon, and the house that he had built. And the meat for his table, and
the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their
apparel, and his cup-bearers, and their apparel, and his ascent' by which he
5 went up to the house of the Lord ; and there was no more spirit in her. And
she said to the king, True was the word that I heard in my land of thy affairs,
6 and of thy wisdom. And I believed not their words, until I came, and mine
eyes had seen ; and, behold, the half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not
7 told me : thou exceedest the fame that I heard. Happy are thy men, and
happy are these thy servants, who stand continually before thee, and hear thy
8 wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee
on His throne as king for the Lord thy God ; because thy God loved Israel,
to establish him for ever, and make thee king over them, to do judgment and
righteousness.
9 And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and spices
in great abundance, and precious stones ; and there was no such spice as that
10 which the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon. And also the servants of
Huram, and the servants of Solomon, who brought gold from Ophir, brought
11 sandal- wood and precious stones. And the king made of the sandal-wood
walks for the house of God and the king's house, and harps and psalteries for
12 singers : and none such were seen before in the land of Judah. And King
Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked,
besides that which she had brought unto the king ; and she turned, and went
away to her own land, she and her servants.
y. Solomon's Pomp, Riches, and Glory • vers. 13-28.
13 And the weight of the gold which came to Solomon in one year was six
14 hundred and sixty and six talents of gold. Besides that which chapmen2 and
merchants brought ; and all the kings of Arabia and governors of the country
15 brought gold and silver to Solomon. And King Solomon made two hundred
targets of beaten gold ; six hundred [shekels] of beaten gold laid he on one
16 target. And three hundred shields of beaten gold ; three hundred [shekels] of
gold laid he on one shield ; and the king put them in the house of the forest
17 of Lebanon. And the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with
18 pure gold. And there were six steps to the throne, and a footstool was
fastened to the throne with gold, and arms on each side of the seat, and two
19 lions stood beside the arms. And twelve lions stood there on the six steps
20 on each side ; the like was not made in any kingdom. And all the drinking
vessels of King Solomon were of gold, and all the vessels in the house of the
forest of Lebanon were of precious gold ; silver was of no account in the days
21 of Solomon. For the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of
Huram : once in three years came the ships of Tarshish, and brought gold
and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks.
CHAP. IX. 1-16.
18?
22 And King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the kings
23 of the earth. And all the kings of the earth sought the face of Solomon, to
24 hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart. And they brought each his
gift, vessels of silver and of gold, and garments, armour and spices, horses and
25 mules, a rate year by year. And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses
and chariots, and twelve thousand riders ; and he placed them in the chariot-
26 cities, and with the king at Jerusalem. And he was ruling over all kings
from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.
27 And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and he made the cedars as
28 the sycamores that are in the Shephelah for abundance. And they brought
horses to Solomon out of Egypt and out of all lands.
5. Close of the History of Solomon : vers. 29-31.
29 And the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in
the words of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite,
and in the visions of Iddi3 the seer, concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat 1
30, 31 And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. And Solomon
slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David his father ;
and Ttehoboam his son reigned in his stead.
' iJlvJM, "and his ascent, his stair," is exhibited by all the Hebrew mss.; whereas the old translations uniformly
ead, with the Heb. text, 1 Kings x. 5: ^rp'SV " aRd u*3 burnt-offerings, which he offered," etc.
» On the very divergent variants of the old translations of D'HRi! ,E>3N, see Exeg. Expl.
* Keihib ^W Keri TrW*. Doubtless the same prophet is meant who is elsewhere called fay (ch. xii. 15, xiil. 22).
KXEGETICAL.
On account of the mostly verbal agreement of
the first two of these three sections with 1 Kings
x., and of the last with 1 Kings xi. 41-43, we
have only to explain the peculiarities of the
present text. For the rest, the expositors of the
book of Kings are to be compared.
1. Visit of the Queen of Sheba : vers. 1-12 ;
comp. 1 Kings x. 1-13. — And the queen of Sheba
Iteard the fame of Solomon. The difficult addi-
tion to "the fame of Solomon" in 1 Kings :
" concerning the name of the Lord," is wanting
here, whether intentionally or by inadvertence is
doubtful. — Ver. 4. And his ascent by which he
went up. Whether, according to 1 Kings x. 5,
'Ml irv'yi, "and his burnt-offerings, which he
offered," is to be read here also with the old
translations (and Josephus, Antiq viii. 6. 5), it is
difficult to decide. Bahr takes our reading to be
original, and therefore to be restored in 1 Kings.
— And there was no more spirit in her, she was
beside herself ; comp. Josh. ii. 11, v. 1. — Ver. 6.
And I believed not their words; 1 Kings: "I
believed not the words." — The half of the great-
ness of thy wisdom was not told me. Slightly
different is the phrase in 1 Kings (see Bahr). On
rPZPD, "multitude, fulness," comp. 1 Chron.
xii. 29 ; 2 Chron. xxx. 18 ; Lev. xxv. 37.— Ver.
8. To set thee on His throne as king for the Lord.
More simply in 1 Kings : "To set thee on the
throne of Israel " ; as also, in that which im-
mediately follows, the circumstantial "to establish
him " 0TD5Jn?) is there wanting, and "for ever"
(D^Jw is attached as an adverb to "loved." —
Ver. 10. And also the servants of Huram, and
the servants of Solomon. In 1 Kings more briefly :
" and also the ships of Hiram." For the then
mentioned algum or sandal-wood, see on ch. ii.
7, and the excursus after ch. viii., No. 3. — Ver.
11. And the king made . . . walks, not "stairs"
(Luther) or "seats" (Thenius, after the Pesch. ),
but raised walks, pavements, so that these
ni?DD °f °nr text are essentially the same with
the 1JJDD °f 1 Kings (explained by Easchi as
!1D^"I> tesselated pavement). — Ver. 12. Besides
that which she had brought to the king, besides
the gifts in return (equivalents) for that which
was presented by her, but more clearly in 1 Kings
x. 13. The emendation of Bertheau : N'OD -|B>tf
p6 for "^K n^an IK'S, is unnecessary ; the
rendering of the Vulg. : et multo plura quam
attulerat ad eum, is inexact and extravagant.
2. Solomon's Riches, Pomp, and Glory : vers.
13-28 ; comp. 1 Kings x. 14-22. — Besides that
which the chapmen and merchants brought,
literally, " irrespective of the chapmen . . .
bringing " (who brought). D'nrin 'BON ai'e
properly spies (Num. xiv. 6, xxxiv. 2), here
spying, travelling about for trade ; this phrase,
substantially agreeing with the following D'Hnb
(Gen. xxiii. 16), was not understood by the old
translators ; hence the Vulg. has legati diversarum
gentium (followed by Berth, and Bahr, 1 Kings
x. 15 : envoys), the Sept. : nXviv tZ* avdpuv ™i
'wrtTt.Tu.yiiuuv ; Syr. and Arab.: "besides the
tribute of the cities" (D^iyri for Dniin, and
perhaps DDSD for TOKO)-— Ver. 16. Three
hundred (shekels) of gold laid he on one shield. For
188
II. CHRONICLES.
ttis 1 Kings x. 17 has "three pounds of gold to
one shield," merely a. verbal difference, as the
mina contains a hundred shekels. — Ver. 18. And
a footstool fastened to the throne with gold. The
participle DVnKD, "fastened" (or "enclosed"),
refers to the two preceding objects, the steps and
the footstool. It is certainly not impossible that
originally VnHND riBJf? ^1JJ? tPKTl. "and the
top of the throne was round from behind," as in
1 Kings x. 19, stood in the text ; comp. Thenius
and Berth. —Ver. 21. For the king's ships went
to Tarshish. It is most obvious to regard
£"t£nn rfD^'n r\WH as a mistaken paraphrase
of the original and usual phrase, found also
in 1 Kings x. 22 : g^ann T\WH, " Tarshish-
traders " (comp. our East-Indiamen), and thus
not find in our passage an actual testimony for
voyages of Solomon to Tartessus by the Red Sea
(comp. Introd. § 6, No. 5, and the excursus at
the end of ch. viii. , No. 1). The mistake which
is here made by the Chronist standing far away
from the events, appears precisely similar to that
which occurs in ch. ii. 7 of our book, relative to
the algum-trees to be sent from Lebanon, which
Solomon desired of Huram (see on this passage).
Only if we might understand (with Quatremere,
Seetzen, etc. ; comp. the excursus on Ophir, No.
1) by Tarshish a place different from Tartessus,
or Spain, situated eastward, as the promontory
Tarsi* in the Persian Gulf, which Nearchus
doubled with the fleet of Alexander (comp. the
supposed Tafirii; mentioned by Arrian, Ind. 37.
9), may the charge of an error be removed from
our author (to which also Petermann seems
inclined in his Geogr. Mittheilungen, 1872, iv.
p. 126). For the other statements of our verse,
see the excursus on ch. viii. already quoted. —
Ver. 25. And Solomon had four thousand stalls
for horses. The numerous deviations now follow-
ing to the close of the section (ver. 28) from
1 Kings x. 26-29, are explained by this, that our
author had already introduced, ch. i. 14-17, an
account of Solomon's chariots, horses, and horse-
trading with Egypt (see on this passage), for
which reason in the present place he partly con-
trasts (especially ver. 28) that which refers to these
things, and partly completes it by reports from
1 Kings v. 1, 6 ; comp. Bahr on these passages.
3. Close of the History of Solomon : vers.
29-31; comp. 1 Kings xi. 41-43, where, however,
instead of the three sources named by our author,
ver. 29, reference is made merely to the " book
of the history of Solomon." For ver. 29 f., see
Introd. § 5, II. — Ver. 30. And Solomon reigned
. . . forty years. Instead of forty years, Hitzig
(Oesch. des V. Isr. pp. 10 and 161 f. ) claims 60
years for the reign of Solomon, because Josephus
assigns to the very youthful king, who came to
the throne at the age of not more than 20 years
(comp. 1 Kings iii. 7), an age of 80 or even 94
years (Antiq. viii. 7. 8). But that the reports of
Josephus concerning the reign of Solomon are
contused and self- contradictory, has been shown
by Bengel, Ordo temp. p. 95, who has also
correctly harmonized the 41 years of Kehoboam
when he ascended the throne with the 40 years
of the reign of Solomon attested by our passage
and 1 Kings xi. 42 ; comp. Winer, Realworterb.,
lit. "Salumo, " p. 365.
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS, APOLO-
GETIC AND HOMILETIC THOrGHTS, ON CI*.
I. -IX.
The statement of the Chronist does not differ
quite so much from the history of Solomon in
1 Kings 1-1 1 in its compass and arrangement, as
his statement of the history of David from its
older parallel in the books of Samuel ; in particu-
lar, he has not found it necessary in Solomon to
go over a previous history of so great weight as
that of David in 1 Samuel ; and therefore so im-
portant insertions and expansions in the inner
and religious side of the reign of Solomon were
not requisite as in that of David. Yet the form
given by him to the history of Solomon's reign
deviates from that in 1 Kings, in a way that is
characteristic of his theocratic position andprap
matism, in which recurs all that peculiarity
which distinguishes his conception and treatment
of the history of David.
1. The Levitico-religious element comes out
very strong, partly in those brief insertions con-
cerning the co-operation of the priests, Levites,
and singers in the festivals, as ch. v. 11-13
(1 Kings viii. 10), viii. 12-16 (1 Kings ix. 25),
partly in the fact that our author transfers from
the old statement into his own all that serves to
signalize the external pomp and glory of Solomon's
reign, but not likewise all that relates to his
wisdom. Thus we miss in him the narrative of
the wise sentence concerning the two contending
mothers (1 Kings iii. 16-28\ and the description
of his wisdom and learning, surpassing all the sons
of the east, and all the wise men of Egypt, dis-
playing itself in thousands of proverbs and songs
(1 Kings v. 9-14) ; whereas of that which serves
to characterize his great pomp and might, irre-
spective of the list of his court- officers and twelve
princes, 1 Kings iv. 1-20, not only is nothing
omitted, but some things ' appear purposely
enhanced by the omission of less favourable
trials and circumstances ; in particular, the
account of the cities received from Huram of
Tyre, ch. viii. 1 f. (see oh the passage). It is
therefore not so much Solomon the incompar-
ably wise as Solomon the incomparably glorious
theocratic ruler whose picture he wished to draw.
The glory, especially that which displays itself
in the rich unfolding of the religious life (comp.
Matt. vi. 29), forms the chief immediate object
of his representation, notthe wisdom, that other
quality of the great king set forth as pre-emi-
nently wonderful in the words of Jesus (comp.
Matt. xii. 42).
2. That, from the effort to glorify Solomon as
much as possible, some facts of his history ad-
verse to this end have been designedly omitted by
our author, is evident partly from his proceeding
in the same way in the history of David, and
partly from the comparison of his narrative with
that of the book of Kings. Neither the par-
ticulars of Solomon's ascending the throne and
beginning his reign, of which those relating to
the removal of three evil-doers — Adonijah, Joab,
and Shimei — would have cast a less favourable
light on his character (see 1 Kings ii. ), are related
by him, nor is anything mentioned of the even-
ing of his life, disturbed on the one hand by in-
tercourse with idolatrous wives (1 Kings xi. 1-13),
and on the other by unfortunate wars and re-
bellions (by Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam). Not
CHAP. I.-IX.
189
as if the charge of dishonest colouring or violent
suppression of the truth could be made against
our author on account of those, omissions. He
betrays, on many occasions, with sufficient clear-
ness, his acquaintance with the omitted facts.
As he had alluded (1 Chron. xxix. 24) to the
suppression and punishment of the rebellion of
Adonijah at the close of his history of David, so
he betrays his knowledge of the revolt of Jero-
boam in the closing remark of the present section
(ix. 29); alludes a little bel'ore to the conflicts with
liczon and Hadad (viii. 4 ; see on the passage) ;
indicates, by the manner in which he mentions
the Egyptian king's daughter, his acquaintance
with the corrupt influence of foreign wives during
Solomon's reign ; and afterwards, in the introduc-
tion of his history of Rehoboam (x. 3 f.), he does
not ignore the account given in the book of
Kings of the murmuring of the people dissatisfied
with his severity and partial misgovernment. In
short, that his reign did not altogether warrant
the name Shelomoh (peaceful, prince of peace),
that its splendour in a religious and moral respect
was tarnished by many dark spots, and hence
the heavy judgments (ch. vii. 19-22) that were
pronouueed by God on him and his descendants
began already to take partial effect — all this ap-
pears by no means unknown to our author.
Already the names of the three prophets whom
he quotes, ch. ix. , a3 guarantees for his statement,
are a sufficient security that to him was imparted
a knowledge of those facts that form, as it were,
the dark side of the otherwise so splendid appear-
ance of the wise and glorious prince, in no less
fulness than to the author of the book of Kings
(who, on his part, does not expressly mention
these prophetic vouchers), but that it did not lie
in his plan to add certain dark parts to the bright
and glowing picture of Solomon's glorious king-
dom, the like of which no king over Israel had
had (1 Chron. xxix. 25). It may be that, if
Solomon's fall into lust and idolatry had been
ascertained and credibly reported to him as a
transient darkening of his life-path, from which
he at length recovered in genuine repentance, he
would not have passed in silence over that sad
blot on his fame, but would have given to his
history such a close as that of Manasseh (xxxiii.
1-20). But he certainly had not found in his
sources any more trace than the author of Kings
of such closing repentance of the deeply fallen
prince.1 He therefore preferred to oast the
mantle of silence over the last times of the
prince whom it was now his concern to paint
as the ideal of that theocratic glory (2»|«, Matt,
vi. 29) long before his time become proverbial
among the people.
3. The statement of the Chronist would then
only deserve the reproach of historical untrust-
wcrthiness, if in an intrinsically incredible direc-
tion it departed far from that of the parallel
account, and exhibited from beginning to end a
greater number of legendary exaggerations of
that which is there related into the miraculous.
1 See in general, against this hypothesis, which might
find support at most in the of itself quire problematical and
little probable composition by Solomon of the book Coheleth
(and in this view has recently been defended by Bernh.
Scliafer in his Nemtn Untersuchwigen Uberdas Buch Koheleth,
Freiburg 1870, and by Mart. Stier in Jdhrg 1870, part iil. of
the Zeitscnri/t filr luth. Theologie und Sirche), Hengscen-
berg, Oesch. des fteiches O-ttes im Allen Bunde, iii. p. 143,
ind Biihr in vol. vi of the Bibelw. p. 108 ff.
But of such propensity to apocryphal legendary
distortion of his materials no trace is to be dis-
covered in our author. The partial deviations in
his numbers from those of the older parallel text
are by no means to be regarded as exaggerations
of smaller proportions there given ; they rest
often on purely external and accidental corrup-
tions of the text (as, for example, ch. viii. 18, the
450 talents of gold from Opliir, instead of the
420 of the book of Kings ; and ch. iii. 4, the 120
cubits height of the porch of the temple), or run
out into mere apparent contradictions and mis-
understandings (as, for example, with regard to
the quantities of provisions for the woodmen, ch.
ii. 9, and the number of overseers ; see on ch. ii.
17 and viii. 10) ; and in several decisive cases,
where a later exaggerator would have found
special occasion for excess, he agrees to the letter
with the author of 1 Kings, as in the 22,000
oxen and 120,000 sheep at the dedication of the
temple (ch. vii. 5), in the determination of the
yearly revenue of Solomon at 666 talents of gold
(eh. ix. 13), etc. And elsewhere, that which at
first sight looks like an historical exaggeration,
reduces itself mostly to misunderstood or, if we
will, inadequate expressions of the later historian,
who is far removed from the events described, as
in the cases mentioned in ch. ii. 7, ix. 21, per-
haps also viii. 1, 2. The sole important event of
a miraculous character with which the Chronist
has enlarged the history of Solomon, compared
with that in the book of Kings, is that which he
records, ch. vii. 1-3, of the consecration of the
sacrifice in the new temple by fire from heaven,
a fact which he has handed down in bis repre-
sentation of the history of David, in a passage
where the older narrative has nothing of the kind
(1 Chron. xxi. 26). Suspicion is excited here
partly by the position of the fact after Solomon's
long prayer of dedication, whereas the entrance of
the glory of the Lord into the new house of God
was placed before it (as also in 1 Kings), partly
by the complete silence of the older reporter con-
cerning the second miracle, in place of which he
introduces an address of Solomon to the assembled
people (1 Kings viii. 55-61). But as the separa-
tion of the probably single miraculous fact into
two acts does not appear inexplicable in the
magnitude and strongly evangelical import of the
whole scene in question (let us bear in mind also
the uncommonly great number of the sacrifices
offered on the numerous altars occupying the
whole inner court ; see on ch. vii. 7), so the silence
of the author of 1 Kings concerning a miracle
of surpassingly religious (Levitical and priestly)
interest cannot be deemed strange or unaccount-
able, if we properly weigh the prominently
theocratic and prophetic interest by which this
older writer is influenced; comp. Keil, p. 247:
"To communicate this speech of Solomon (1
Kings viii. 55 ff.) to the people quite accords
with the plan of the book of Kings, in which
the prophetical aspect of the realization of the
divine counsel of grace, by the doing and suffer-
ing of the kings, prevails ; whereas the more
minute entering into the history of worship was
remote from his plan. The mention of the fire
which consumed the sacrifices we should consider
warranted in the book of Kings, only if the
temple had been thereby consecrated for th«
abode of the divine gracious presence, or for a
sanctuary of the Lord. But the consuming of
190 II. CHRONICLES.
the victim by divine fire had not this import, heaven, was so important a matter, that it could
Jehovah consecrated the temple for the dwelling- not be omitted, whereas the blessing pronounced
place of His name, for the seat of his gracious by Solomon on the people, as already contained
presence, only, in this way, that in the introduction implicite in the prayer of consecration, did not
of the ark into the most holy place He manifested seem so important as to be admitted into his
his presence by the cloud filling the sanctuary. |work."
The consuming of the sacrifice on the altar by i 4. On Solomon's great wealth, as it is re-
fire from heaven was thi confirmatory sign only peatedly described, especially ch. i. 14 ff. and ix.
for this, that He who sat on the mercy-seat in the 13 ff., Bengel (on ch. ix. 27) makes the striking
temple will graciously accept the offerings to be remark : " It is strange how soon so much can
made on the altar of this temple ; and, as the be accumulated and again vanish away ! Men
people could only approach the Lord before the ; could not endure it if it were always so ; they
altar with sacrifice, a confirmation for the people
that He from His throne will apply His covenant
grace to those who present their offerings before
Him ; comp. Lev. ix. 23 f. For the plan of the
would wander from God, and be distracted by the
creatures ; as Solomon himself did not long act
well. He had the benefit of David as his father ;
he had gone through tribulation, whereas Solo-
author of Chronicles, namely, to depict exactly ;mon entered at once on possession! That is a
the glory of the worship of the past, this divine i weighty difference." Comp., with regard to
confirmation of the sacrificial worship, that was ' homiletic hints, on the history of Solomon, the
to be continually performed in the temple as the copious remarks of Bahr on 1 Kings i. 11
onlv legitimate place of worship, by fire from (Bibelw. vol. vii.).
8. THE KINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH FROM REHOBOAM TO ZEDEKIAH.—
Ch. x.-xxxvi
a. Rehoboam. The Prophet Shemaiah. — Ch. x.-xii.
a.. Revolt of the Ten Tribes from the House of David: ch. x. 1-xi. 4.
Ch. X. I. Ami Eehoboam went to Shechem : for to Shechem was all Israel come to
2 make him king. And when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard it, and he in
Egypt, whither he had fled from the presence of Solomon the king, then
3 Jeroboam returned out of Egypt. And they sent and called him : and Jero-
4 boam and all Israel came ; and they spako to Rehoboam, saying, Thy father
made our yoke grievous : and now ease thou the grievous service of thy father,
5 and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee. And
he said unto them, Yet three days hence return unto me : and the people
departed.
6 And King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders that stood before
Solomon his father when he was living, saying, How do you advise me to
7 return answer to this people. And they spake unto him, saying, If thou be
kind to this people, and please them, and speak good words to them, they
8 will serve thee all thy days. And he forsook the counsel of the old men
which they gave, and took counsel of the young men that grew up with him,
9 who stood before him. And he said unto them, What do ye advise, that we
may return answer to this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Ease thou
10 the yoke which thy father put upon us 1 And the young men that grew up
with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou say unto the people that
spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but do thou ease
our yoke : thus shalt thou say to them, My little finger is thicker than my
11 lathers thighs And now my father laid a heavy yoke upon you, but I will
add to your yoke : my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise
you witn scorpions.
\l *u l"d Jei\oboal? and a11 the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as
13 the king had spoken, saying, Come again to me on the third day. And the
, a img ,a?swered them roughly : and King Rehoboam forsook the counsel of
14 the old men. And he spake to them after the counsel of the young men,
saying, My father made your yoke heavy,1 but I will add thereto : my father
15 chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. And the
king hearkened not to the people ; for the cause was of God, that the LORD
might accomplish His word, which He spake, by Ahijah of Shiloh to Jeroboam
16 the son of Nebat. And all Israel saw" that the king hearkened not unto
CHAP. X.-XII. 191
them: the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David?
We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse ; every man to your tents, 0
Israel : now look to thy house, David. And all Israel went to his tents.
17 And the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah, Eehoboam reigned
18 over them. And King Rehoboam sent Hadoram,3 who was over the socage;
and the sons of Israel stoned him with stones, that he died : and King
19 Eehoboam hastened to get up into his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. And
Israel revolted from the house of David unto this day.
Oh XI. 1. And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, and assembled the house of Judah
and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to fight with
2 Israel, to bring back the kingdom to Rehoboam. And the word of the Lord
3 came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam son of
Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying,
4 Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not go up, nor fight with your brethren : return
every man to his house ; for this thing is come from me : and they hearkened
to the words of the Lord, and returned from going against Jeroboam.
/3. Reign of Rehoboam: ch. xi. 5-xii. 16.
5 And Rehoboam dwelt in Jerusalem, and built cities for defence in Judah.
6, 7 And he built Bethlehem, and Etam, and Tekoa. And Beth-zur, and Socho,
8, 9 and Adullam. And Gath, and Mareshah, and Ziph. And Adoraim, and
10 Lachish, and Azekah. And Zorah, and Ajalon, and Hebron, which are in
11 Judah and Benjamin, fenced cities. And he fortified the strongholds, and put
12 captains in them, and stores of food, and oil, and wine. And in every severa1.
city shields and spears, and made them very strong : and he had Judah and
Benjamin.
13 And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him
14 out of all their border. For the Levites left their suburbs, and their posses-
sion, and came to Judah and Jerusalem : for Jeroboam and his sons had cast
15 them off from executing the priest's office unto the Lord. And he ordained
him priests for the high places, and for the he-goats, and for the calves which
16 he made. And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their
heart to seek the Lord God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the
17 Lord God of their fathers. And they strengthened the kingdom of Judah,
and upheld Rehoboam son of Solomon three years ; for they walked three
years in the way of David and Solomon.
18 And Rehoboam took him to wife Mahalath, daughter4 of Jerimoth son of
19 David, and of Abihail* daughter of Eliab son of Jesse. And she bare him
20 sons : Jeush, and Shemariah, and Zaham. And after her he took Maachah
daughter of Absalom, and she bare him Abijah, and Attai, and Ziza, and
21 Shelomith. And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom more
than all his wives and concubines : for he took eighteen wives and sixty8
22 concubines ; and begat twenty and eight sons, and sixty daughters. And
Rehoboam made Abijah son of Maachah the chief, to be ruler over his
23 brethren : for he thought to make him king. And he dealt wisely, and
distributed of all his sons in all the countries of Judah and Benjamin, unto
all fenced cities ; and gave them victual in abundance : and he desired for
them many wives.
Ch. xii. 1. And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and
strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with
2 him. And it came to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak
king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed
3 against the LORD. With twelve hundred chariots, and sixty thousand riders :
and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt ;
4 Lubites, Succites, and Cushites. And he took the fenced cities which per-
5 tained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem. And Shemaiah the prophet came
to Rehoboam, and the princes of Judah that were gathered into Jerusalem
192
II. CHRONICLES.
before Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Ye have forsaken
6 me, and I also have forsaken you in the hand of Shishak. And the princes
of Israel and the king humbled themselves, and said, The Lord is righteous.
7 And when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the
Lord came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves ; I will not
destroy them, but I will soon grant them deliverance ; and my wrath shall
8 not be poured out upon Jerusalem by Shishak. But they shall be his
servants : that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms
of the lands.
& And Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took the
treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house ; he
took the whole ; and he took the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
10 And instead of them King Eehoboam made shields of brass, and committed
them into the hand of the captains of the runners, who kept the entrance of
11 the king's house. And when the king entered into the house of the Lord,
the runners came and carried them, and brought them again into the chamber
12 of the runners. And when he humbled himself, the anger of the Lord turned
from him, and he would not destroy him altogether : and in Judah also there
were good things.
13 And King Eehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned ; for
Eehoboam was forty and one years old when he became king, and he reigned
seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen to put His
name there out of all the tribes of Israel : and his mother's name was Naamah
14 the Ammonitess. And he did evil; for he did not direct his heart to seek
the Lord.
15 And the acts of Eehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the
words of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer for the register ? and
16 the wars of Eehoboam and Jeroboam were continual. And Eehoboam slept
with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David : and Abijah reigned
in his stead.
1 For TIDn "OK, " my father made heavy " (so also 1 Kings xii. 14), the best stss. and some old prints (1 Soncin.f
Complut.): "P3DX "OK, "I will make heavy" your yoke, and will now add to it. Nordi, Berth., etc., give the latter
reading the preference.
^N1 is certainly warning in most Mss., in the old translations (Sept., Vulg, Chald., though not Syr. and Arab.), and
in the older polyglots, but can scarcely be spared.
3 For DTin 1 Kings xii. 18 presents D11S (comp. 2 Sam. xx. 24). So also Sept. cod. Al. In our passage, whereas
cod Vat. writes 'Atitvvipaf* (comp. 1 Kings iv. 6), probably correct as to the fact; see Exeg Expl.
1 With the Keri, which alter, |3 into JT3, agree several mss., as well as the Sept. and Vulg. (in the Syr. versio»
the passage vers. 18-23 is altogether wanting).
5 The 1 before PTI^K is certainly wanting in all copies of the Hebrew text, but was read by the Sept, and
cannot be dispensed with.
« All the jiss. and versions certainly testify, to the number sixty; but internal grounds of probability speak for tha
aamber, given by Josephus, Antiq. viii. 10. 1, of only thirty concubines; comp. the Exeg. Expl.
EXEQETICAL.
Preliminary Remark.— The Chronist pre-
sents only the first section of the history of
Eehoboam, relating to the revolt of the ten tribes
and the division of the kingdom, in exact, mostly
literal, agreement with the account of the books
of Kings (comp. ch. x. 1-xi. 4 with 1 Kings xii.
1-24). The proper history of his reign he treats
with considerable enlargement, by the addition of
several statements, wanting in the parallel text,
concerning his building of forts, reception of the
priests and Levites from the northern kingdom,
and his family affairs (ch. xi. 5-23). He also
reports at length the history of the invasion of
Shishak, and the subjection of Rehoboam, and
records the words spoken by the prophet Shemaiah
at the divine command (ch. xii. 1-12 ; comp. 1 Kings
xiv. 25-28). He refers even to the notes of this
Shemaiah as his source for this enlarged account
(ch. xii. 15).
1. The Revolt of the Ten Tribes: ch. x. ; comp.
the explanations of Bahr on 1 Kings xii. Here
we have only to remark some deviations from the
text of Kings.— Ver. 2. And when Jeroboam . . .
and he in Egypt. 1 Kings: "and he was yet
in Egypt " (^Jlty our narrator omits, because he
had related nothing of Jeroboam's flight from
Solomon into Egypt; comp. 1 Kings xi. 26-40).—
Ver. 5. Yet three days (wait). 1 Kings : " Go (U^)
CHAP. X. 14-XI. 11.
193
yet three days." — Ver. 14. On the reading i)K
T33K, deviating from 1 Kings, see the Crit. Note.
— Ver. 15. For the cause was of God, literally, "for
it was a decree (turning) of God." Both n3DJ
and its parallel H3D in 1 Kings are aira.\ x. —
Ver. 16. And all Israel saw. If !|^"i were to be
cast out of the text, according to most ancient
testimonies (see Crit. Note), it must be translated:
"and all Israel (or 'as to all Israel'), when the
king hearkened not unto them, the people an-
swered."— What portion have we in David?
What have we to do with the house of David ? it
may take care of itself. See again the fourth line
of the strophically ■ arranged speech.- — Ver. 18.
On the probable identity of the taskmaster ( Luther :
" receiver of rents ") Adoram, or, as our author
writes, Hadoram, with the Adoniram of 1 Kings
iv. 6, see Bahr on 1 Kings xii. 18. — Ver. 19. Unto
this day ; comp. 1 Chron. iv. 41, 43, v. 26, and
the remarks in the Introd. § 5, I. p. 16.
2. Prevention of the War of Rehoboam with
Jeroboam by the Prophet Shemaiah : ch. xi.
1-4. This incident also, that belongs to the
history of the revolt of the ten tribes, is recorded
by our author in substantial agreement with the
author of 1 Kings ; comp. 1 Kings xii. 21-24,
and Bahr on the passage. Only to 1 Kings xii.
20 (Jeroboam is raised by the ten tribes, in solemn
assembly, to the throne of the northern kingdom)
no parallel is found in our text, because the
Chronist sedulously avoids all particulars con-
cerning the history of the kingdom of Israel. —
Ver. 3. Speak unto Rehoboam . . . and to all
Israel in Judah and Benjamin. Observe the
peculiar depth, almost New Testament (remind-
ing us of Gal. vi. 16 ; Rom. ii. 29, iv. 12) depth
of the sense which our author here attaches to
the name "Israel." It is otherwise, certainly,
ver. 1, and again ver. 16<x, where he specially
designates the northern kingdom by " Israel " ;
yet in ver. 16 follows immediately after the name
Israel, again in that evangelical, deeper, and more
universal sense ; so ch. xii. 1. — Ver. 4. For this
thing is come from me, I have decreed the revolt
of the disloyal tribes as a punishment for the
disobedience of the house of David ; comp. ch.
x. 15. The there mentioned revelation by Ahijah
the prophet of Jeroboam is here confirmed by
Shemaiah the prophet of Rehoboam. — And re-
turned from going against Jeroboam. For this
1 Kings xii. 24 has : "and turned home, accord-
ing to the word of the Lord," a deviation arising
perhaps from a mere omission in writing. Our
text has probably the original ; for the twofold
mention of the word of Jehovah shortly after one
another is somewhat drawling, leading us to
suspect a corruption of the text.
3. Building of Forts by Rehoboam : vers. 5-12
(without parallel in Kings). — And built cities for
defence in Judah, "liVD^, "for a fort." Judah
is here the name, not of the tribe (ver. 10), but
of the whole southern kingdom ; for a part of the
fifteen forts now to be named lay in Benjamin. —
Ver. 6. And he built Bethlehem and Etam. That
Bethlehem was a fort, for which it was fitted by
Its tolerably high situation on a rocky eminence,
we learn only from this passage. On the here
mentioned Etam, as different from the more
southern one- in the tribe of Simeon, seo on ch.
iv. 32. Tobler (Dritte Wamderung, etc., p. 89)
has again pointed out our Etam in the Ain Attan,
a side glen south-west of Urtas, or Artas, the
well-known starting-point of Solomon's aqueduct
for Jerusalem. For Tekoa, now Tekua, a hill-
top covered with ruins, two hours south of Beth-
lehem, see the Expl. on Josh. xv. 59 and on
Amos i. 1. — Ver. 7. For Beth-zur (now Beit-Sur,
between Urtas and Hebron), comp. Fay on Josh,
xv. 58 ; for Socho (now Shuweike, three and a
half hours south-west of Jerusalem) and Adullaii.
( perhaps = Dula, six miles east of Beit-jibrin), see
the same on Josh. xv. 35. — Ver. 8. Gath (comp.
1 Chron. xviii. 1 ; 1 Kings ii. 39) ; its situation
is not yet exactly ascertained ; it is perhaps near
Ascalon, where is now found a Wady el Gat, north
of the ruins of this city (K. Furrer, Wanderungen,
etc., 1865, p. 133) ; according to others (for ex-
ample, C. Schick) = the conical hill Tel Safieh in
the Shephelah west of Ascalon. — Mareshah = t\in
later Marissa (between Hebron and Philistia) and
the present Marash, a ruin twenty-four minutes
south of Beit-jibrin or Eleutheropolis ; comp.
Fay on Josh. xv. 44 ; and for Ziph (on the hills
of Judah, one and a quarter hour south-east of
Hebron), comp. the same on Josh. xv. 24, 55. —
Ver. 9. Adoraim = the Idumeean city "aS^«,
1 Mace. xiii. 20, or Aa/pa, Josephus, Antiq. xiii.
15. 4, now Dura, two and a half hours west of
Hebron (Robinson, iii. 209). — Lachish=Vm La-
kish, on the road from Gaza to Hebron ; comp.
on Josh. x. 3, xv. 39. — Azekah, according to
1 Sam. xvii. 1, Josh. x. 10, not far from Socho,
but not yet fully ascertained. — Ver. 10. And
Zorah and Ajalon, both originally (Josh. xix.
41) cities belonging to the tribe of Dan, which
afterwards, on the migration of the Danites to
North Palestine (Judg. xviii. 1), were probably
occupied by the Benjamites, and thenceforth
reckoned to the tribe of Benjamin. For the
situation of Zorah, see on 1 Chron. ii. 53 ; for
Ajalon (now Jalo), the expositors on Josh. x. 12.
These two Benjamite cities are perhaps the most
northerly of the fifteen cities fortified by Reho-
boam. All the others, including Hebron, which
closes the list (formerly Kiriath-arba, now el-
Khalil, the ancient patriarchal city), lie south or
south-west of Jerusalem, in the middle or south
of the tribe of Judah. It follows, perhaps, from
this position of the line of forts on the south
border of the kingdom of Judah, and thus in the
main directed toward Egypt, that Rehoboam
began to establish them after the invasion of
Shishak (Keil). So far as the arrangement of
our section follows a material rather than a chro-
nological principle of division, nothing seems to
stand in the way of this assumption ; but it can
scarcely be reconciled with ch. xii. 4 ; see on
this passage. — Ver. 11. And he fortified the
strongholds, put them in a good state of defence
by nominating captains (D,TJ3, properly,
"princes, leaders"), provisioning them and (ver.
12) arming them properly. — And he had Judah
and Benjamin. This notice, forming the close of
the statement concerning the measures of Reho-
boam for the security of his kingdom, leads
directly to the following section, which describes
the Levitical and priestly followers of Rehoboam
as flowing not merely from Judah and Benjamin,
but from the whole kingdom.
N
194
II. CHRONICLES.
4. Adhesion of the Levites out of all Israel to
the Kingdom of Rehoboam : vers. 13-17 — as is to
be expected, a notice peculiar to the Chronist, to
which, however, the author of 1 Kings affords an
indirect confirmation, in so far as he twice refers
to the institution of a new non-Levitical priest-
hood on the part of Jeroboam, 1 Kings xii. 31,
xiii. 33 f. — And tlie priests and the Levites that
were in- all Israel resorted to him, " placed them-
selves before him to receive his commands, placed
themselves at his disposal;" coup. ajfTin in
.lob i. 6, ii. 1 ; Zech. vi. 5. — Ver. 14. For the
Levites left their suburbs, their commons or pas-
ture grounds (D'EnjO, as >n ch, T1- 40 ff., xiii.
2 ; Num. xxxv. 2-8). — For Jeroboam and his
sons had cast tliem off from executing the priest's
office. See the fuller account of the erection of
the impure worship of Jehovah with a new non-
Levitical priesthood in the kingdom of Jeroboam,
1 Kings xii. 26-31. By the sons of Jeroboam
our passage naturally means his successors, none
of whom rejected the impure worship which he
had introduced. They were also in so far his
sons in a spiritual sense, although, with the ex-
ception of his immediate successor Nadab, they
belonged to other dynasties. — Ver. 15. And he
ordained him priests. This 'yi yp TDV1 con-
tinues the proof begun with the second 13 in
ver. 14. — For the high places (in Dan and Bethel,
1 Kings xii.), and the lie-goats, etc., the idols of
the form of he-goats, after the pattern of the
Egyptian Pan, to whom, though not Jeroboam
himself, yet his later successors, sinking into a
still grosser idolatry, offered sacrifice ; comp.
Lev. xvii. 7, whence the term D',TIJ^ is taken.
The calves named in the third place are the re-
presentatives of Jehovah under the form of a
calf, as Jeroboam (after the example of Aaron,
Ex. xxxii. ) had made them, 1 Kings xii. 28, and
as they retained their places of worship during
^he whole period of the northern kingdom in
Dan, Bethel, and perhaps elsewhere. According
to this state of things, the "calves" should pro-
perly have been named before the "he-goats."
That the author makes no note of the gradual
sinking into grosser idolatry in the development
of the northern kingdom, is explained by his
theocratic zealous abhorrence of idolatry in
general, the various forms and steps of which
appear to him all equally bad. — Ver. 16. And
after them . . . such as set their heart, etc. On
3^ jru, pomp. 1 Chron. xxii. 19. What is here
related of the emigration of theocratic pious
Israelites from the other tribes to Judah and
Benjamin is repeated afterwards under Asa (ch.
xv. 9) and Hezekiah (xxx. 11). That, moreover,
the time during which the reign of Rehoboam
gathered and attracted the true worshippers of
Jehovah in other tribes amounted only to three
years, and afterwards made way for an inclination
to foreign and idolatrous customs (on which that
accession of pious Israelites from the neighbouring
kingdom ceased), is manifest from ver. 17; comp.
with ch. xii. Iff.
5. Domestic Affairs of Rehoboam : vers. 18-23 ;
again without parallel in the books of Kings, and
wanting also in the Syr. version of Chronicles
(which arises merely from an oversight).— Maha-
lath, daughter of Jerimoth. The name of the
father-in-law of Rehoboam is wanting in the list
of the sons of David (1 Chron. iii. 1-8). JliCT
might possibly he corrupted from QjnjV, or be a
by-form of this name ; it is easier to suppose that
he was one of the many sons of David by the con-
cubines.— And of Aliihail daughter of Eliab son
of Jesse. As necesiary as the supply of the want-
ing 1 before SjTI'QK (see Crit. Note) is the taking
of this name as the genitive, thus (contrary to the
Sept. and Vulg. , which rather make her a second
wife of Rehoboam) as the name of the mother of
Mahalath. For — 1. Ver. 19 shows that only one
wife of Rehoboam, the mother of the three there
named otherwise unknown sons, should be named;
2. Along with the obscure father of Mahalath
we expect the name of her mother, who is more
celebrated, because she descends from Eliab the
brother of David ; 3. A daughter of Eliab the
eldest brother of David (1 Chron. ii. 13 ; 1 Sam.
xvii. 13) could scarcely have been a wife of Reho-
boam the grandson of David ; even as grand-
daughter of Eliab (comp. ver. 20), Abihail suited
better in age a son of David than a son and
successor of Solomon. — Ver. 20. And after her
he took Maachah daughter of Absalom. This
second wife of Rehoboam is perhaps to be regarded,
not strictly as the daughter, but the grand-
daughter of Absalom, the daughter of Tamar, the
only daughter, and perhaps only child, of this
unlucky prince ; comp. 2 Sam. xiv. 27, xviii. 18,
and Joscphus, Antiq. viii. 10. 1, as well as ch.
xiii. 2 of our book. — And she bare him Abijah.
Only this first-born of Maachah, whose name,
moreover, is constantly written Abijam (ds3K)
in 1 Kings, is more particularly known to us as
the successor of Rehoboam ; the three younger
sons, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith, do not occur
elsewhere. — Ver. 21. For he took eighteen, wives
(NtW, as in ch. xiii. 21) and sixty concubines. On
account of the number of daughters immediately
after given as sixty, it is not improbable that
Josephus, who tells only of thirty concubines,
deserves the preference ; comp. Crit. Note. — Ver.
22. To be ruler among his brethren ; to this ex-
planatory apposition to tJ>N"li> is added the fol-
lowing to'tani' »3, as a further determination
of that which the king meant by Ahijah's eleva-
tion to be chief. On the breviloquence here,
comp. Ew. § 351, c— Ver. 23. And he dealt wisely,
and distributed of all his sons in all the countria
of Judah and Benjamin y he showed his pru-
dence as sovereign and as father by appointing his
numerous sons as captains in the several forts
of his kingdom, employing them usefully, and
separating them from one another, to prevent
any attempts at rebellion among them. — And ht
desired for them many wives, made many mar-
riages between them and the daughters of the
land, both to make them contented and to make
firmer connections between his house and the
inhabitants of the land. The desiring or asking
(yXB>) of wives for his sons became him as their
father and natural guardian : the author will
scarcely charge him with an immoral, pimp-lik«
gratification of the lusts of his sons.
CHAP. XII.
195
6. The Invasion of Shishak : ch. xii. 1-12 ;
comp. the briefer narrative of 1 Kings xiv. 25-28.
— And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had estab-
lished the kingdom, and strengthened himself,
literally, "at the time of the establishing "
(VOn2, inf- act. with indefinite subject), and on
the strengthening of him or it (inptns, from the
nam. ve.rbale npTH, strengthening ; comp. xxvi.
16 ; Dan. xi. 2). — He forsook the law of the Lord
(by a partial falling into idolatry ; comp. 1 Kings
xiv. 22 ff.), and all Israel with him, all the in-
habitants of the southern kingdom, who are here,
somewhat to their shame, designated Israelites ;
comp. ver. 6 and ch. xi. 3. — Ver. 2. And it came
to pass in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, thus
soon but not immediately after his apostasy
from the Lord. Concerning Shishak ( = Sheshonk,
Sesonchis, the first king of the 22d dynasty of
Manetho), and the relievo proceeding from him,
celebrating the present campaign against the
Jews, and victory over Rehoboam, that probably
exhibits Rehoboam himself among his captives,
see Thenius on 1 Kings xi. 40, and Bahr on
1 Kings xiv. 25. — Ver. 3. With twelve hundred
chariots, and sixty thousand riders. In 1 Kings
these data concerning the strength of the
Egyptian army are wanting, though they are by
no means incredible. Of the auxiliaries of
Shishak, the Lubites (D'Qv) are certainly those
Egyptian Libyans (the Libycegyptii of the
ancients) who are also named with the Egyptians
in ch. xvi. 8, Nah. iii. 9, Dan. xi. 43, and
from whom the Lehabim of the Mosaic table of
nations are perhaps not different ; comp. Knobel
on Gen. x. 13. The Succites (Q«3D) ai'e, accord-
ing to the Sept. and Vulg., troghdytce, cave-
dwellers, to which the Hebrew etymon seems to
point, dwellers in holes of the earth, probably of
Ethiopian origin, and inhabiting the mountains
of Eastern Egypt. The Cushites are probably in-
habitants of Ethiopia proper, that is, Abyssinia,
as they are also named, Nah. iii. 9, as allies of
Egypt (along with "Put" and "Lubim"). —
Ver. 4. And he took the fenced cities which per-
tained to Judah; comp. ch. xi. 5 ff. These may
not yet have been very strong, or their works
proved insufficient against the military force of
Egypt; comp. on ch. xi. 10. — Vers. 5-8. The
Prophetic Mission of Shemaiah, and the con-
sequent Submission of the Jews and Mitigation
of their Punishment, — a section quite wanting in
1 Kings. — But I will soon grant them deliverance.
UJ)133, properly, " for a little," that is, in a short
time, soon ; comp. Ezra ix. 8 (rightly Berth.,
Keil, etc., against Kamph., who translates : "a
small deliverance "). — And my wrath shall not be
poured out upon Jerusalem by Shishak. No judg-
ment of full extirpation shall overtake the capital;
comp. xxxiv. 25. — That they may know my service
and the service of the kings of the lands ; that they
may experience what a difference there is between
the government of the Lord in the theocracy of
Israel, and the so much more oppressive rule of
heathen kings. — On vers. 9-11, comp. Bahr's
remarks on 1 Kings xiv. 26-28.— Ver. 12. And
when he humbled himself, literally, " and in his
•elf-humiliation. " On the following elliptical
phrase: TXTt&pb tfV), "and not to destroy"
(did Jehovah's wrath turn itself), comp. the like
breviloquence in ch. xi. 12, and the passage there
quoted from Ew. — And in Judah also there were
good things. This was a further motive to the
Lord to restrain his wrath, in addition to the
first motive, consisting in the repentance of Reho-
boam.
7. Close of the History of Rehoboam : vers.
13-16 (comp. i Kings xiv. 21, 22, 29-31).— And
King Rehoboam strengthened himself; comp. ch.
i. 1, xiii. 21; concerning the following note of ags,
which it seems necessary to change into twenty-one
years, comp. Bahr on 1 Kings xiv. 21.— Naamah
the Am.monitess, the daughter of the Ammonite
King Nahash (1 Chron. xix. 1), according to a
probable note of the Sept. after 1 Kings xii. 24.
— Ver. 14. For he did not direct his heart. For
this phrase, comp. ch. xix. 3, xxx. 19 ; Ezra vii.
10. — Ver. 15. Are they not written in the words
of SJiemaiah the prophet. On this quotation, and
especially on the obscure phrase "for the register"
(tJTTTirp), see Introd. § 5, II.— And the wars of
Rehoboam and Jeroboam, their smaller dealings
and disputes, in which their continued hostile
disposition showed itself ; see Bahr on 1 Kings
xiv. 30.
EVANGELICAL AND MORAL REFLECTIONS ON
CH. X.-X1I.
1. In the reign of Rehoboam, as the Chronist
represents it, is signalized above all the tendency
to keep the kingly ideal of David and Solomon
pure from the dark stains of untheocratic opinion
and destructive apostasy into idolatry. Some
time after the beginning of his reign, this corrupt
influence comes out distinctly and clearly, accom-
panied with divine punishments as its evil effect
(ch. xii. 1 ff.), though in the first three years
Rehoboam and his subjects "walked in the way
of David and Solomon" (ch. xi. 17). Yet in the
first half of the section, the account of the secession
of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, several expres-
sions betray the acquaintance of the author with
the fact that corruption had begun already under
Solomon. The polygamy and idolatry of this
glorious king, and the consequent divine correc-
tions and threatenings of punishment, he had not
mentioned in his representation of the history of
Solomon (comp. the Evangelical and Ethical
Reflections on ch. i.-ix. ). But now in Rehoboam
there is express reference to that which had been
prophesied on account of those errors of Solomon
by Ahijah the Shilonite against him, and in
favour of Jeroboam (ch. x. 15 ; comp. 1 Kings
xi. 29-39). And this part of our author's narra-
tive indicates that his religious and moral fall
had already been productive of many immediate
evils in his kingdom, that his government had
become latterly quite a misgovernment (comp.
1 Kings xi. 14 ff. ), by the mention of the repeated
request of the dissatisfied people : " lighten the,
heavy yoke which thy father laid on ns" (ch. x.
4, 9, 10 ; comp. ver. 15), and by the report of the
words of the ten tribes betraying an a;ready deep-
seated dissatisfaction with the previous govern-
ment: " What portion have we in David? We
have no inheritance in the son of Jesse" (ver. 16).
Thus, according to our author, the ideal time
of David and Solomon closes with this, that it
1%
II. CHRONICLES.
presents at last the germs of a growing and
grasping corruption, while that which had to be
recorded concerning it is first introduced in the
section belonging to Eehoboam, and therefore
chiefly in the form of an appendix to the already
concluded history of Solomon. Indeed, to our
author, the evangilisal result of the reign of
Solojaon is simply th.it which is brought forward
in 1 Kings xi. ' ' Along with a great outgrowth
of public prosperity, we observe a gangrene com-
mencing, that gnaws unceasingly, and destroys
the religim of the people, the condition of their
salvation, and this salvation itself It becomes
manifest that the peace, which a merely human
ruler can give, bears in itself the germ of decay,
that it brings with it temptations, which a lesser
anointed of the Lord (like David or Solomon) can-
not give the power to withstand. The result of
the whole brilliant period is a Kyrie Eleison and
an : 0 that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and
come down ! " (Hengstenberg, Gesch. des Reiches
Gottes unter dem Alten Bunde, ii. 2, 146 f. )
2. Thus the Chronist partly only places Eeho-
boam, with respect to the beginning of his reign,
in an unfavourable contrast with the brilliant
reign of his father Solomon. In a certain respect
(particularly with regard to the tendency to
tyrannical cruelty and domineering pride ; see ch.
x. 10, 14) he puts them on a par, and makes the
son only gradually different from the father, by
descending a step lower. So with regard to the
further course of Eehoboam's reign. At first
Eehoboam continues the effort of his father, if
not to enlarge, at least to establish the kingdom
(comp. ch. xi. 5-12 with i. 14 ff., viii. 1-10, ix.
25-28). But certainly his fortifications are of no
avail to ward off the war-storm bursting on the
country from Egypt, no more than his defiant
threat of a warlike attack could have hindered
the dismemberment of the kingdom that still
held together under his father (comp. x. 15 ff.,
xi. 1 ff. ). He likewise applied himself during the
first three years of his reign to the theocratically
pure and correct principles of government which
were followed by his father, if not to the last yet
during the greater part of his reign, with so
much blessing to himself and his people. He
thereby makes Jerusalem and the southern king-
dom for a time the refuge and gathering-place of
the pious worshippers of the Lord of priestly and
non-priestly descent from the whole kingdom,
and, so to speak, effects the transfer of the tribe
of Levi to his sway, so far only as those of them
who were scattered among all the tribes can find
a settlement in Juuih and Benjamin. But this
attractive power in the sense of forming and con-
solidating a theocracy (ch. xi. 13-17) did not
last long. After three years, he ' ' forsook the
law cf the Lord, and all Israel with him" (eh. xii.
1). What Solomon was abls tc do during at
least two-thirds of his reign of forty years, to
maintain the " hearing heart " and the true wis-
dom with which the Lord had endowed him,
this Eehoboam was scarcely able to do during a
sixth part of his reign of seventeen years. In
this also he resembles his father ; but he behaves
much worse, and seems to surpass him in a bad
sense. Hence he has to endure much greater
shame and humiliation ; for if the Lord had only
to threaten Solomon thus : " I will humble the
seed of David, but not for ever " (1 Kings xi.
39), this prophetic threat pronounced by Ahijah
is now fulfilled in bitter earnest on him and hia
people (ch. xii. 2 ff. ) ; and what the prophetic in-
terpreter says in behalf of a right understanding
of the misfortune that had befallen them (ch. xii.
7, 8) is certainly not altogether comfortless, but
at the same time not unconditionally promising.
The punishment shall be mild, not of long
endurance ; but for a time its bitterness shall be
required, that they may understand what it is to
prefer the rule of a heathen king to the mild
sway of God.
3. There is something peculiar in'the position
which the Chronist gives to the family history of
Eehoboam (ch. xi. 18-23). He tells of his
eighteen wives and sixty (or, if the number is to
be reduced according to Josephus, thirty) con-
cubines with objective candour, without adding
a judgment unfavourable to the moral character
of the king. While he passes with significant
silence over the extravagant polygamy of the
latter years of Solomon, to spare the great and
wise king, and even thereby indicates the un-
theocratic and immoral character of an im-
moderate harem, he seems to find the married
life of Eehoboam not more offensive than that of
David, of whom he expressly named at least
seven lawful wives, and mentioned besides the
possession of an indefinite number of concubines,
without expressing any disapprobation. The
manner also in which Eehoboam procured for his
sons many wives from the daughters of the land
(ch. xi. 23), he adduces merely as a proof of his
prudent dealing, not in the tone of serious blame
or moral disapprobation. He places this state-
ment also before the account of his fall into
idolatry, without noticing in the way of censure
the manifest connection of the two things, the
polygamy of himself and his sons, and his giving
way to the worship of foreign gods. He almost
appears, indeed, as afterwards in the case of
Abijah's fourteen wives and thirty-eight children
(ch. xiii. 21), to have regarded the taking of
many wives and begetting of numerous children
as something laudable, serving to multiply and
perpetuate the house of David. This manner of
thinking is characteristic of the strict theocrats of
the later times, that form the transition to the
Pharisaic orthodoxy of the New Testament epoch
(comp. Introd. § 6). Because the law does not
directly forbid polygamy, he readily allows on this
point an almost unlimited compliance with the
lusts of the flesh, while he censures with strict-
ness the as it were only theocratic error of
which the same king becomes guilty by falling
into idolatry in the fourth year of his reign, as
he had before shown his abhorrence of that still
greater idolatrous error of the king and subjects
of the northern kingdom in the strongest, indeed
almost hyperbolical, terms (ch. xi. 15). We meet
here the same rather externally orthodox than
morally strict tendency, which our author dis-
covers also in many other points. It is the
ethically imperfect and crude, not yet evangeli-
cally consecrated and glorified, stage of the legal
standpoint of the Old Testament, which is ex-
pressed in this lax position of the Chronist with
regard to the custom of polygamy. New Testa-
ment statements, such as those relating to Moses'
regard to the hard-heartedness of the Jews, to the
killing power of the letter of the law, to the
shadowy and not essential character, to the weak-
ness and impotence of the law (Matt. xix. 8;
CHAP. XIII.-XVI. 197
2 Cor. iii. 6 ; Rom.^viii. 3 ; Col. ii. 17 ; Heb. x.
1, etc.), first receive their full light and deeper
meaning hy a phenomenon like this (comp. also
John i. 17 ; Gal. ii. 16 ff., iii. 10 ff., iv. 3, 9 ff \
b. Abijah. — Ch. xiii.
Ch. xiii. 1. In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over
2 Judah. He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was
Michaiah,1 daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
3 And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. And Abijah began
the war with an army of valiant warriors, four hundred thousand chosen men •
and Jeroboam prepared war against him with eight hundred thousand chosen
4 men, valiant in might. And Abijah arose on Mount Zemaraim, which is in
5 Mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, Jeroboam and all Israel. Do you not
know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David
6 for ever, to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt 1 And Jeroboam son
of Nebat, servant of Solomon son of David, arose and rebelled against his
7 master. And vain men, of no account, gathered unto him, and withstood
Eehoboam son of Solomon ; and Eehoboam was young and weak of heart,
8 and held not out against them. And now ye are saying that ye will hold
out against the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David ; and
ye are a great multitude, and with you are golden calves, which Jeroboam
9 made you for gods. Have ye not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons
of Aaron, and the Levites, and made you priests like the nations of the lands 1
whosoever cometh to fill his hand with a young steer and seven rams is a
10 priest to them that are no gods. And we, the Lord is our God, and we have
not forsaken Him ; and the priests that minister to the Lord are the sons of
11 Aaron, and the Levites in their business. And they burn unto the Lord
burnt-offerings every morning and every evening, and incense of spices, and
laying of bread on the pure table, and the candlestick of gold and its lamps
to burn every evening : for we keep the charge of the Lord our God ; but ye
12 have forsaken Him. And behold, with us, at our head, are God and His
priests, and the clanging trumpets to sound against you : sons of Israel,
fight not against the Lord God of your fathers ; for ye shall not prosper.
13 And Jeroboam led round an ambush to come behind them; and they were
14 before Judah, and the ambush was behind them. And Judah turned, and
behold they had the battle before and behind ; and they cried unto the Lord,
15 and the priests sounded with the trumpets. And the men of Judah shouted;
and when the men of Judah shouted, God smote Jeroboam and all Israel
16 before Abijah and Judah. And the sons of Israel fled before Judah ; and
17 God gave them into their hand. And Abijah and his people smote them with
a great slaughter ; and there fell slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen
18 men. And the sons of Israel were humbled at that time ; and the sons of
Judah prevailed, because they trusted in the Lord God of their fathers.
19 And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him : Bethel and
her daughters, and Jeshanah2 and her daughters, and Ephron3 and her
20 daughters. And Jeroboam had no more strength in the days of Abijah ; and
21 the Lord smote him, and he died. And Abijah strengthened himself, and
took to him fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons and sixteen
22 daughters. And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his words,
23 are written in the commentary of the prophet Iddo. And Abijah slept with
his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David; and Asa his son
reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years.
c. Asa. The Prophets Azariah Son of Oded and Hanani. — Ch. xiv.-xvi.
ec. Asa's Theocratic Zeal and Care for the Defence of the Kingdom : ch. xiv. 1-7.
Ch. xrv. 1. And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord
2 his God. And he took away the altars of the strange gods, and the high
198 II. CHRONICLES
3 places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherim. And commanded
Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law and the
4 commandment. And he took away out of all the cities of Judah the high
places and the sun-statues : and the kingdom was quiet before him.
5 And he built fenced cities in Judah ; for the land had rest, and there was
6 no war with him in those days j for the Lord gave him rest. And he said
to Judah, Let us build these cities, and make about them walls and towers,
gates and bars, and the land is yet before us ; because we have sought the
Lord our God, and He hath given us rest around : and they built and pros-
7 pered. And Asa had an army, bearing shield and spear, out of Judah three
hundred thousand, and out of Benjamin, bearing shield and drawing bow,
two hundred and eighty thousand : all these were men of valour.
0. Asa's Victory over Zerah the Ethiopian : vers. 8-14.
8 And Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with a host of a thousand
9 thousand, and three hundred chariots ; and he came to Mareshah. And Asa
went out against him, and they joined battle in the valley of Zephathah at
10 Mareshah. And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, no one
is nigh Thee to help with the mighty or with no might ; help us, 0 Lord
our God, for we rely on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude :
11 0 Lord, Thou art our God; no man may hold out against Thee. And the
Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah ; and the Ethiopians
12 fled. And Asa, and the people that were with him, pursued them unto
Gerar : and the Ethiopians fell, so that there was no recovery ; for they were
broken before the Lord, and before His host ; and they carried off very great
1 3 spoil. And they smote all the cities round Gerar ; for the terror of the Lord
1 4 was upon them. And they smote also the tents of cattle, and took sheep in
abundance, and camels, and returned to Jerusalem.
y. The Prophetic Warning of Azariah Son ofOded: ch. xv. 1-7.
Ch. XV. 1, 2. And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. And he
went forth before Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah
and Benjamin ; the Lord is with you, while ye are with Him ; .and if ye seek
Him, He will be found of you ; and if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you.
3 And many days will be to Israel without the true God, and without a teach-
4 ing priest, and without a law. And he shall return in his trouble unto the
5 Lord God of Israel, and seek Him, and He shall be found of him. And in
those times is no peace for him that goeth out or cometh in, but great vexa-
6 tions on all the inhabitants of the lands. And nation shall be smitten4 by
7 nation, and city by city ; for God hath vexed them with all trouble. But be
ye brave, and let not your hands be slack ; for there is a reward for your
labour.
I. Asa's Reform of Worship, and Renewal of Covenant with the Lord: vers. 8-19.
8 And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded5 the prophet,
he took courage, and put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah
and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim,
and renewed the altar of the Lord, that was before the porch of the Lord.
9 And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with them, out
of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon ; for they fell to him out of
Israel in abundance, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.
10 And they gathered at Jerusalem, in the third month of the fifteenth year of
11 the reign of Asa. And they sacrificed to the Lord in that day, of the spoil
12 they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. And they
entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their
13 heart, and with all their soul. And whosoever would not seek the Lord God
CHAP. XIII.-XVI. 193
14 of Israel should be put to death, small or great, man or woman. And they
sware unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with clangour, and with trumpets
15 and cornets. And all Judah was glad at the oath ; for they had sworn with
all their heart, and sought Him with their whole desire, and He was found of
1 6 them : and the Lord gave them rest round about. And also Maachah, the
mother of Asa the king, he removed from being queen, because she had made
an idol for Asherah : and Asa cut down her idol, and crushed it, and burnt
17 it in the brook Kidron. But the high places were not taken away out of
18 Israel; but the heart of Asa was perfect all his days. And he brought the
things which his father and himself had consecrated into the house of God,
19 silver and gold, and vessels. And there was no more war unto the thirty-
fifth year of the reign of Asa.
». The War with Baasha of Israel: ch. xvi. 1-6.
Ch XVI. 1. In the thirty-sixth year" of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel
came up against Judah, and built Eamah, to let no one come out or go in to
2 Asa king of Judah. And Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures
of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house, and sent to Benhadad king
3 of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus,7 saying : A league is between me and thee,
and between my father and thy father : behold, I have sent thee silver and
gold ; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart
4 from me. And Benhadad hearkened unto King Asa, and sent the captains of
his army against the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-
5 maim, and all the stores of the cities of Naphtali. And when Baasha heard
6 it, he left off building of Eamah, and let his work cease. And Asa the king
took all Judah, and carried away the stones of Eamah, and its timber, with
which Baasha had built, and built therewith Geba and Mizpah.
£1 Hanani's Prophetic Warning: Asa's Transgression and End: vers. 7-14.
7 And at that time came Hanani the seer to Asa king of Judah, and said
unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied
on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped from
8 thy hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubites a huge host, in chariots
and horsemen very many ? and when thou didst rely on the Lord, He gave
9 them into thy hand. For the eyes of the Lord run throughout all the earth,
to prove Himself strong for those whose heart relies wholly on Him : thou
10 hast done foolishly in this ; for henceforth thou shalt have wars. And Asa
was displeased with the seer, and put him in the prison ; for he was in a rage
with him because of this. And Asa oppressed some of the people at that
time.
11 And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, behold, they are written in
12 the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. And Asa, in the thirty-ninth
year of his reign, was diseased in his feet, until his disease was very great :
13 and in his disease also he sought not the Lord, but to the physicians. And
Asa slept with his fathers ; and he died in the forty-first year of his reign.
14 And they buried him in his own tomb, which he had dug for himself in the
city of David ; and they laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet
odours of divers kinds, compounded by art ; and they made a very great
burning for him.
1 On the probable error of the pen here (^iT^D for i"DyD), see Exeg. Expl.
•For itJK^ the Sept.has 'Iio-uva (but Josephus, Antiq. viiL 11. 3: 'Ir&vois).
* For the Kelhib fT\ZiVi supported by the Sept. and Vulg., the Keri is P"lBy.
* For ^nnDl some irsa, read ^flJTl3'l \ but the Pual is required by the context.
5 Sept. cod. Vat. : 'A5«S (£IH%) rov xpocntrou ; on the conti ary, c. AL, ed. Aid , etc. : 'A&piov rov xeoQiirov. Vulg.: Af>
riM Jilii Oded prophetx. Perhaps the words JOnjll Yiy should be cancelled as an old gloss. See rhe Exeg Expl.
200
II. CHRONICLES
9 So all the mss. and versions but the Sept., which has U Irti oylow xdi Tfiixxoo-ru, by a mistake of jj for s, or on tiia
ground of some peculiar chronological reckoning.
' Properly, " Damascus; " see 1 Chron xviii. 5, 6, and the Crit. Note thereon. For the itlis toD "AZip, given by the
Sept. for Tin |3, comp. the Exeg. E.\pl.
EXEGETICAL.
The histories of both reigns, that of Abijah
and that of Asa, are presented here in a very ex-
tended form, when compared with the parallel
accounts in 1 Kings xv. 1-8, 9-24 ; and in par-
ticular, there are several discourses of a prophetic
nature in the history of Abijah, one addressed by
this king himself on Mount Zemaraim to Jero-
boam and the army of Israel (ch. xiii. 4-12), and
in that of Asa, the warnings of the seers Azariah
son of Oded and Hanani (ch. xv. 2-7, xvi. 7-10),
by the insertion of which the Chronist has con-
siderably enlarged his account. But with respect
to the history of war and worship, his representa-
tion is a far richer gain from the ancient sources
than that preserved in 1 Kings xv.
I. Abijah : eh. xiii. ; comp. 1 Kings xv. 1-8.
— In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam. This
date of the beginning of Abijah's reign is also
given in 1 Kings, and also the three years' dura-
tion of his reign (he is, moreover, always called
DS2K j see on °h. xl- 22). — And his mother's name
was Michalak, daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. As
Abijah's mother is called Maaehah, not merely
ch. xi. 20 ff., but also 1 Kings xv. 2, the present
name irp^D must be regarded as a mistake for
the original najJO- Her father, Uriel of Gibeah,
is to be regarded as the husband of Tanrar the
daughter of Absalom, and herself, therefore, as
the grand-daughter of the latter ; see on ch. xi.
20. From the Maaehah, further mentioned ch.
xv. 16 (and 1 Kings xv. 13), the mother of Asa,
whom he removed from the dignity of a gebirah
(mistress, Sultana Walide, queen-mother) for her
idolatry, she is scarcely to be considered different;
rather is her designation there as mother to be
supposed = grandmother, and her continued re-
gency under her grandson Asa is to be explained
simply from the brief duration of Abijah's reign,
and the probable minority of Asa at his death
(comp. Athaliah's attempt to reign instead of her
grandson Joash, ch. xxii. ). Against the assump-
tion by Thenius and Bertheau of the diversity of
the two Maachahs (of whom the mother of Abijah
was the daughter of Absalom, but the mother of
Asa in reality the one who is here falsely called
"a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah"), see Keil, p.
261, Rem.— Ver. 3 ff. Abijah's War with Jero-
boam.— And Abijah began the war with . . .
400, 000 chosen men. Neither this number nor the
double number of the warriors of Jeroboam should
be taken strictly, as is abundantly clear from
the substantial agreement of both numbers with
the results of Joab's enumeration under David
(800,000 men-at-arms of Israel and 500,000 of
Judah ; comp. 1 Chron. xxi. ). Less probable is
the assumption of an error in transcription, rest-
ing on a change of the numeral letters, as the
cause of these almost incredibly high numbers
(Kennicott, Dissert. Gen. § 27 ; J. Pye-Smith,
The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, 6th edit,
vol. i. p. 29) ; for to explain the fac,4- in this way,
we must assume several such mistakes or corrup-
tions in similar circumstances, which would be
very strange. Comp. also en ch. xvii., and
Evangelicai and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.—
Ver. 4. And Abijah arose on Mount Zemaraim,
obviously a steep cliff or summit lying between
the contending armies, from which the king
addressed the foe in like manner as Jotham once
addressed the Shechemites from Mount Ge*izim,
Judg. ix. 7. That every single warrioi ,f the
host of Israel, numbering several hundred thou-
sands, could have heard his words is not said,
and need not be assumed. The situation of
Mount Zemaraim is no longer to be ascertained.
It was probably ill the neighbourhood of Bethel,
near which is a town, Josh, xviii. 22, named
Qi-iDV (Zemaraim), the ruins of which may have
been found in el Sumra, between Jerusalem and
Jericho, near the valley of the Jordan. At all
events, the locality should be sought east of
Bethel (Robinson, Phys. Geogr. of the Holy
Land, p. 38), and this el Sumra may lie too far
in a south-easterly direction. — Ver. 5. Do you
not know, literally, " Is it not to you, concerns it
not you, to know ? " comp., for example, 1 Chron.
xiii. 4. — That the Lord . . . gave . . . to him and
to his sons by a covenant of salt, by an irrevocable
covenant ; comp. Lev. ii. 13 ; Num. xviii. 19.
n?D )V"Q belongs to the whole sentence, aj
accusative of restriction (therefore : " in the
manner of a covenant of salt "). — Ver. 7. And
vain men, of no account, gathered unto him, pro-
perly, "sons of worthlessness, children of Belial,"
a phrase occurring not elsewhere in Chronicles,
but again in 1 Kings xxi. 10, 13. On Q'pT '{{,
"loose, fickle men," comp. Judg. ix. 4, xi. 3. —
And withstood Rehoboam, "showed themselves
strong against him " (^>y J»it3Knn) > comP- the
('SB? pinnn) resistance afterwards shown on the
part of Rehoboam to this opposition. — Rehoboam
was young and weak of heart, faint-hearted, un-
stable. The term "tyj, young, used of Rehoboam
when already king, appears not specially to favour
the former statement (ch. xii. 13) that he was
then forty-one years old, and to require the
change of this age into twenty-one years. More-
over, Abijah relates in this his speech the events
in the revolt of the ten tribes from Rehoboam in
a very inexact way (Rehoboam did not show him-
self " weak of heart" on that occasion, but rather
hard and daring of heart, etc.) ; for he clearly
wishes "to justify his father as far as possible,
and roll all the blame of the revolt of the ten
tribes on Jeroboam and his worthless followers "
(Keil). — Ver. 8. The kingdom of the Lord in the
hand of the sons of David, the theocratic king-
dom founded by David, and hereditary in his
house (comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 23 and the like).—
Ver. 9. Have ye not . . . made you priests like
the nations of the lands, not divinely called, but
only humanly chosen, priests, like those of
heathendom ; comp. 1 Kings xii. 31. — Wwsoever
cometh to fill his hand, that is, institute and con-
secrate himself priest of the new worship ; comp.
CHAP. XIII. 10-XIV. 7.
20]
Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9, xxxii. 29 ; see 1 Kings
xiii. 33. The following words: " with a young
steer (literally, with a steer the son of the herd;
and seven rams," belong not so much to "fill " as
to "oometh" (2 Nia, a3 Ps- xl. 8). As accord-
ing to Ex. xxix. the offerings to he made on the
consecration of a priest consisted of a young
steer as a sin-offering, a ram as a burnt-offering,
and a ram of consecration, and this presented on
seven days in succession (thus in all seven steers
and fourteen rams), the offering appears here to
be imperfectly stated, not on account of an
inaccurate report, but because Abijah might
know that in fact there had been a considerable
deviation from the strict requirements of the law,
in order the more speedily to obtain a new priest-
hood. Indeed, it was a priesthood of non-gods
or ungods (comp. Deut. xxxii. 21) which was
so founded. — Ver. 10. And the Levites in their
business ("in the business," ]"DfcOD3)i perform-
ing their office in the legal way ; comp. 1 Chron.
xxiii. 28 ff. — Ver. 11. Burn unto the Lord burnt-
offerings, "fumigate, turn into smoke," "Vtipn,
which is then zeugmatically connected with the
laying of the shew-bread and the lighting of the
lamps, which are also parts of the priestly office.
On these various priestly functions, that are
then combined as a " keeping of the charge of
the Lord " (Lev. viii. 35), comp. Ex. xxix. 38 ff.,
xxv. 30 ff., xxvii. 20 ff. ; Lev. xxiv. 7 ff.— Ver.
12. The clanging trumpets to sound are made
prominent, because God had expressly designated
them in the law as the pledges on account of
which He would remember and help His people
in war, Num. x. 9. — Ver. 13 ff. Judah's Victory
over the Superior Force of Israel. — To come be-
hind them; comp. Josh. viii. 2; Judg. xx. 29 ff.
— Ver. 15. And the men of Judah shouted. Eeil
rightly says : " In qy— 1»1 and Jjnna the loud
cry of the warriors and the clanging of the priests
with the trumpets are combined, and j;'"in is to
be referred neither alone to the war-cry of the com
batants assailing the enemy, nor, with Berth,
(and Kamph. ), to the blowing of the clanging
trumpets ; " comp. also Judg. vii. 19 ff. (Gideon
in the conflict with the Midianites). — Ver. 17.
Smote them with a great slaughter; for the
phrase, see Num. xi. 33 ; Josh. x. 30. For the
number 500,000, which appears inconceivably
great as the number of those who fell in the one
held at Zemaraim, comp. Evangelical and Ethical
Reflections, No. 3. — Ver. 18. The sons of Israel
were humbled (comp. JJJ2J in ch. xii. 6 f.), or
"weakened" by their enormous loss (comp.
Judg. iii. 30, viii. 28 ; 1 Sam. vii. 13).— Ver. 19.
Bethel and her daughters, her daughter towns ;
comp. Neh. xi. 25. Besides this border city of
south Israel, well known from Gen. xii. 8, xxviii.
19, xxxv. 15, Josh. vii. 12., etc. (the present
Beitin), are named the otherwise unknown Jes-
hanah (or Jesyna ; comp. Crit. Note), and an
Ephron, as cities taken by Abijah from the con-
quered. The last has scarcely anything but the
name common with Mount Ephron on the south
border of Benjamin (Josh. xv. 9), but should
probably be identified with Ophrah near Bethel
(Judg. vi. 11), or the town Ephraim situated
there, mentioned Josh. xi. 54 (comp. Josephus,
B. J. iv. 9. 9), especially if we are to read J^QJJ,
with the Masorah ; see Crit. Note. — Ver. 20.
And Jeroboam liad no more strength; |-|3 "IVJJ,
as ch. xx. 37; 1 Chron. xxix. 14. — And the Lord
smote him, and he died, not " snatched him away
by a sudden death" (of which nothing is known
from 1 Kings), but " smote him, visited him with
misfortune (comp. tpj in ver. 15 and ch. xxi. 18)
till his death, " referring probably to that which
is related in 1 Kings xiv. 1-18. — Ver. 21 ff.
Family History of Abijah; his End. — And Abi
jah strengthened himself (pjnrii^ as ch. xii. 13),
and took to him fourteen wives. Comp. the Evan-
gelical and Ethical Reflections in the previous
section, No. 3. Abijah must have had most of
these fourteen wives before he ascended the
throne, or at least before his war with Jeroboam.
That he took them after the war follows only
apparently from the position in the narrative,
which has no chronologic import. — Ver. 22. Are
written in the commentary of the prophet Iddo.
Comp. on this source of our author, Introd. § 5,
II. p. 17. — Ver. 23. And Asa . . . in his days
the land was quiet ten years, in consequence of
the great victory of his father over Jeroboam, and
the weakening of the northern kingdom thereby
occasioned ; comp. ch. xiv. 4, 5, xv. 19.
II. Asa : 1. His Theocratic Zeal and Care for
the Defence of the Kingdom : ch. xiv. 1-7 ;
comp. 1 Kings xv. 9-12, 14, 15. — And Asa did
that which was good and right; comp. ch. xxxi.
20. — Ver. 2. Took away the altars of the strange
gods, consecrated to strange gods, of the idolatrous
foreign countries ; comp. Gen. xxxv. 2, 4. That
only these, and not also "high places," or illegal
places of sacrifice consecrated to Jehovah, were
removed by him, is clear from ch. xv. 17. — And
brake the pillars, the memorial stones erected to
Baal (ni3!flD) ; comp. Ex. xxxiv. 13 ; Judg. iii.
7; 2 Kings iii. 2. Likewise the "Asherim,"
wooden posts and holy trees consecrated to
Astarte ; comp. 1 Kings xiv. 23, and Bahr on the
passage. — On ver. 3, comp. ch. xv. 12. — Ver. 4.
And he took away . . . the high places and the
sun-statues ; D'Ofin, the statues before the altars
of Baal, consecrated to him as the sun-god ;
comp. ch. xxxiv. 4 ; Lev. xxvi. 30 ; Movers, Die
Phonizier, i. 343 ff. — And the kingdom was quiet
before him, that is, under him, under his eye
(V3Q^) ; comp. Num. viii. 22 ; Ps. lxxii. 5 ;
Prov. iv. 3. — Ver. 5. Built fenced cities in Judah
... in those days, during this quiet of ten years.
Comp. Rehoboam's fortifications, ch. xi. 5 ff. —
\rer. 6. Let us build these cities. What cities f
It is not said ; but certainly Geba and Mizpah,
which were built after the war with Baasha (ch. xvi.
6). Asa assigns as the motive for these buildings:
"the land is yet before us, " free, open to us, mi-
occupied by the foe ; comp. Gen. xiii. 9. — And
they built and prospered. Vulg. very free, yet in
substance coriect; nullumque in exstruendo impedi-
mentum fuit. — Ver. 7. Bearing shield and spear.
The great or long shield (n3V) is here meant, iu
opposition to the short or round shield ((3D.)
then mentioned ; the same difference as in ch.
ix. 15, 16. That the Jews had exclusively only
long shields and spears, and the Benjamites only
202
II. CHRONICLES.
short shields and bows, as armour, need not be
assumed ; the representation is only relative,
summary, and not to be pressed, as also the
numbers (300,000 of the Jews and 280,000 of
the Benjaniites) are obviously only round. They
are, moreover, so far as the whole population fit
to bear arms is concerned, by no means incredible.
With respect to the comparatively high number
of 280,000 Benjamites, we are to consider not
only their lighter armour'(which might be borne
by younger and weaker men), but also that Ben-
jamin was an eminently warlike tribe, "a raven-
ing wolf" according to Jacob's prophetic word,
Gen. xlix. 27, that must have taken the field
with all possible force. Comp. also on 1 Chron.
vii. 6-11, and the Evangelical and Ethical Reflec-
tions, No. 3.
2. Asa's Victory over Zerah the Ethiopian :
vers. 8-14, a section wanting in Kings. — And
Zerah the Ethiopian came out against him. This
Zerah (Sept. z^i ; Vulg. Zara) counts with most
recent expositors, on account of the similarity of
name, as the same with the Egyptian King Osor-
ehon I., successor of Shishak-Sesonchis, and so
the second king of the twenty-second or Bubastite
Dynasty (comp. Unger, Manetho, p. 233; Thenius
on 1 Kings xv. 23) ; whereas Hitzig rather iden-
tifies him with the Sabakos of Herodotus (Gesch.
des V. Isr. p. 165 f. ; comp. Herod, ii. 137 ff.,
152), but Brugsch takes him for an Ethiopian,
not Egyptian, ruler, who, under the reign of
Takeloth I. (about 944 B.C.), invaded the south-
west of Asia and Egypt as a conqueror. The last
assumption certainly agrees best, as well with the
Biblical chronology as with the designation of
Zerah as a Kushite. — With a host of 1,000,000.
On this number, as scarcely to be pressed, but
rather depending on a rough and ideal estimate, see
the Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 3. —
And he came to Mareshah, mentioned in ch. xi. 9,
between Hebron and Ashdod. — Ver. 9. And Asa
went out against him, literally, " before him";
comp. xv. 2; 1 Chron. xix. 14, xiv. 8.— In the
valley of ZepliatliMh, scarcely = Tell es Safieh
(Robinson, Pal. ii. 625), but a place nearer Mare-
shah, perhaps that described by Robinson, ii. 613.
- — Ver. 10. Lord, no one is nigh Thee to help, no
one is able like Thee (literally, "with Thee";
comp. _ ch. xx. 6 ; Ps. lxxiii. 25) to help. — With
the mighty, or with no might, " between the
mighty and the impotent " (113 with {> following,
as Gen. i. 13, etc.) ; the help of God is conceived
as imparted either to the mighty or the weak, and
therefore as between both. Some conceive the pas-
sage otherwise; Vulg., Ramb., S. Schmidt, etc. :
Domine, non est apud te ulla distantia utrum in
paucis auxilieris an in pluribus ; Berth., Keil,
etc. : "No other than Thou can help in an un-
equal combat, that is, help the weaker part ; "
Kamph. (writing conjecturally y$)h f°r ~lfl6):
" It is impossible that anything could prevail
(nb "iyV, as ch. xiii. 20, etc.), whether the
•nighty or the weak." Substantially correct,
though inexact, Luther: "It is no difference
with Thee to help among many, or where there
is no power." — In Thy name we go against this
multitude, trusting to Thy help. — No man may
hold out against Thee. For the omission of nb
with ivjj, comp. ch. xx. 37 (1 Chron. xxix. 14 ;
2 Chron. xiii. 25). On the sentence, comp.
(partly at least) Ps. ix. 20a. — Ver. 12. And Asa
. . . pursued them unto Gerar, the old Philistine
city, now Khirbet el Gerar, three and a half hours
south-east of Gaza. — A nd the Ethiopians fell, so
that there was no recovery, not "so that there
was none left living" (Berth., Kamph., etc.), but
so that they could not rally, ut eis vivijicatio, i e.
copias restaurandi ratio non esset (J. H. Mich.,
Keil, etc.). px? stands for px of the older
style, in the sense of "so that not" (comp. Ew.
§ 315, c). rpnD, preservation of life, revival, as
Gen. xlv. 5 ; Ezra ix. 8, 9. — For they were broken
("QtW, a3 Ezek. xxx. 8) before the Lord, and
before His host ; Asa's army is here so called as
the instrument of the divine justice against the
haughty foe. To think of a host of angels that
had contended invisibly on the side of the Jews
(Starke and other older writers, with allusion to
Gen. xxxii. 2 f. ) is without any warrant, as the
term njriD, especially in the singular, stands for
a single earthly army. — Ver. 13. And they smote
all the cities around Gerar, probably because,
like the Philistines generally, they had made
common cause with the Cushites, and joined
them against the Jews. — For the terror of the
Lord, a terror occasioned by the Lord, and there-
fore the more powerful ; comp. xvii. 10, xx. 29 ;
1 Sam. xi. 7. — Ver. 14. And they smote also the
tents of cattle, the herds of the nomad tribes in the
neighbourhood of Gerar (in the northern regions
of the wilderness of Shur and Paran, the old
country of the Amalekites).
3. Prophetic Warning of Azariah Son of Oded
to Asa returning Home : ch. xv. 1-7 (likewise
peculiar to Chronicles). — Upon Azariah son of
Oded. The names of both father and son occur
only here : the identification of Oded with Iddo
(eh. ix. 29, xii. 15) is an idle fancy of some
ancients. — Ver. 2. Before Asa, to meet hiin ;
comp. on ch. xiv. 9. — The Lord is with you,
while you are with Him. Comp. Jas. iv. 8;
and with respect to the following sentence, 1
Chron. xxviii. 9 ; 2 Chron. xii. 5, xxiv. 20 ; Jer.
xxix. 13. — Ver. 3. And many days will be to
Israel without the true God. The Sept. and
Vulg., Luther, Clericus, and most moderns
rightly refer these words to the future, and thus
conceive them to be a prediction of that which
was to happen with respect to the relation of
God's people to the Lord, — a prediction of like
import with Hos. iii. 4, 5. For this view
speaks, on the one hand, the generality of the
term " Israel," which appears to be used here in
the same ideal sense as in ch. xi. 3, xii. 1, and,
on the other hand, the absence of any more pre-
cise date in D13-1 qiov| by which that which ie
said is characterized as a general truth holding
for all times ; but the reference to any definite
earlier time, with which, besides, the closing
monition in ver. 7 would ill agree, is absolutely
excluded. Neither the time of the judges, with
its illegal conditions and its closing reformation
by Samuel, is described by the prophet (against
Vitr. and Ramb. ), nor the last decennium of the
southern kingdom before the reforms of Asa (as
the Syr., Arab., Raschi, Berth., think), nor,
finally, the circumstances of the northern king-
CHAP. XV. 5-10.
203
doia since Jeroboam (Targ., Tremell., Grotius,
etc.). The last opinion is certainly the most
arbitrary of all ; for what occasion had the pro-
phet to greet the king of the southern kingdom,
returning as a conqueror after deliverance frjni a
great danger, with a reflection on the errors and
calamities of the northern kingdom ? But if we
refer the words as a prophecy to the future, no
unsuitable limitation must be introduced (as, for
example, to the Babylonish exile, of which
Kimeni, Mariana, S. Schmidt, have thought). It
is the whole future of the people of God, of which
the prophet asserts the law : ' ' If ye turn away from
God, He will turn away from you." Comp. be-
sides, Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 1.
On the "true God," properly, "God of truth,"
nON TIPS, comp. Jer. x. 10 and Isa. lxv. 16
(JDS 'bit)- 'N 'b& N?S properly, "to not a
god of truth" ; j<7?, not essentially different
from PK7, 1 Chron. xxii. 4, 2 Chron. xx. 35, is
distinguished from &£>3 onry as ? 's distin-
guished from a: the latter expresses the being
in a state, the former the falling into it (Keil).
— Without a teaching priest, without priests to
perform the function of teaching (Lev. x. 10 ;
Deut. xxxiii. 10) ; the special reference to the
high priest (Vitr. and others) has no ground in
the context. To the defect in teaching priests
corresponds the defect in a law ; for where there
is no ITto, there is no miPI ! — Ver. 5 f. The
prophetic address returns after a passing brief
promise of salvation (ver. 46) to the description
of th lamentable effects of the future apostasy
from God. — N peace for him that goeth out or
Cometh in, thus no free, peaceful intercourse ; on
"going out and in," comp. ch. xvi. 1 ; Zech. viii.
10; Josh. vi. 1 ; on the following "great vexa-
tions " (riiCnnD), Deut. xxviii. 20 ; Amos iii. 9.
" All the inhabitants of the lands " are all the
inhabitants of the provinces of Israel (or Judah) ;
see ch. xxxiv. 33. The view of the speaker here
scarcely extends over the whole inhabited globe
(Kamph.), although in the following verse he
transcends the boundaries of Judah, and depicts
its attraction into the confusion and conflict of
the neighbouring nations. — And nation shall be
smitten by nation. Kaniphausen's rendering :
"they are pushed nation on nation," is too far-
fetched, and by no means required by the mean-
ing °f DD3- The Jews had a striking fulfilment
of this gloomy foreboding of a helium omnium
contra omnes in the times of Nebuchadnezzar ; a
second in the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Romans, with respect to which Christ also makes
use of similar prophetic expressions, Luke xxi.
10, 26, and the parallt.s. — For God hath vexed
them with all trouble ; comp. Judg. iv 15 ; Zech.
xiv. 13. — Ver. 7. But be ye brave, and let not
your hands be slack; comp. Zeph. iii. 16; Neh.
vi. 9; and "the hands becoming slack" as a
figure of sinking courage, 2 Sam. iv. 1 ; Isa.
xxxv. 3 ; Heb. xii. 11. On the closing promise
of reward, comp. Jer. xxxi. 16 ; 1 Cor. iii. 8, xv.
58.
4. Asa's Reform of Worship and Renewal of
Covenant with the Lord : vers. 8-19.— And when
Asa heard . . . this prophecy of Oded the pro-
phet. The Hebrew text has not nW33ni, bu*
n&PQSilV This circumstance points to a corruption
of the passage, as well as the absence of p HiTHtJ?
before Tljfi which was to be expected according
to ver. 1. As the readings of the Sept. and
Vulg. (see Crit. Note) may be only later attempts
at emendation, and as the assumption of a double
name of Azariah, according to which he was at
times called by the name of his father (Starke
and other ancients), is certainly as questionable
as the transposition of the corresponding names
in ver. 1 into "Oded son of Azariah" (Mov.), it
appears most advisable to remove the words
S033n Tlj) from the text as an old gloss
(Berth.), or (with Keil) to assume the omission
of several words after nN13|Hl (say "B'!J "1B'«
|3 ^f\Vg)-—Be took courage (pjnnn), accord-
ing to Azariah's exhortation : " be ye brave, "
•lp|j-|. — Put away the abominations, properly,
"make to pass over ("V3Jjn, as 1 Kings xv. 12) the
abominations," the idols ; comp. 2 Kings xxiii.
13, 24 ; Ezek. xxx. 7, 8 ; Dan. ix. 27.— Winch he
had taken from Mount Ephraim, ~\Jp, as ch. xiii.
19, xvii. 2. According to the former of these
passages, it appears that these were the cities that
Abijah, Asa's father, had taken. In fact this
assumption is necessary, because no war of Asa with
the northern kingdom had taken place at this time.
A co-operation of Asa as lieutenant or joint-
commander with his father in that war seems a
questionable assumption, on account of his then
very great youth (perhaps his minority ; comp. on
ch. xiii. 1). — And renewed the altar of the Lord,
that was before the porch of the Lord, the altar of
burnt-offering, that might have been in need of
repair sixty years after its erection by Solomon
(ch. viii. 12). Yet \£h\r\, renovare (comp. ch.
xxiv. 4), might possibly also be taken in the sense
of "consecrate again," after the previous defile-
ment by idolatry (Vulg.: dedicavit ; Berth.,
Kamph., etc.).— Ver. 9 ff. The Great Festival on
the Renewal of the Theocratic Covenant. — And
the strangers with them, out of Ephraim. That
by these strangers are meant not merely the
theocratically - disposed immigrants into Judah
under Rehoboam (xi. 16), but also a newer addi-
tion to them that had come under Asa himself, is
expressly asserted in the following words (comp.
xxx. 11, 18). The mention of Simeon with
Ephraim and Manasseh, and therefore as a dis-
trict belonging to the northern kingdom, is
scarcely to be explained by a migration of many
Simeonites to North Palestine (Berth., Kamph.),
but rather by th fact that the tribe of Simeon,
though in a geographical situation it belonged to
the kingdom of Judah, yet in the point of idolatry
had made common cause with the northern king-
dom by the erection of that impure worship of
Jehovah at Beersheba, of which Amos iv. 4, v.
5, viii. 14 speaks along with Bethel and Gilgal
(correctly Keil, Net., etc.).— Ver. 10. In the third
month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa, in
204
II. CHRONICLES.
the spriug of the year 940 B.C.; comp. Hitzig,
Gesch. p. 197. — Ver. 11. And they sacrificed . . .
of the spoil they had brought, in the war with the
Ethiopians and their allies ; for this war, though
it broke out in the eleventh year of Asa (eh. xiii.
23, xiv. 8), might have extended even to the pre-
sent date, and. therefore lasted for four years ;
the statement in ch. xiv. 8-14 admits of this very
well. — Ver. 12. They entered into a covenant, a
new covenant of peace with God ; comp. ^13
JV133i Jer- xxxiv. 10; Nell. x. 30. — Ver. 13.
And whosoever . . . should be put to death, ac-
cording to the strict letter of the law, Deut. xvii.
2-6 ; comp. ch. xiii. 10, 17. Observe the pre-
sent trace of a far higher age of the book of
Deuteronomy than the time of Josiah, where
modern criticism places its origin. Comp.
Schroder, Deuteron. Einl. pp. 25, 32 ; Kleinert,
Das Deuteron. und der Deutoronomiker, 1872,
especially p. 136 ff.— Ver. 14. And they sware
unto tlie Lord with a loud voice. On the
musical instruments accompanying this act of
the solemn renewal of the covenant, comp.
xxiii. 13 ; Neh. xii. 27 ff.— Vers. 16-18. Comp.
Bahr on the almost literally coinciding parallel
1 Kings xv. 13-15. — And also Maachah, the
motlier of Asa the king, he removed. In 1 Kings
Itands simply iex, " Lis mother," because there
Maachah had been mentioned just before (ver.
10). For the rest, comp. on ch. xiii. 1. — And
Asa cut down her idol, and crushed it, and burnt it.
The " crushing " (comp. Ex. xxxii. 20 ; 2 Kings
xxiii. 15) is mentioned only by the Chronist ; in
1 Kings p"]V| is wanting. —Ver. 17. Out of Israel
Is wanting in 1 Kings. It naturally means the
southern kingdom as the legitimate and normal
people of Israel ; comp. ver. 3. — But the heart of
Asa was perfect, entirely devoted to the Lord.
The nii"P DJ? expressly added 1 Kings is here
omitted, because the D?g», as predicate to Jp,
is plain enough of itself (comp. ch. xvi. 9, xix.
9) ; that is, Asa's exclusive interest in the worship
of Jehovah at Jerusalem, not in that (still
tolerated) worship on the high places, is distinctly
enough expressed. — Ver. 19, introducing the fol-
lowing account of the war. — And there was no
more war unto the thirty-fifth year of the reign of
Asa. The contradiction to 1 Kings xv. 16 :
"And there was war between Asa and Baasha
king of Israel all their days," is in so far only
apparent, as nDI"6o there denotes only a state of
hostility, here a formal war actually carried on in
open field. It is not so easy to explain the diffi-
culty involved in the date: "unto the thirty-
fifth year of Asa's reign ; " see on xvi. 1.
5. Asa's War with Baasha : ch. xvi. 1-6 ;
comp. 1 Kings xv. 17-23. —In the thirty-sixth
year of the reign of Asa. As, ;ccording to 1
Kings xvi. 8, 10, Baasha died in the twenty-
sixth year of Asa's reign, and his successor Elan
was killed before two years more had elapsed, and
therefore in the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth
year of this king, the misplacing of the war be-
tween Asa and Baasha in the thirty-sixth year of
the latter involves an error, and a very old one,
already noted by the Sept., and provided with an
attempt at emendation (see Crit. Note). A mis-
take of the pen, that, as ch. xv. 19 shows,
existed perhaps in the sources of the Chronist, ia
probably the ground of this error ; and 3C ap-
pears to have been miswritten for 16 (and in
accordance with this, in ch. xv. 19, 35 for 15).
From the similarity of the numeral "j (30) to *
(10) in the old Hebrew character, this change was
very possible ; and the circumstance that Asa's
reform of worship, ch. xv. 10, took place in the
third month of his fifteenth year, agrees on the
whole very well with this determination of time ;
there results an interval of a year or a year and a
half between the reform and the new war. The
solution preferred by most of the old expositors,
that the thirty-sixth year of the kingdom of Asa,
that is, the thirty-sixth year from the founding
of the kingdom of Judah by Rehoboam, which
coincides with the sixteenth year of the reign of
Asa, is meant (des Vignoles, Ramb., Starke,
Mich., and Hengstenberg, Gesch. des Heiches
Gottes, iii. 169), is not consistent with the word
rm?D?i which in this connection always signifies
"reign, sovereignty." The attempts made by
Movers (Chron. p. 255 ff. ) and Thenius (on
1 Kings xv. ) to explain this surprising mistake
are too artificial, and arbitrary (see, on the contrary
side, Berth, p. 325). On the following particulars,
coinciding almost word for word with 1 Kings
xv. 17 if, comp. Bahr's exposition. — Ver. 2.
And sent to Senhadad. Instead of the form
Tirrp) presented here and generally in the Old
Testament, the Assyrian monuments constantly
exhibit this name in the form Binhidri (Schrader,
Die Keilinschriften, p. 101 f. ), thus agreeing with
the uios tou " \iif of the Sept. (= "Virrp). — Ver.
4. And they smote Abel-maim = Abel-beth-
maachah of the parallel text in 1 Kings, as is
clear from 2 Sam. xx. 14 — And all the stores of
the cities of Naphtali. For this 1 Kings has:
"And all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naph-
tali." That the one of the two readings has
arisen from the other by misunderstanding or
miswriting seems certain ; perhaps the ni"l33
in 1 Kings is corrupted from 11133 DD (Gesen.-
Dietrich im Lex.), though our DiiBDD'^S HN1
'3 ,"lj; might possibly also be an explanation of
the '3 px jjy nil?3-i>3 DN1, 1 Kings xv.,
whereby the Chronist might have characterized
the high fertility of the district of Cinneroth
(or Cinnereth, Josh. xix. 35) by the symbolic
expression : " stores (corn-magazines) of the cities
of Naphtali " (so Keil). — Ver. 5. And let his work
cease. Instead of this, 1 Kings xv. 21 : "and
dwelt in Tirzah." In our inasisDTIS rBXffli
scarcely anything else is tc be seen but an attempt
at interpretation, where the words nv~iri3 3E"1
had become illegible (Berth., Kamph. ) ; for after
the words: "he left off building of Raniah," »
second repetition of the thought, that Baasha gave
up his undertaking against Judah, was obviously
superfluous (against Keil). — Ver. 6. And built
therewith Geba and Mizpah, the former (Geoa of
Benjamin in 1 Kings) half an hour north-cast,
CHAP. XVI. 7-14.
2c;
the latter an hour south-west, of Jerusalem. The
historical character of this notice is confirmed by
Ji.'. xli. 9, where a pit made by Asa in Mizpah is
mentioned.
6. Hanani's Prophetic Warning : Asa's Trans-
gression and End : vers. 7-14. — And at that time
came Hanani. This prophet (^jri) is otherwise
unknown, though he appears to be identical with
the father of the prophet Jehu ben Hanani, who
about this time announced to Baasha the downfall
of his house (1 Kings xvi. 1); comp. xix. 2. That
this Hanani was the author of the prophetic sen-
tence (yD6J>) quoted by Hos. vii. 12, whereby
Israel is warned against a league with foreign
powers, or more definitely, that the present oracle
of Hanani, without naming its author, is quoted
in this passage of Hosea, is the quite untenable
conjecture of some moderns, for example, Fiirst
(Gesch. der bibl. Lit. ii. 206, 293).— Therefore
is the host of the king of Syria escaped from thy
hand, the occasion has escaped thee of smiting
both at once, Baasha of Israel and his presump-
tive ally the Syrian king. Comp. the rebuke by
Elisha of Joash of Israel, for smiting only three
times with the arrows instead of five or six times
(2 Kings xiii. 15 ff.). — Ver. 8. Confirmatory refer-
ence to the victory of Asa over Zerah (xiv. 8 ff.).
For the Lubites, comp. on xii. 3 f. — Ver. 9. For
the eyes of the Lord, etc. , literally, for Jehovah,
His eyes. On "to prove himself strong for any
one," that is, help him mightily, comp. 1 Chron.
xi. 10. On "running" about, 3 DDiB') comp.
Jer. v. 1 ; Zech. iv. 10. Before vf>6< tfot) D33^"DJ7
the relative *i£'K is omitted ; comp. 1 Chron. xv.
12. — For henceforth thou shall have wars, en-
tanglements in unhappy worldly transactions,
in the dangerous mazes of the policy of the great
powers ; a prediction of misfortune that was
abundantly fulfilled, if not in Asa himself, yet
in his successors until the exile. — Ver. 10. Put
him in the prison, properly, "house of the stocks";
rDSHD, "turning round," is the well-known in-
strument of torture for locking round the culprit,
in which Jeremiah also and Paul were forced to
languish (Jer. xx. 2, xxix. 26 ; Acts xvi. 24).
Comp. \he equivalent "jd, Job xiii. 27, xxxiii. 11.
— And Asaoppressedsomeof the peopleat that time,
from anger at the deserved censure of the prophet
(on the suitableness and importance of this ad-
dress, see the Evangelical and Ethical Eefiections).
j>yi, properly, "shatter," in PL: "oppress, mis-
use," as Job xx. 19. — Vers. 11-14. Asa's End.
On ver. 11, comp. Introd. § 5, II. — Ver. 12. And
Asa . . . was diseased in his feet, probably with
gout; the following also: "his disease was very
great" (literally, till it reached a great height,
n?J?D? IJj), points to severe suffering of this
kind. — And in his disease also he sought not the
Lord, but to the physicians, {jrn, first with the
accusative of the object ffipWIX, as is usual else-
where, then with 3, by which preposition is
elsewhere designated, inquiring or seeking help
from God or from idols (1 Chron. x. 14; 1 Sam.
Sxviii. 7; 2 Kings i. 2 ff.); thus here expressing
a superstitious trust in the physicians, and ac-
cordingly not opposed to the right of making use
of medical aid, especially in cases of sickness ; so
far from this, that inversely the not seeking of
the Lord may be regarded as a not seeking of his
priests who were in Israel, analogous to the
Egyptian priests, the legitimate physicians (as
is done by K. Ad. Menzel in his posthumous
work, Religion und Sladtsidee, 1872, p. 29). —
Ver. 14. Asa's solemn burial is related by the
Chronist with surprising detail, probably on
account of the heathenish pomp and luxury
which it displayed, reminding us of the manner
of the Egyptian Pharaohs. — And they buried
him in his own tomb, literally, "in his own
sepulchres ;" comp. 2 Kings xxii. 20; Job xxi. 32.
This preparation of a burial-place or mausoleum,
different from the common tombs of the kings,
reminds us of the customs of the Egyptian kings,
or at all events (comp. our Remark on Job iii.
14) indicates a haughty inclination to self-apothe-
osis incompatible with a genuine theocratic dis-
position ; comp. Isa. xxii. 16 ff. — Laid him in the
bed which was filled with sweet odours of divers
hinds. On Qijf, "kinds," comp. Ps. cxliv. 13,
Dan. iii. 5 ; the term may well serve to describe
more precisely the foregoing D*ot?3, "spices"
(Song iv. 10 ff.). — Compounded by art, properly,
"compounded by compounding of work," by the
work of the artificer ; comp. Ex. xxx. 25, 35,
and 1 Chron. ix. 30. IIK'JJD is iu this connec-
tion npil nt2>J)D > ^he assumption that the latter
word is omitted is unnecessary. — And they made
a very great burning for him, namely, of the
sweet-smelling substances of the kind mentioned.
Such burnings of incense were always made at the
burial of the kings of Judah, as appears from
Jer. xxxiv. 5. But what the Chronist notices as
culpable is the exaggerated splendour and lavish
excess with which the custom was observed in
the burial of Asa, as if it were the burial of a
Pharaoh of Egypt (comp. Wilkinson, Manners
and Customs, etc., ii. 385 f. ; Uhlemann, Egypt.
Alterthumsk. ii. 325). Against the assumption
of some, as Michaelis {De combustione et huma-
tione mortuorum apud Hebrceos, in his Syntagma
dissertatt. i. 225 sqq.), that the body of the king
was burned among the spices, see Geier, De luctu
Hebrceor. c. vi. , who rightly maintains that such
cases as the burning of Saul and his sons were
exceptions to the general custom of Hebrew
antiquity.
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS AND
APOLOGETIC REMARKS ON CH. XIII. -XVI.
1. To much that is original, and in x, tneo-
logical sense important, in the comparatively full
account given by our author of the reigns of
Abijah and Asa, belong especially the three
speeches which it contains, of which the old
parallel text presents neither a brief risumi nor
even a passing trace. All three are in a high
degree characteristic, and point to a primitive
tradition, true in all essentials to word and deed
as their source. The address of Abijah to the
Ephraimites from Mount Zemaraim is strictly an
oratio pro domo, a defence of a royal representa-
tive of the house of David maintaining the good
cause of his theocratic inheritance. With nc
206
II. CHRONICLES.
little skill, and with much diplomatic art as well
as downright popular rhetoric;, all is put forward
that can be said for the legitimate kingdom and
worship, and agaii.st the usurpation of Jeroboam.
There is reference, on the one hand, to the un-
changeableness of the covenant with Jehovah
(xiii. 5), to the divine origin of the Davidic
dynasty (as "a kingdom of the Lord in the hand
of the sons of David," ver. 8), to the beauty and
established order of the service of God in the
central sanctuary at Jerusalem, and to the heredi-
tary legal chartered dignity of the theocratic
priesthood (vers. 10-12); and, on the other hand,
to the unworthy aims of the revolution party led
by Jeroboam (the men of Belial who took advan-
tage of the tender youth, inexperience, and weak-
ness of Kehoboam, ver. 7), to the folly of the
worship of the golden calves, the illegal and
heathenish character of its priesthood, the hope-
lessness of a contest with Jehovah, the God of
their fathers (vers. 8, 9, 12), in the tone now of fine
irony, now of bitter scorn, and now of threaten-
ing earnest. The whole, inclusive of the partisan,
one-sided, and somewhat distorted reference to
the procedure in the separation of the kingdom
(ver. 7), appears a masterpiece of political elo-
quence, the present form of which (taken, no doubt,
from the Midrasch of the prophet Iddo quoted in
ver. 22) may be ideally conceived ; but the chief
context and process of thought can scarcely be a
pure invention. No less original and character-
istic are the two prophetic speeches inserted in
the history of Asa's reign. The speech of Azariah
son of Oded (ch. xv. 2-7) unfolds at the moment
a gloomy picture of the future godlessness of the
people forsaking their God more and more, and of
the troubles and judgments arising from their un-
faithfulness, where the tone of jubilant gladness
for the great victory secured, and the announce-
ment of optimistic expectations, would have
seemed most natural. Instead of a panegyristic
flatterer courting princely favour, a deeply-earnest
prophet of woe greets the king returning in
triumph, who has certainly words of acknow-
ledgment for that which has been performed by
the conquerors, but clothes his praise in the
form of an exhibition of necessary connection
between devotion to God and the gracious reward
of sucl devotion, and dwells with visible pre-
dilectirui on the times of apostasy, with its tragic
consequences, that were coming notwithstanding
all the admonitions of the prophets. The speech
appears badly enough to suit the festive moment
that forms its occasion ; but it testifies to the
unusually deep glance into the inmost heart of
the people which the speaker filled with the
terrible earnest of the coming destiny has long
taken. And as such testimony, it fails not also of
its effect, but rather proves, as the consequent
energy of the king in purifying the form of
worship shows, a true comfort and strengthening
for good (*a.(a.KXniris, confortatio; comp. p.jnn!"l,
Sept. n-tfrUxvii, ver. 8), an impulse at least
effectual for a time to return to the path of
theocratic truth and righteousness, a model
(Hos. iii. 4 f., ix. 3, 4, where there seems to
be an allusion to it) and primitive form held in
esteem by later prophets of genuine prediction,
the fundamental thought of which, as it recurs
(mutatis mutandis)in the woe-foreboding addresses
of an Isaiah to Hezekiah (Isa. xxxix. ; 2 Kings
xx.), and a Huldah to Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv.
22 ff.), stands forth not essentially different in
the pictures of the future presented in the New
Testament (Matt. xxiv. 5 ff'.; 2 Thess. ii. 3 ff.;
1 John ii. 18 if.; Luke xviii. 8, etc.). In severe
rebuke of a temporary departure of the king from
the path of theological strictness and conscien-
tiousness marked out for him by the prophetic
word of Azariah, proceeds the second of the two
prophetic speakers, Hanani (ch. xvi. 7-9). With
a sharp lecture he treats the king, looking for
nothing but praise for his victory over Baasha.
That he made not Jehovah but the Syrian
heathens his stay, he pronounces not only im-
prudent but directly "foolish" (ver. 9). Hh
sagacity, not unexercised in political matters,
lets him know immediately, under the influence
of the illuminating Spirit of God, that the calling
in the help of the Syrian power must draw to it
the dependence, not merely of the conquered
Israelites, but also of the Jews. Wherefore he
not only blames the misled prince's weakness of
faith and fear of man, and emphatically lays
before him, that the eyes of the Lord are only
strong for those who serve Him with entire
devotion, but hurls upon him a hard ITODJi
stulte egisli (unduly softened by the Sept. into a
weak riyvotixas icr) roiirtu). He suffers for this
boldness the same punishment which Jeremiah
brought upon himself, when he, a no less zealous
preacher of the truth that man should not make
flesh his arm than Hanani, had spoken hard
words against the obstinacy and folly of his con-
temporaries (Jer. xx. 2 ; comp. ch. xvii. 5, xix.
15). — Here again is nothing that is not in the
highest degree original and powerful, breathing
the stern prophetic spirit of Samuel and Nathan.
Both speeches may show in their present form the
elaborating hand of the Ghronist, but in matter
they appear with incontestable evidence as docu-
ments taken from the prophetic historical sources
of the writer, of a time bordering upon and
cognate with the spirit of Elijah and Elisha.
2. In a religious and moral respect, the two
kings described in our section appear again some-
what better than Kehoboam, who trod in the
paths of the degenerate Solomon. In particular,
Asa receives due praise for his theocratic zeal, as
he busied himself as a reformer of the worship of
God, that had been in several ways disfigured
by superstition. The Deuteronomic law, which
threatens every partaker in such idolatry with
death, he not only binds upon the people by an
oath (xv. 13 f.), but puts in practice the judicial
rigour of this statute even against his own mother
(grandmother), as he removes her from her dignity
as queen-mother on account of her worship of
Astarte, and so makes judgment begin at the
royal house itself (ver. 16). Inasmuch as he
certainly does not set aside (ver. 17) the worship
on the high places, he does not rise to the height
of theocratic rigour and purity which was at-
tained in the subsequent reforms of Hezekiah and
Josiah. The later time and the end of his reign
also were tarnished by bursts of passion and acts of
violence towards pious men of God, as the prophet
Hanani ; and a severe and painful disease is not
able to bring him back to the early well-known
simplicity of his devotion to Jehovah (ch. xvi. 12;
comp. xv. 17). He seeks not the Lord, but be-
takes himself to the physicians ; the impure
CHAP. XVII.-XX.
207
juggling method, mingled no doubt with super-
stition and idolatry, pursued by the medicine
men or goetse of his time, gave him more confi-
dence than the helping hand of the God of truth,
with whose witnesses he had also quarrelled. So
it fared otherwise with him than with the pious
Hezekiah, who without medical aid, by the mira-
culous help of God obtained through the prophet,
was delivered from a dangerous 3ickness, and had
fifteen years added to his life (2 Kings xx. ;
2 Ohron. xxxii. 24). The word of the wise
Sirach was verified in him : "He that sinneth
before his Maker shall fall into the hand of the
physician " (Sir. xxxviii. 1 5). Like the woman
having the issue of blood, he must become toXxA
vrxtto* Sjto TaXkSn IxrfSv, Mark v. 26. In setting
forth the impotence of these human helpers ex-
clusively sought by him (comp. Sir. x. 11: pj.a.x.pli
ipparvTifxa aKawrru ixrpiv ' ), there is no absolute
condemnation of medical art or science, but
merely a gentle hint of the state of his heart,
enslaved to worldly and idolatrous lusts, God-
estranged and unbelieving, on account of which
might justly be addressed to him the question of
the prophet Jeremiah: " Is there no balm in
Gilead ? Is there no physician there ? Why,
then, is not the health of the daughter of my
people recovered ? " Jer. viii. 22 ; or also that
question of Elijah: "Is it not because there is
not a God in Israel that ye go to inquire of
Baalzebub the god of Ekron ? " 2 Kings i. 3.
Comp. also, with respect to Asa's religious and
moral character, the weighty remark of Bengel
(Beitrage zum Schriftverstcindniss, p. 17 f.) :
" Asa was righteous (xv. 17), and yet ne behaved
so badly at the last (xvi. 10, 12). How can this
be ? Answer. — He has not turned to idols all his
life long ; he has constantly held the Lord to be
the right, true, and only God. But it was, as it
were, an atheismus practieus, that he withdrew
his confidence from Him. He thought, Shall I
have been pious so long, and yet now receive a
reprimand ? If he had only received it like
David : I have sinned, etc., all would have been
right, etc."
3. In an apologetic respect, we have to observe,
in conjunction with the remarks made under
No. 1, that weighty credentials of an internal
kind support the two great wars as the Chronist
relates them here, in completion of the very im-
perfect account in the books of Kings of these
episodes in the history of the reigns of Abijah
and Asa. That Abijah's conflict with Jeroboam,
after the total dissolution of the army of the latter,
led to the annexation of the three towns Bethel,
Jeshanah, and Ephron to the southern kingdom
(ch. xiii. 19), is a notice so definite and concrete,
that no scepticism of de "Wette and Gramberg,
1 'IarpeV we believe, in the notorious corruption of the
text (iee Fritzsche's Libb. aporr. V. T. p. 409), with Hitziu
{Der Proph. Daniel, p. 142), should be read here instead of
utrpos.
with its assertion of the feigned character of the
narrative in question, can be accepted, as, on the
other hand, the attempt of Ewald, while admitting
a kernel of historical fact, to stamp at least the
speech of Abijah on Mount Zemaraim as a free
composition of the Chronist, is wrecked on the
highly original contents of this speech (see No. 1,
and comp. Keil, Commentar, p. 264 f., Remarks).
The passage 1 Kings xv. 15 also, where the
things dedicated by Abijah are mentioned, which
his son Asa afterwards brought into the house of
the Lord along with his own dedicated gifts,
affords an indirect proof that both rulers had
gained great victories and taken much spoil from
their foes (comp. 2 Chron. xiv. 1 2 f. ), by which
must be meant the victory of the former over
Jeroboam, and that of the latter over Zerah (comp.
Thenius on this passage, and Berth, on Chron. p.
324). The credibility of the account of this last
great battle derives support also from what is
related at its close of the conquest and spoliation
of the cities around Gerar, and the cattle tents of
the nomad tribes dwelling south of Palestine, a
detail, again, that gives the lie altogether to the
suspicion of pure fiction. — Only the very high
numbers in the account of the slaughter should
be regarded as falling beyond the range of the
historically exact. They " are perhaps not to be
understood according to the nominal value of the
numbers given, but only an expression conceived
in figures of the contemporaries of these wars,
which imports that the two kings (first Abijah
and Jeroboam, then Asa and Zerah) had sum-
moned to the field the whole military strength of
their kingdoms " (Keil, p. 265). In the war of
Abijah with Jeroboam, this is favoured by the ap-
proximative accordance of the numbers 800,000
and 400,000 with results of the census by David,
as well as the round ideal sum of 500,000 as the
number of those who fell on the side of Israel, a
number that perhaps only indicates that Jeroboam
had lost more than half his force. In the war with
the Ethiopian king, the corresponding assumption
is favoured by the round number 1,000,000, as
well as by the circumstance that exact accounts,
resting on actual numbering, and not on a mere
estimate, of the strength of the enemy, were not
at the command of the observers and reporters on
the Jewish side (comp. above on the passages in
question). The necessity of a merely ideal and
approximate conception of these numbers is
evident, if we compare the statements, resting
on actual numbering, of the strength of the men-
at-arms in the several tribes in the genealogical
summaries (1 Chron. v.-vii.). The smallest of
the numbers there named (for example, 44,760,
87,000, 22,034, 20,200, 17,200, 26,000) are round.
It is the same with the numbers referring to the
warriors from the several tribes at the elevation
of David to the throne in 1 Chron. xii. ; comp.
the remarks on this in p. 1 20 f.
d. Jehoshaphat: the Prophets Michah Son of Imlah and Jehu Son of Hanani.—
Ch. xvn.-xx.
*. Jehoshaphafs Measures for the External and Internal Defence of hi* Kingdom:
ch. xvii. 1-9.
Ch. xvii. 1. And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself
2 against Israel. And he placed forces in all the fenced cities of Judah, and
placed garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which
208 II. CHRONICLES.
3 Asa his father had taken. And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat ; for he
walked in the former ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim.
4 But sought to the Lord God of his father, and walked in His commandments,
5 and not after the doing of Israel. And the Lord stablished the kingdom in
his hand ; and all Judah brought presents to Jehoshaphat ; and he had riches
6 and honour in abundance. And his heart was lifted up m the ways of the
Lord ; and, moreover, he took away the high places and Ashenm out of
7 Judah. And in the third year of his reign he sent his princes, Benhail,1 and
Obadiah, and Zechariah, and Nethaneel, and Michaiah, to teach m the cities
8 of Judah. And with them the Levites, Shemaiah, and Nethamah, and
Zebadiah, and Asahel, and Shemiramoth,2 and Jelionathan, and Adomjah,
and Tobijah, and Tob-adonijah, Levites; and with them Elishama and
9 Jehoram, priests. And they taught in Judah, and had with them the book
of the law of the Lord, and went round all the cities of Judah, and taught
among the people.
/8. The Effects of these Measures: Jehoshaphat' 's increasing Power: vers. 10-19.
10 And the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that
11 were around Judah, and they warred not with Jehoshaphat. And some of
the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presents, and silver in abundance ; the
Arabs also brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and
12 seven thousand and seven hundred he-goats. And Jehoshaphat became ever
greater to the highest degree ; and he built in Judah castles and cities with
13 stores. And he had much store in the cities of Judah : and men of war,
14 mighty men of valour, in Jerusalem. And this was the muster of them after
their father-houses : of Judah, the captains of thousands : Adnah the chief,
15 and with him mighty men of valour three hundred thousand. And at his
hand Jehohanan the chief, and with him two hundred and eighty thousand.
16 And at his hand Amasiah son of Zichri, who willingly offered himself unto
17 the Lord ; and with him two hundred thousand mighty men of valour. And
of Benjamin : Eliada, a mighty man of valour, and with him, armed with bow
18 and shield, two hundred thousand. And at his hand Jehozabad, and with
19 him a hundred and eighty thousand equipped for the war. These were they
who ministered to the king, besides those whom the king had placed in the
fenced cities in all Judah.
y. Jehoshaphat' :s Affinity with Ahab, and the War against Ramoth-gilead : ch. xviii.
Ch xviii. 1. And Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined
2 affinity with Ahab. And in the course of years he went down to Ahab
to Samaria : and Ahab killed for him, and the people that were with him,
sheep and oxen in abundance ; and he persuaded him to go up with him to
3 Ramoth-gilead. And Ahab Icing of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat king of
Judah, Wilt thou go with me to Bamoth-gilead 1 And he said to him, I
am as thou, and my people as thy people ; and we will be with thee in the
4 war. And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Ask now this day the
5 word of the Lord. And the king of Israel gathered the prophets, four
hundred men, and said unto them, Shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or
shall I forbear 1 And they said, Go up ; and God will give it into the hand
P> of the king. And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord
7 besides, that we may ask of him 1 And the king of Israel said unto
Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, by whom we may inquire of the Lord ;
but I hate him, because he never prophesied good to me, but always evil :
that is Michar. son of Imlah : and Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king
say so.
8 And the king of Israel called a chamberlain, and said, Fetch quickly
9 Michah3 son of Imlah. And the king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat king oi
Judah, sat each on his throne, clothed in robesf and they sat in a floor at the
CHAP. XVII.-XX. 209
entrance of the gate of Samaria ; and all the prophets prophesied before them.
10 And Zedekiah son of Chenaanah made him iron horns, and said, Thus saith
11 the Lord, With these thou shalt push Syria, until they are consumed. And
all the prophets prophesied so, and said, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper ;
and the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
1 2 And the messenger that went to call Michah spake to him, saying, Behold,
the words of the prophets are with one mouth good for the king : let now thy
1 3 word then be as one of them, and speak thou good. And Michah said, As
14 the Lord livoth, what my God saith, that will I speak. And he came to the
king ; and the king said unto him, Michah, Shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to
"battle, or shall I forbear] And he said, Go ye up, and prosper, and they
15 shall be delivered into your hand. And the king said to him, How many
times shall I adjure thee, that thou speak nothing to me but truth in the
16 name of the Lord 1 And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the moun
tains, as sheep that have no shepherd : and the Lord said, These have no
17 master ; let them return every man to his house in peace. And the king of
Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would not prophesy
good to me, but evil 1
18 And he said, Therefore hear ye the word of the Lord; I saw the Lord
sitting upon His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right
19 hand and on His left. And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab king of
Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead'! And one said4 this,
20 and another said that. And the spirit came forth, and stood before the Lord,
21 and said, I will entice him : and the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And
he said, I will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets :
and He said, Thou shalt entice, and shalt also prevail : go forth, and do so.
22 And now, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy
23 prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee. And Zedekiah son of
Chenaanah drew near, and smote Michah on the cheek, and said, Which way
24 went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak with thee t And Michah said,
Behold, thou shalt see on that day when thou goest from chamber to chamber
25 to hide thyself. And the king of Israel said, Take ye Michah, and carry him
26 back to Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son. And say
ye, Thus saith the king, Put him in the prison, and let him eat bread of trouble,
27 and water of trouble, until I return in peace. And Michah said, If thou
return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me : and he said, Hear,
all ye people.
28 And the king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat king of Judah, went up to
29 Ramoth-gilead. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Disguised I will
go into the battle ; but thou put on thy robes : and the king of Israel dis-
30 guised himself, and they went into the battle. And the king of Syria had
commanded the captains of his chariots, saying, Fight ye not with small or
31 great, but only with the king of Israel. And it came to pass, when the
captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, This is the king ot
Israel ; and they compassed about him to fight ; and Jehoshaphat cried out,
32 and the Lord helped him, and God turned them away from him. And it
came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king
33 of Israel, that they turned from after him. And a man drew a bow in his
simplicity, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness :
and he said to the charioteer, Turn thy hand,5 and carry me out of the host ;
34 for I am wounded. And the battle went up in that day, and the king of
Israel was standing in the chariot against Syria until the evening ; and he
died at the time of the sun setting.
3. Judgment of Jehu the Prophet on the Covenant of Jehoshaphat with Ahab: ch. xix. 1-8.
Ch. XIX. 1. And Jehoshaphat king of Judah returned home in peace to Jerusalem.
2 And Jehu son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king
Jehoshaphat, Must we help the wicked, and shouldst thou love them that
210 II. CHRONICLES.
3 hr.'e the Lord 1 and for this is wrath upon thee from the Lord. Yet good
things are found with thee ; for thou hast destroyed the Asherim out of the
land, and thou hast directed thy heart to seek God.
t. Jekoshaphafa further Reforms of Worship and Law: vers. 4-11.
4 And Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem : and he went out again among the
people, from Beersheba to mount Ephraim, and brought them back to the
5 Lord <iod of their fathers. And he appointed judges in the land, in all the
6 fenced cities of Judah, city by city. And said to the judges : See what ye
do ; for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord ; and He is with you in judg-
7 ment. And now let the fear of the Lord be upon you ; take heed and do
ye ; for with the Lord our God is neither iniquity, nor respect of persons,
8 nor taking of gift. — And also in Jerusalem Jehoshaphat appointed of the
Levites and priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the judgment
9 of the Lord, and for pleading ; and they returned to Jerusalem. And he
commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, with
10 truth and a perfect heart. And in6 every plea that cometh before you of
your brethren that dwell in their cities, between blood and blood, between
law and commandment, statutes and judgments, ye shall advise them, that
they trespass not against the Lord, so that wrath come upon you and your
1 1 brethren : thus shall ye do, and not trespass.7 And, behold, Amariah the
chief priest is over you for every matter of the Lord ; and Zebadiah son of
Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah, for every matter of the king • and
the Levites are officers before you ■ take courage, and do ye, and the Lord
will be with the good.
f. Jehoshaphat' s Victory over the Moahites, Ammonites, ana othe" Nations of the East :
ch. xx. 1-30.
CH. XX. 1. And it came to pass after this, that the sons of Moab and the sons of
Aniinon, and with them of the Meunites,8 came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
2 And they came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh against thee a
great multitude from beyond the sea, from Syria ; and, behold, they are at
3 Hazezon-tamar, that is Engedi. And Jehoshaphat was afraid,9 and set his
4 face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast over all Judah. And the Jews
assembled to seek the Lord : even from all the cities of Judah came they to seek
5 the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jeru-
6 salem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court. And said, Lord God
of our fathers, art not Thou God in heaven, and ruler over all the kingdoms of
the nations 1 and in thy hand are strength and might, and none is with Thee
7 to withstand Thee. Hast not Thou, our God, driven out the inhabitants of
this land before Thy people Israel, and given it to the seed of Abraham Thy
8 friend for ever ? And they dwelt therein, and built Thee a sanctuary therein
9 for Thy name, saying : If evil come upon us, sword, judgment, or pestilence
or famine, we shall stand before this house, and before Thee — for Thy name is
in this house — and shall cry unto Thee out of our affliction : then Thou wilt
10 hear and help. And now, behold, the sons of Amnion, and Moab, and mount
Seir, whom thou wouldst not let Israel invade, when they came out of the
1 1 land of Egypt, but they departed from them, and destroyed them not. And,
behold, they requite us by coming to cast us out of Thy possession which
12 Thou hast given us. Our God, wilt Thou not judge them 1 for in us is no
might against this great multitude that cometh against us ; and we know not
13 what we shall do : but our eyes are upon Thee. And all Judah stood before
the Lord, and their little ones, their wives, and their sons.
14 And upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of
Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit
15 of the Lord in the midst of the congregation. And he said, Attend ye, all
Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat ; Thus
CHAP. XVII.-XX. 211
saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed before this great multi-
16 tude ; for the battle is not yours, but God's. To-morrow go ye down against
them : behold, they go up by the hill of Haziz ; and ye shall find them at the
17 end of the valley, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not have to fight
here : step forth, stand ye, and see the help of the Lord who is with you, 0
Judah and Jerusalem : fear ye not, nor be dismayed ; to-morrow go out
18 against them, and the Lord will be with you. And Jehoshaphat bowed his
face to the ground ; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell
19 before the Lord, to worship the Lord. And the Levites of the sons of
Kohath, and of the Korhites, stood up to praise the Lore God of Israel with
an exceeding loud voice.
20 And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness
of Tekoa ; and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, Hear ye
me, Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem : Believe in the Lord your God,
and ye shall be established ; believe in His prophets, and ye shall prosper.
21 And he advised the people, and appointed men singing unto the Lord, and
praising in holy beauty, when they go out before the armed men, and saying,
22 Give thanks to the Lord; for His mercy endureth for ever. And at the time
when they began with song and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the
sons of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah ; and
23 they were smitten. And the sons of Ammon and Moab stood up against the
inhabitants of mount Seir, to cut off and destroy them ; and when they had
ended with the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.
24 And Judah came to the watch-tower in the wilderness, and looked to the
multitude ; and, behold, they lay as corpses on the earth, and none escaped.
25 And Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, and they found with
them in abundance, goods and corpses,10 and costly vessels ; and they stripped
off for themselves more than they could carry ; and they were three days
26 taking the spoil, for it was great. And on the fourth day they assembled in
the valley of blessing ; for there they blessed the Lord : therefore they
27 called the name of the place the valley of blessing unto this day. And they
returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat at their head,
to return to Jerusalem with gladness ; for the Lord had made them glad over
28 their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries, and harps, and
29 trumpets, unto the house of the Lord. And the fear of God was upon all
the kingdoms of the countries when they heard that the Lord fought against
30 the enemies of Israel. And the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet ; for his God
gave him rest round about.
u. End of the Reign of Jehoshaphat : vers. 31-37.
31 And Jehoshaphat reigned over Judah : he was thirty and five years old
when he became king, and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem
32 and his mother's name was Azubah, daughter of Shilhi. And he walked in
the way of his father Asa, and departed not from it, so that he did that
33 which was right in the sight of the Lord. Only the high places were not
taken away, and the people had not yet directed their heart to the God of
their fathers.
34 And the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, behold, they are
written in the words of Jehu son of Hanani, which are inserted in the book
of the kings of Israel.
35 And afterwards Jehoshaphat king of Judah allied himself with Ahaziah
36 king of Israel : he was wicked in his doing. And he allied himself with him,
37 to make ships to go to Tarshish : and they made ships in Ezion-geber. And
Eliezer, son of Dodavah11 of Mareshah, prophesied against Jehoshaphat,
saying, Because thou hast allied thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath
broken thy work : and the ships were wrecked, and were not able to go to
Tarshish.
212
II. CHRONICLES.
' For ^n-|a the S.-pt. (and Syr.) appears to have read ^n 1)2 ! for they translate arpellatively, m>U rS.
l»,iT»,. But the word is certainly a proper name; comp. TDrT|3, 1 Kings iv. 10, and similar names.
« The Kelhib UStTfCW is a mere mistake for nto"VDB>, the Keri.
» Kelhib: IBISVQ. Keri: flW
« The redundant -|Qfc after PIT TDtf'l Is perhaps inserted by a mistake of the transcriber, and therefore, according
tj 1 Kings xxii. 20, to be erased.
» Kethib: t|'T. Keri: TJT-
• 1 before 3">"r^3 is wanting in the Sept. and Vtttg., but if taken expllcatively it involves no difficulty.
» Kethib: ttlfm. Keri:V3'l:Kn-
• Instead of D'OiBjnD is undoubtedly to be read D'JIJflSnO, as the U «» M<>«« of the Sept. -hows.
» Klthib: tH»V tori: W>j.
>• Instead of QnjB, four mss. in Kennic. and three in de Rossi, likewise some old editions (Complut., Brix., Bom-
berg. „. 1518, 21, Mim'st.), read D^JS i so also the Vulg. (vestet), and apparently also the Sept, as well as several
recent expositors, Dathe, Berth, and Kamph.
" For }i"infr the Sept. has A.*/., after which Berth, without sufficient reason, would write }n»"in- Comp.
rather such names as Hodaviah, Joshaviah.
dom by the Extirpation of Idolatry and the In-
struction of the People in the Law. — And his
heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord,
showed a heightened courage to proceed in a
godly walk ; 3^> P133 here, otherwise than in
xxvi. 16, xxxii. 25, etc., not in the bad sense of
an ungodly pride, but sensu bono. The following
"and moreover " ("liyi) points back to ver. 3.
For the " high places " and Asherim, comp. on
xiv. 2. — Ver. 7. And in the third year of his
reign ; according to Hitzig's not improbable con-
jecture (Oeschichte, pp. 9 if., 198 f.), a jubilee
year, and indeed the year 912 B.C. The five
princes, nine Levites, and two priests named in
the following verse are otherwise unknown.— Ver.
9. And they taught in Judah, on the basis of the
presently named "book of the law of the Lord,"
the religious and civil enactments of which, on
the occasion of this solemn ecclesiastical visita-
tion of Jehoshaphat (Starke and other ancients),
were brought to the recollection and impressed
anew on the attention of the Jews. This men-
tion of the book of the law under Jehoshaphat,
almost 300 years before Josiah's renewed inculca-
tion and vindication of its authority, is of no
small apologetic importance. It shows that, if
not the whole Pentateuch in its present form, yet
a work already approaching to its present com-
pass, was already extant in the tenth century B. 0.
(comp. also on xv. 13). And indeed the concrete,
detailed, and definite nature of the present notice
leaves no doubt of this, that not merely the
Chronist living after the exile, but his much
older voucher, contemporary with the recorded
fact (probably Jehu ben Hanani), bears this testi-
mony to the existence of the Torah at so early R
date.
2. The Effects of these Measures : Jehoshaphat's
increasing Power : vers. 10-19. — And the fear of
the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands
(almost literally so, xx. 29 ; comp. also xiv. 13,
xii. 8, etc. ). Rightly Rambach observes : Brat
hoc prcemium pietatis Josaphati, quod vkini
satisque potentes hostes non anderent adrersus
ipsum hiscere. On the contrary, Berth, rcrverts
EXEGETICAL.
Besides the report in eh. xviii. of the unsuc-
cessful campaign of Jehoshaphat and Ahab
against Ramoth-gilead, agreeing almost literally
with 1 Kings xxii. 2-35 and the closing section
ch. xx. 30-37, which coincides partly in matter
and partly in form with 1 Kings xxii. 41-51,
the Chronist presents in this enlarged history of
the reign of Jehoshaphat only original matter,
serving to supplement the books of Kings, and
that on the basis of those "words" or records of
Jehu ben Hanani, which he himself names as
his source in ch. xx. 34.
1. Jehoshaphat's Measures for the Internal and
External Defence of the Kingdom: ch. xvii. 1-9.—
Strengthened himself against Israel, endeavoured
to defend and secure himself against attack on
the side of Israel (comp. i. 1). This was ob-
viously in the first part of his reign, before he
formed affinity with Ahab (xviii. 1), and so long
as the recollection of Baasha's attack on his pre-
decessor Asa operated. — Ver. 2. Placed garrisons
in the land ; Wyi), military posts, as 1 Chron.
xi. 16. On b, comp. 2 Chron. xv. 8.— Ver. 3.
For lie walked in the former ways of his father
David, not in the later ways of David, which
were characterized by his crimes regarding Uriah
and Bathsheba, by the foolish step of numbering
the people, etc. — Sought not unto Baalim, p
here and in the following verse is nota accusativi,
after the later usage. The Baalim (comp. Judg.
ii. 11) compri5e all kinds of idolatry, even that
finer kind, consisting in the worship of Jehovah
under certain animal forms, which is designated
in the following verse as the " doing of Israel"
that was avoided by Jehoshaphat. — Ver. 5. And
the Lord stablished the kingdom in his hand;
comp. 2 Kings xiv. 5. On the following HTOD,
"gift" (= I"ri31ii P3- ox- 3), comp. ver. 11, where
the term denotes the tribute of a subject people.
On "riohes and honour in abundance," see
xviii. 1, also 1 Chron. xxix. 28; 2 Chron. i. 12.
— Ver. 6 ff. The Internal Defence of the King-
CHAP. XVII. 11-XVIII. 30.
213
the theocratic causal nexus set forth clearly
enough by the writer, when he remarks on this
passage : " Jehoshaphat had time to attend to the
instruction of his people, because the neighbour-
ing nations did not then venture to make war on
Judah." — Ver. 11. And some of the Philistines
brought. Q'lFVih&~\'D i* subject (with partitive
jjj). — And silver in abundance, literally, " and
silver a load " ; comp. xx. 25. Falsely the
Vulg., which assigns to the term tf&D, " l°aaV'
the meaning ' ' tribute" (vectigal). — The Arabs also
(D^aiy = D'Siy ; see xxi. 16, xxii. 1), the
Beduin tribes of north-western Arabia, perhaps
those whom Asa had subdued by the victory over
Zerah (comp. xiv. 14.). — Ver. 12. And Jehosha-
phat became ever greater. The construction
according to Ew. § 280, 6; r6yoi>"IJ?, as in
xvi. 12. — And he built in Judah castles. ni^TS,
plur. of rWV3 (=m'l3), a Syrian form occur-
ring only here and xxvii. 4. ' ' Cities with stores, "
as viii. 4. — Ver. 13. And he had much store. So
rightly Luther, Starke, Keil, Kamph., etc. Of
the same signification is rDK?Q, Ex. xxii. 7-10.
Otherwise (Vulg. opera magna, Clericus, Berth.,
Neteler, etc.): "much labour, great prepara-
tions," to which, however, b does not suit;
comp. also xi. 11. — Ver. 14. And this was the
muster of iliem, the result of the muster, or also
their "order"; comp. 1 Chron. xxiv. 49. — Of
Judah, the captains of thousands, leaders, field-
marshals. The following statement of the three
Jewish divisions of the army under Adnah,
Jehohanan, and Amasiah, and of the two divi-
sions of Benjamin under Eliada and Jehozabad
(vers. 15-18), is certainly historical, if we only
mark the concrete form, bearing the stamp of
direct historical truth, of the notice concerning
Amasiah : "who willingly offered himself unto
the Lord," and also the circumstance that the
kind of armour worn by the Benjamites agrees
with earlier statements (comp. 1 Chron. viii. 40 ;
2 Chron. xiv. 7). But the exceedingly high
numbers, which give for Judah alone 780,000,
for Benjamin 380,000, and thus for both tribes
together the total of 1,160,000 warriors, form no
inconsiderable difficulty ; comp. the Evangelical
and Ethical Reflections. — Ver. 19. These were
they who ministered to the Icing. H?N, "these,"
refers to the five generals or commanders, not to
the thousands of warriors. Likewise the follow-
ing clause: "whom the king had placed in the
fenced cities in all Judah," refers to other officers
besides those five, not to other troops besides
those already enumerated.
3. Jehoshaphat's Affinity with Ahab : the
Campaign against Ramoth-gilead : ch. xviii.
Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 2-35, and Bahr on this
passage. Here are only the statements peculiar
to the Chronist to be expounded. — And Jeho-
shaphat . . . joined affinity with Ahab, in this
way, that he gave his son Joram in marriage to
Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel ; see xxi.
6.1 This affinity, which occasioned the subse-
quent visit of Jehoshaphat to Ahab, and the
participation in his nnfoVtunate campaign, is here
clearly mentioned as something mischievous,
attended with destructive effects, as the first link
of a chain of misfortunes (comp. xix. 2) ; the )
before IfiniT1 has accordingly, as it were, an ad-
versative force, and the verse expresses this
thought : ' ' Although Jehoshaphat had riches
and honour in abundance, yet he was so foolish
as to make affinity with Ahab." Comp. S.
Schmidt, Josaphatus, cetera dives et glnriosus,
infelicem adfinitatem cum Achabo, rege Israeli-
taruni, conlrahit, etc. See, for the rest, Evangeli-
cal and Ethical Reflections. — Ver. 2. And in the
course of years, nine years, as the comparison of
1 Kings xxii. 2, 41 with 2 Kings viii. 26 shows ;
the affinity of Jehoshaphat with Ahab by the
marriage of Joram and Athaliah must, according
to these passages, have fallen in the eighth, and
the death of Ahab, in the campaign against
Ramoth, in the seventeenth, year of Jehoshaphat's
reign. — And he persuaded him, partly by the
great banquets and hospitalities which he pre-
pared in his honour (comp. rVDn, "entice,
tempt," in such places as Judg. i. 14 ; Job ii. 3;
Deut. xi. 7, etc.). In 1 Kings xxii. 3, instead of
this persuasive influence on Jehoshaphat, is set
forth rather the political motive of Ahab to
begin the war against the Syrians in Ramoth-
gilead ; our author is silent on this, because on
principle he does not wish to recount anything of
the deeds or enterprises of the northern king. —
Ver. 5. Gathered the prophets, four hundred men.
1 Kings: "about 400 men," which is the more
correct, as the number is obviously a round one.
— Shall we go; in 1 Kings: "Shall 1 go," in
harmony with the following ^riX DXj " or
shall I forbear." Inversely in 1 Kings (ver. 14)
both verbs are plural. — Ver. 7. Prophesied . . .
always evil, literally, all his days (VD"1"^), a
phrase emphasizing the opposition, which is
wanting in 1 Kings.— Ver. 9. And they sat in a
floor. The D'OK'VV superfluous on account of
the preceding D,3tyi,) is wanting in 1 Kings. —
Ver. 14. And they shall be delivered into your
hand. Instead of this very definite prediction
(which is certainly ironical), the parallel text in
1 Kings has, more indefinitely : "And the Lord
shall deliver it into the king's hand. " — Ver. 1 9.
See the Crit. Notes. — Ver. 23. Which way went
the Spirit of the Lord from me ? Instead of this
circumstantial '•p'-in fit ^K (comp. 1 Kings xiii.
1 ; 2 Kings iii. 8), 1 Kings xxii. 24 has the
simpler and shorter nj 'K- — Ver. 26. Let him
eat bread of trouble, and water of trouble. Pos-
sible is also the translation proposed by Kamph.
with reference to Ps. lx. 5: "Let him eat as
bread of trouble," etc. — Ver. 30. And the king
of Syria had commanded the captains of his
chariots. In 1 Kings the number of these
captains (thirty-two) is also given, by reference
1 There also concern!* g TTifzig's hypothei-ls (founded on
2 Kings viii. 26 and 2 Chron. xxii. 2), that Athaliah was not
the daughter, but the sister, of Ahab.
2U
II. CHRONICLES.
to the earlier war, 1 Kings xx. 24. — Ver. 31.
And the Lord helped him, and God turned them
away from him. This religious reflective remark
is wanting in 1 Kings xxii. 32, but is by no
means a hindrance to the connection, as Berth,
thinks, but rather a very seasonable enunciation
of that which, to the writer, necessarily formed
the point and force of the whole narrative. — Ver.
34. And the king of Israel was standing in the
chariot. Instead of the partic. Hiph. "PDJfD,
"holding himself upright, " 1 Kings xxii. 35 has,
less distinctly, the Hoph. "IOJJD, "held up-
right." The close of the whole narrative, con-
taining accounts of the return of the defeated
army, and the more particular circumstances of
the death of Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 36-39), is
omitted by our author, because it belongs pro-
perly to a history of the northern kingdom.
4. The Prophet Jehu's Judgment on the Cove-
nant with Ahab : ch. xix. 1-3. — And Jehoshaphat
. . . returned home in peace to Jerusalem, so that
the prophecy of Michah (xviii. 16) was fulfilled
in him. — Ver. 2. And Jehu the son of ffanani
. . . went out to meet him : the same prophet who,
I Kings xvi. 1, had acted under Baaslia in the
northern kingdom ; perhaps a son of that Hanani
whom Asa in wrath had ordered into prison (xvi.
7 ff. ). — Must we help the wicked, and shouldst
thou love them that hate the Lord? The con-
struction is as in 1 Chron. v. 1, ix. 25 (p with
the infin. ). It is to be supposed that the words
are spoken in earnest indignation, but they turn
with their displeasure rather against the idolatrous
tyrant Ahab than against Jehoshaphat, who only
for a season walked by his side. — And for this is
wrath upon thee from (lie Lord ; coinp. 1 Chron.
xxvii. 24, and with nin'1 ^SjJD C]¥p the simpler
niir f\)Sp, 2 Chron. xxxii. 26. The words point
prophetically to the soon after occurring danger-
ous invasion of the Ammonites, Moabites, and
Meunites, and also to the unfortunate sea-voyage
from Ezion-geber, ch. xx. — Ver. 3. Yet good
things are found with thee, things worthy of
praise; comp. xii. 12 ; 1 Kings xiv. 13. For o
(where the fern. riPK'Nn appears instead of the
usual plur. masc. ), comp. xvii. 4 f. , xii. 1 4.
5. Jehoshaphat's further Reforms of Worship
and Law : vers. 4-11. — And he went out again
among the people, literally, "and he turned and
went." Reference is made to the former going
out, xvii. 7 if. The following statement of the
Bouth and north boundary of the kingdom of
Judah : "from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim,"
is copied after the similar formula: "from Dan
to Beersheba, " which refers to the whole land of
Isiael; comp. Judg. xx. 1 ; 2 Sam. iii. 10, xvii.
II ; 1 Kings v. 5. — And brought them back to the
Lord, "made them return"; comp. xxiv. 19.—
Ver. 5. City by city, or "in every city" ("i»j)5>
"I'yi ; comp. 1 Chron. xxvi. 29), according to the
legal precept, Deut. xvi. 18. — Ver. 6. Not for
man, but for the Lord, in God's name, and
according to His holy will, as Bui S/<*x»»»/, Rom.
xiii. 4 ; comp. also Prov. xvi. 11. — And he is
witli you in the judgment, in the judicial decision,
in passing sentence ; comp. Deut. xvii. 9, also
ch. i. 17 ; Ex. xxi. 6, xxii. 7, etc. The supply-
ing of nin* as subject to D3BJJ1 is indispensable,
as the failure of all attempts to explain it without
this supplement, for example, that of the Vulg.
(et quodcunque judicaveriti.% in vos redundabit),
shows. — Ver. 7. And now let the fear of the Lord,
be upon you in a preserving way, that ye may
beware of judging unjustly. For the phrase,
comp. xvii. 10. — Take heed, and do ye, do it in
a heedful, conscientious way, cum diligentia cuncta
facite (Vulg.). On the following words, comp.
Deut. x. 17, xvi. 19; Ps. lxxxix. 7 ; Acts x. 34.
— Vers. 8-11. The Supreme Tribunal instituted
by Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem, — an institution rest-
ing on Ex. xviii. 19, 26, Deut. xvii. 8-13; comp.
Keil, Bibl. Archceol. ii. 250 ff.— And also in
Jerusalem, not merely in the various fenced cities
(ver. 5), where judges of inferior instance were
appointed. That besides Levites and priests,
laymen, "of the chiefs of the fathers of Israel, "
tribe-chiefs out of the rest of the people, are
named as appointed by Jehoshaphat to be
judges, involves no contradiction of 1 Chron.
xxiii. 4, xxvi. 29, according to which David had
appointed 6000 Levites as "judges and officers"
(D'HBt}') i f°r that these Levites should exclu-
sively administer the law was not there asserted.
— For the judgment of the Lord, and for plead-
ing. Synonymous with nin^ OSB'D^ stands,
ver. 11, nin'1 "OT ?bV> "for every matter of
the Lord"; and synonymous with 2^7 th"'
passage gives Tj^tSH "O^ ^3?, " for every matter
of the king or the state"; so that the sense of
the whole is : "for all matters relating to religion
or polity." As examples of the former, Berth,
well adduces disputes concerning the release of
the first-born, dues to the temple, the clean and
the unclean, etc. — And they returned to Jeru-
salem ; Jehoshaphat and the commission accom-
panying him returned from their journey through
the country and the fenced cities of Judah to
Jerusalem ; comp. ver. 4. As this statement
would have been more suitable before ver. 8, and
as any reference of it to others than Jehoshaphat
and his companions (for example, to the Levites,
priests, and chiefs nominated for the new supreme
court, as Rambach, Starke, and others think) is
inadmissible, the change proposed by Kamph. of
OCT into OCT, "and they dwelt in Jerusalem"
(the supreme judges just nominated), appears not
inappropriate. — Ver. 9. Thus shall ye do, as is
fully stated in ver. 10. On tfpw 3^>3, "with
undivided heart," comp. xv. 17, xvi. 9; 1 Kings
viii. 61. — Ver. 10 And in every plea. 3sV;i3
T
stands before as cas. absol. ; the 1 before is ex-
plicative ; comp. Crit. Note. As "brethren who
dwell in their cities" those are designated who
bring appeals from the country or the smaller
cities of Judah and Benjamin before the supreme
court at Jerusalem, and demand its higher deci-
sion ; comp. Deut. xvii. 8. — Between blood and
blood, in criminal cases which involve murder
and homicide (comp. Ex. xxi. 12 ff.). The fol-
CHAP. XIX. 11-XX. 17.
215
lowing phrase: "between law and commandment,
statutes and judgments, " applies to a dispute
concerning the import or application of certain
laws, or a doubt according to what legal enact-
ment the case in point is to be decided (comp.
Deut. xvii. 8). — Ye shall advise them, by impart-
ing instruction concerning the decisions of the
law, admonish ("iTlTD, as in Ex. xviii. 20; Eecles.
xii. 12), that they may not err by the theoretical
or practical abuse of the law, and thereby bring
guilt (DB*S) upon the whole people. — Ver. 11.
And, behold, Amariah the chief priest, scarcely
different from the fifth high priest after Zadok,
mentioned 1 Chron. v. 37 (see on the passage).
The " ruler of the house of Judah," Zebadiah son
of Ishmael, is not otherwise known. — And the
Eevites are officers before you, Qi"i[2E», as in
1 Chron. xxiii. 4, xxvi. 29. — The Lord will be
with the good; in'1 is here a future, scarcely an
optative : ' ' the Lord be with the good. " Comp.
besides, xx. 17. The good are the judges who
discharge their office fitly and well.
6. Jehoshaphat's Victory over the Moabites,
Ammonites, and Meunites : ch. xx. 1-30. — And it
came to pass after this, after the events related
in xviii. 19, which fall perhaps six or seven years
before the death of Jehoshaphat, and of which
the death of Ahab almost certainly falls in the
year 897 B.C. A still more exact date for the
present war results from the monument of victory
of the Moabitish King Mesha, discovered three
years ago, which must have been erected very
soon after Ahab's death, and shortly before the
outbreak of the present war, and therefore about
896 B.C. See Sehlottmann, "Der Moabiterkbnig
Mesa," Stud. u. Krit. 1871, p. 587 ff., especially
p. 610 ff. ; and comp. beneath, Evangelical and
Ethical Reflections, No. 4. — And with them of the
Meunites. D^ilSJJHD oan scarcely mean, as many
of the ancients, and even Hengst. (Gesch. d.
Heiches Gottes. ii. 2, 211), think, nations beyond
the Ammonites ; for even if 1)3, according to
1 Sam xx. 22, 37, could have the sense ' ' beyond
or remote, from," yet vers. 10 and 22 f. point
distinctly to a people inhabiting mount Seir.
Accordingly we must read, as ix Tut Mivaiat of
the Sept. indicates (comp. 1 Chron. iv. 41),
rather D^ySTO. an|l think of the Meunites
(Meinites, 1 Chron. iv. 41, Kethib) inhabiting
the city Maon (jil'D) near Petra as their capital.
If in the following verse (with Calmet, Keil, and
others) Q1KD were read instead of the difficult
DISC every scruple against this assumption (pro-
posed by Hiller, Onomast. p. 285, and supported
by nearly all the moderns) must vanish. But
even without this further emendation, it possesses
a high degree of probability ; for, according to
Josephus, Antiq. ix. 1. 2, they were Arabs, and
probably inhabitants of Arabia Petraea, who, in
alliance with the Ammonites and Moabites,
undertook the expedition against Jehoshaphat ;
and in xxvi. 7 Meunites are named along with
Philistines and Arabs as a southern tribe sub-
dued in war by Uzziah. — Ver. 2. From beyond
the sea, from Syria. For DIND must appa-
rently be read D1ND, "from Edom or Idumsea" ;
for only this determination of the starting-point
agrees with Qi^) 13J)D, "beyond the sea" (the
Dead Sea) ; and the Syr. seems to have read
D'lKD, while the remaining old versions certainly
confirm the Masoretic text. If we adhere to it,
"Aram" or Syria must at all events be taken
in a very wide sense ( = North Arabia); comp.
Hengst. as quoted. — And, behold, they are at
Hazezon-tamar, that is Engedi (comp. Gen. xiv.
7 ; Josh. xv. 62 ; Song i. 14 ; Robinson, Pal. ii.
439 f.), where Ain Jidy now lies, at the middle
of the west shore of the Dead Sea, about fifteen
hours from Jerusalem. The army of the allied
foes had, it appears, reached this place through a
marsh surrounding the south end of the Dead
Sea, or by crossing the south ford of this sea
(between the eastern peninsula Lisan and the
opposite point of the west shore, not far from the
valley Engedi ; comp. Hoffmann, Blicke in die
fruheste Gesch. des Gelobten Land.es, ii. 26 f . ). —
Vers. 3-13. Jehoshaphat and the People seek the
Help of the Lord. — And Jehoshaphat . . . set his
face, Qijs fri3 = D^Q DIB"; comp. Jer. xlii. 15;
Dan. ix. 3. On the "proclaiming of a fast over
all Judah," comp. Judg. xx. 26 ; 1 Sam. vii. 6;
Joel ii. 15. — Ver. 5. Before the new court, the
outer or great court (see iv. 9), that might
have been built or repaired in Asa's or Jehosha-
phat's time, and therefore is here called new.
The place before this court, from which Jehosha-
phat offered his prayer, was perhaps at the
entrance of the inner or priest's court. — Ver. 6.
Lord God of our fathers. Jehoshaphat thus
addresses God, to remind him of his former bene-
fits to his people, to which is then annexed a
reference to his absolute omnipotence ; comp. Ps.
cxv. 3, and on "None is with Thee, to withstand
Thee," Ps. xciv. 16; 1 Chron xxix. 12; 2 Chron.
xiv. 10, and like passages. — Ver. 7. Comp. Ex.
xxiii. 20 ff. ; Josh, xxiii. 9, xxiv. 12 ; also Gen.
xiii. 15 f., xv. 18. — Ver. 9. If evil come upon us,
sword, judgment (DIEE* or>ly nere in tnis sense),
or pestilence, etc. The cases enumerated in
Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple
(vi. 22-39) are here summarily recapitulated. —
Ver. 10. The sons of Ammon and Moab .
whom Thou wouldst not let Israel invade, from
whom our ancestors in the time of Moses and
Joshua peacefully withdrew, without attacking
them ; comp. Num. xx. 14 ff. ; Deut. ii. 4, 9, 19,
29 ; Judg. xi. 17 f.— Ver. 11. And behold =
"yea, behold." — Possession vildch Thou hast
us, "made us possess," {^"lin, as in Judg.
xi. 24 ; Ezra ix. 12. — Ver. 12. For in us is no
might against this great midtitude, ' ' before, in
the face of this great multitude"; comp. xiv. 9,
etc. Eor the following expression of confidence :
"our eyes are upon Thee, " comp. Ps. xxv. 15,
cxxiii. 2, cxli. 8. On ver. 13 ("and their little
ones"), comp. Jon. iii. 5. — Vers. 14-17. God's
Answer by the Prophet Jahaziel. — And upon
Jahaziel . . . the Levite of the sons of Asaph.
The ancestor in the filth degree of this Jahaziel
is said to be Mattaniah, possibly the same son
of Asaph who is called, 1 Chron. xxv. 2, 12,
Nethaniah (as Q and 3 in the formation of nom.
?16
II. CHRONICLES.
propr. are often interchanged). An identity
with Mattaniah the son of Heman, 1 Chron. xxv.
4, 16, is not to be thought of.— Ver. 15. The
battle is not yours, but God's ; comp. 1 Sam. xvii.
47; Neh. iv. 14; also Matt. x. 20.— Ver. 16.
Behold, (hey go up by the hill of Haziz, perhaps
the Wady el Hasasah on the north border of the
wilderness of the same name, which stretches
from the Dead Sea to Tekoa, and no doubt corre-
sponds to the here-named "wilderness of Jeruel."
With this reference to El Hasasah corresponds
the rendering of the name pjfn by 'Amis in the
Sept., whereas certainly Josephus renders the
name by avafiairis XtyofAivvi ifyx*s (Antiq. ix. 1. 2),
and thus conceives it as if it were »"S (Sl'X'i}
with the article ; were this view, the necessity of
which is by no means established (comp. Ew.
Gesch. 2d edit. iii. p. 475), confirmed, the hill of
Zfz would have to be identified with the steep
pass over Ain Jidy (Robinson, ii. 438, 446). —
Ver. 17. Ye shall not have to fight here. JINDi
in this conflict with so great a multitude of foes ;
comp. ver. 15. — Vers. 18, 19. Thanksgiving of
Jehoshaphat and the People for the encouraging
Promise by the Prophet. — Anil the Levites of the
sons of Kohath and of the Korhites. The second
1 before DTTIpn "33*tP may be only explicative,
as the Korhites descended from Kohath, 1 Chron.
vi. 18, 22. — Vers. 20-23. The divine promise is
fulfilled by an unexpected self-destruction of the
foenien. — And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat
stood up, probably in the gate by which the
warriors went forth (the valley or dung-gate, at
all events one of those facing the south). On the
words: "believe, and ye shall be established,"
comp. Isa. vii. 9, xxviii. 16 ; Deut. i. 32. — Ver.
21. And he advised the people, busied himself as
a sound adviser (TOi'), by exhorting to confi-
dence in God ; in a similar sense stands ?tf y Jfti
in 2 Kings vi. 8. — And appointed men singing
unto the Lord 6 in TWtvh as nota genitivi), and
praising in holy beauty : 'pTinn?, as otherwise
'p-rntna, I Chron. xvi. 29 ; Ps. xxix. 2, ex. 3.
— Ver. 22. And at the time . . . the Lord set an
ambush. D^IND signifies imidiatores, insidiai
(Vulg.), as in Judg ix. 25. By these waylayers
cannot be meant angels sent by God (Piscat. and
other ancients, Ew., Kamph., Berth. — doubtful
H. Schultz, Theol. des A. T. ii. 322) ; for such
an interference of supernatural powers, good or
evil, must have been clearly indicated (as in
2 Kings vi. 17, xix. 35). As little can the
D^DIXD be wayiayiL& Jews, because the Jews,
according to vers. 15, 17, 24, were merely spec-
tators of the bloody encounter between their
opponents. The waylaying without doubt was
done by a part of the confederates themselves,
probably some of the Meunites, the inhabitants
of mount Seir, who, being eager for booty, had
laid the crafty ambush, on whose sudden assault
the Ammonites and Moabites must have regarded
their Meunite allies as traitors, and thereupon
opened the wild game of the self-slaughter of their
army. Thus in the main, by comparison with the
jiartly similar event in Judg. vii. 22 if., J. H. Mich.,
Cler., Calm., etc., and recently Keil and Hengst.
(Gesch. des R. G. ii. 2, 213 f.), the latter of
whom appears inclined to find in D^IKD an
allusion to the name Arabs ("the predatory
swarms," he thinks, of the tribes of Arabia
Petraea and Deserta might have joined the
Idumseans), and to lay down a hypothesis similar
to that of K. H. Sack (Theol. Aufsatze, Gotha
1871), who wishes to make Arabs (D'Qiy) also
of the ravens (DUIJO of Elijah, 1 Kings xvii.
6. Comp. also Schlottmann, p. 611, who
endeavours to make out the fanaticism of the
Ammonites and Moabites, as heathenish poly-
theistic opponents of the monotheistic Edomites,
to be one of the causes of the massacre, but over
looks the fact that the Edomites had properly no
part in the affair. — Ver. 23. And when they liad
ended with the inhabitants of mount Seir, had
completely massacred them in the affray that
arose ; comp. Dan. xi. 44. On the words : "they
helped to destroy one another," comp., for the
substantive nTIt;'D, xxii. 4 ; Ezek. v. 16 ; Dan.
x. 8. — Vers. 24-30. The Impression of the Event
on the Jews and their Neighbours. — And Judah
came to the watch-lower in the wilderness, to an
elevated point, a rising ground not far from
Tekoa, whence the wilderness of Jeruel (ver. 16)
might be surveyed. — And none escaped: so at
least it appeared. The statement is to be under-
stood as ideal, and not strictly real. — Ver. 25.
And they found with them' in abundance, goods
and corpses, and costly vesseds. Intermediate
between gfcoi, "goods, " and nilDn \J3, "costly
vessels" (comp. Dan. xi. 38), are named "corpses,"
obviously very surprising. The reading O'lja,
garments, should therefore at once receive the pre-
ference ; comp. Judg. viii. 25 f. — And they stripped
off for themselves more than they could carry,
literally, "to nothing of carrying" ; comp. Num.
iv. 24. — Ver. 26. And on the fourth day they
assembled in the valley of blessing. This " vale of
blessing" (Emek-berachah) must be sought near
the field of battle. It is evidently the present
Wady Bereikut, west of Tekoa, near the road
leading from Jerusalem to Hebron, in which
pretty broad and open valley the ruins of a place
of the name of Bereikut are still preserved (Robin-
son, JPhys. Geogr. p. 106) ; comp. the Caphar
Baruka of Jerome in the Vita S. Pauke, with its
outlook on the Dead Sea. It is inadmissible,
with Thenius and Hitzig (on Joel iv. 2, 12, and
Gesch. p. 199), to make this valley of blessing the
same with the Kidron or the valley of Jehosha-
phat. For though Joel iv. 11 f. names the site
of the present battle "the valley of Jehosha-
phat," it does not follow from this poetico-pro-
phetical designation that he had in view the
upper valley of Kidron afterwards so called,
which bears this name first in Eusebius, hut
nowhere in the sacred Scriptures of the Old and
New Testament (see Berth, on this passage). —
Ver. 27. For the Lord had made them glad over
their enemies ; comp Ezra vi. 22 ; Nell. xii. 43. —
Ver. 29. And the fear of God was upon all the
kingdoms of the countries bordering on Judah.
On the "fear of God," comp. xvii 10 ; on the
last words, xv. 15, xiv. 4.
CHAP. XX. 31-37.
217
7. End of the Reign of Jehoshaphat : vers.
31-37. Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 41-51, a section
which there forms the whole account of the reign
of Jehoshaphat, but is therefore amplified with
some notices that are wanting here — 1. With the
statement that "Jehoshaphat had peace with the
king of Israel," ver. 45 (which appeared superflu-
ous here on account of xviii. 1 if. ) ; 2. With a
passing reference to Jehoshaphat's might and
great deeds, ver. 46 (which is wanting here in the
corresponding ver. 34, because the most import-
ant of these great deeds have been here recorded
at length in ch. xvii.-xx.); 3. With a remark on
the removal of the rest of the Sodomites out of
the land, ver. 47 (which is wanting here, because
in the time of Asa, xvi., no notice is taken of
these Sodomites who are mentioned in 1 Kings
xv. 12) ; 4. With the notice that Edom had no
king, but only a deputy, ver 48 (which is here
omitted as unimportant). To these enlargements,
as exhibited in the account in 1 Kings compared
with our own, are added some partly formal,
partly material, deviations, which are set forth in
the sequel. — Ver. 33. The people had not yet
directed their heart. For this 1 Kings xxii. 44
has: " the people offered and burnt incense yet
in the high places" (comp. 2 Kings xii. 4, xiv. 4,
xv. 4, etc.). — Ver. 34. The rest of the acts of
Jehoshaphat . . . are written in the words of Jehu
son of Hanani. Comp. on this citation, for
which in 1 Kings we find merely " the book of
the Chronicles of the kings of Judah," Introd. § 5,
Ko. 2. — Ver. 35. And afterwards Jehoshaphat
allied himself with Ahaziah : he (Ahaziah, not
Jehoshaphat, as Berth, thinks) was wicked in his
doing. This introduction, containing an un-
favourable judgment on the covenant with Ahaziah
(similar to that pronounced on the affinity with
Ahab, xviii. 1), to the narrative of the unfortu-
nate sea-voyage from Ezion-geber, is wanting in
1 Kings. The p"i"inX points only in general to
the time after the victory over the Ammonites,
Moabites, and Meunites. The date of the present
undertaking follows more exactly from this, that
Ahaziah came to the throne in the seventeenth
year of Jehoshaphat, 897 or 896, and reigned two
years, that is, till about 894 B.C. — Ver. 36. To
■make ships to go to Tarshish. On the contrary,
1 Kings xxii. 49 has : "Jehoshaphat made ships
of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold. " The easiest
solution of this difference is the assumption of an
error on the part of the Chronist, who made out
of the ships of Tarshish ships going to Tarshish ;
comp. Introd. § 6, p. 25. But if we must rather
harmonize the two accounts, we must assume
either — a. a Tarshish in the direction of Ophir,
and thus to the east or south-east, different from
the Spanish Tarsis-Tartessus (with Seetzen and
others; comp. excursus on ch. viii., No. 1), or b.
that the confederates had designed both a voyage
to Ophir in the east and a voyage to Tarsis in the
west, for the latter of which either a circumnavi-
gation of Africa round the Cape of Good Hope or
a crossing of Lower Egypt by the canal of Seti
(between the Sin. Heroopolitanus and the Nile)
must have been contemplated.— Ver. 37. And
Eliezer son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied,
a prophet only named here and known by the
present utterance. On the name Dodavahu, see
Grit. Note ; for Mareshah, on 1 Chron. xi. 8.—
Were not able to go to Tarshish. "ivy, as xiii. 20,
xiv. 10, and elsewhere. On the repeated invita-
tion of Ahaziah to Jehoshaphat to prosecute the
undertaking, when it failed at first through this
mishap and Jehoshaphat's refusal, our author says
nothing ; otherwise 1 Kings xxii. 50.
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS, HOMI-
LETIC AND APOLOGETIC OBSERVATIONS, ON
CH. XVII.-XX.
1. The history of Jehoshaphat, as our author
relates it, ertainly exceeds that which is recorded
of him in the book of Kings in the richness and
multiplicity of its details. But it furnishes no
exhaustive or complete picture of that which
Jehoshaphat did in war and peace during the
twenty-five years of his reign (915-891), as is
manifest from this, that the campaign against
Mesha of Moab, undertaken in conjunction with
Joram of Israel (2 Kings iii.), that fell probably
in one of the later years of his reign (at least after
the erection of the monument of Mesha, as
Schlottmann has shown, Stud. u. Krit. 1871, p.
614 ff.), is altogether omitted. But with the
completeness, a simple, well-grounded homogene-
ous form is wanting in the present description.
The varied sources used gleam forth throughout ;
the accounts of war and peace alternate without
internal organic connection ; the whole by no
means bears the character of a narrative produced
at a single casting (comp. Berth, p. 350). Yet a
certain plan and an overruling simple principle
cannot be unobserved in the present sketch. It
is obviously the aim of the author to draw in the
reign of Jehoshaphat the picture of a government
richly blessed of God, and internally, as well as
externally, powerful from the good old times of
the yet unimpaired theocracy. The fundamental
thought which seems to bind the narrative
together he expresses in the twice repeated sen-
tence, that "a terror of God came over all the
kingdoms of the countries," with which he accom-
panies first the rule of Jehoshaphat as prince of
peace (xvii. 10), and next the great discomfiture
of the confederate nations, Moab, Ammon, and
Edom (xx. 29). It is the possession of a power
far-ruling, spreading on all sides great fear and
awe, solid, and resting on purely theocratic senti-
ment and organic development of the inner
powers of the theocratic constitution, not on
tyranny and conquest, which our author finds to
admire and celebrate in Jehoshaphat. Hence he
industriously sets forth, along with his orthodox
reform of religion, and his endeavours to raise as
high as possible the defensive and military power
of the Jewish state (ch. xvii. 2, 14 ff.), that also
which was undertaken by him for the upholding
of the administration of justice, in particular the
institution of a supreme court of judicature at
Jerusalem (xix. 8-11). He therefore relates of
his military undertakings chiefly those which were
either accompanied with decisive consequences,
or in which at least God's protective power and
gracious help were realized to him on account of
his theocratic inclination ; thui;, of the two wars
which, according to 1 Kings xxii. 2 ff. , 2 Kings
iii. 1 ff., he undertook as confederate of the
northern kingdom, the former, that issued more
fortunately for him (that against the Syrians in
Bamoth-gilead, xviii. ), is described at full length,
and with all the characteristic traits found in the
source common to him and the author of the book
218
II. CHRONICLES.
of Kings ; whereas he makes mo mention of the
second, waged along with Jorum against Mesha of
Moab, probably on account of its less favourable
or at least nearly barren issue.1 Finally, on ac-
count of the wish to depict in Jehoshaphat the
representative of the Jewish state developed to its
full power before the captivity, he expressly places
him on a par with David his " father ' (forefather) ;
he makes him therefore enjoy the favour and help
of Jehovah, because he walked in " the former
ways of David," that is, he worshipped God, in
the main at least, and irrespective of the worship
still tolerated here and there on the high places,
in a theocratically pure and lawful way (xvii. 3).
With Solomon, of whom Jehoshaphat likewise
reminds us as a prince of peace, as a wise and cir-
cumspect father of his country, and as an upholder
of the administration of justice, he does not com-
pare him, probably because, first, a characteristic
element of the reign of Solomon, its great pomp
and splendid wealth, appears to have been want-
ing in the kingdom of Jehoshaphat, and secondly,
notwithstanding his endeavours after peace, his
reign had taken a far less peaceful course than
that of the great Shelomoh (peaceful).
2. Jehoshaphat is the glorious, pious, and
mighty David of the southern kingdom : to this
result points the whole narrative of our author.
From this point of view also will the prodigious
numbers be estimated which he gives in describ-
ing the disposable forces of Judah and Benjamin
under his reign. The there mentioned 780,000
Jews and 380,000 Benjamites can scarcely be
accepted as literally true. Their near approach
to the numbers resulting from the census taken
by David (1 Chron. xxi. 5) seems intended to
convey the idea that the kingdom of Judah alone
had under Jehoshaphat, the alter David, attained
a strength which almost matched the power of the
twelve still united tribes under the first David
(1,100,090 Israelites and 470,000 Jews), that
Judah by itself alone had now developed a num-
ber and power which surpassed that of the
northern tribes at that earlier period. If this
be the meaning of those numbers, the less ob-
jection needs be made to their surprising magni-
tude ; their ideal character is also plain from the
whole connection ; and there is as little need to
have recourse to the assumption of some error in
the transcribing of the numbers or numeral letters,
— an expedient, besides, which seems scarcely
admissible, on account of the proportionality of
the numbers in the several divisions of the troops,
as to that of legendary extravagance or arbitrary
fiction, whether it be that of the Chroni'jt or of
his older voucher (perhaps the prophet Jehu,
ch. xx. 34).2
1 The passage 2 Kings iil. 276 imports in any ca-e an
issue of the war with Moab not quite favourable to Joram
and Jehoshaphat eventhouyh we understand the expression:
"and there was great indignation concerning Israel," only
of the displeasure and abhorrence of the human sacrifice
offered by the king of Moab, and the consequent retreat from
the country of the enemy (as also Biihr on the passage).
But the question is, whether Schlnttmann (p. 018 f.) is not
right in thinking of a divinely sent calamity, such as a
plague, by which the united army of Israel and Judah was
forced to a speedy retreat under heavy losses. In this case
the Chroni8t would have had so much the more ground for
the omission of this record.
2 Moreover, that which Neteler adduces (p. 212 f.) in
support of their numbers In their literal sense deserves
attention . 1. Tho tribe of Simeon at this time belonged to
the tribe of Judah (xix. 4?), by which the number of
warriors of the latter, amounting to almost 800,000 men, is
3. How far, therefore, the author was from im
parting to the here and there ideally - coloured
picture which he drew of the great heroic king
the form of a panegyric legend or a fabulous
eulogium; howtrne, on the contrary, he remained
to his office as a historian, — is shown by the cir-
cumstance that here also, as in the case of David,
Asa, etc., he adds the shade to the light, and
by no means passes over in silence a series of
less favourable traits of the administration of
Jehoshaphat. Especially his affinity with Ahab,
the idolatrous king of Israel, is duly set forth as
a fatal deviation from the path of theocratic purity
and strictness (comp. Ezra ix. 1 tf., x. 1 ff. ; Neh.
ix. 2, xiii. 23 ff. ) to the slippery ground of inter-
national friendship or affinity with idolatrous
neighbours (comp. Solomon's Egyptian spouse,
viii. 1] f.). On account of this step, and the
consequent often going hand in hand with Israel
in warlike expeditions, the king had repeatedly
to undergo censure by the mouth of God-inspired
prophets, first by the stout Jehu ben Hanani, who
directly charged him with helping the wicked,
and loving them that hate the Lord (xix. 2),
afterwards by Eliezer ben Dodavah, who places
the failure of the voyage from Ezion-geber under
the character of a divine correction for drawing
in one yoke with the unbelieving (xx. 37). On
the part of two other prophets, indeed, who are
introduced in our section, he encounters no such
rebuke : Miehah son of Imlah treats him when
standing out beside Ahab in the favourable light
of a relatively theocratic prince, with mild forbear-
ance, and favours him with the promise of a "re-
turn in peace " from the defeat and dispersion of
the sheep of the house of Israel (xviii. 16); and so
what the Levite Jahaziel says, before setting out
to the war with the eastern nations, includes
nothing but admonitions to take courage, and
promises of deliverance by the strong hand of the
Lord (xx. 14-17). But certainly the critical
situations to which these prophetic words refer
are in and of themselves sufficiently serious and
menacing : they are crises introduced by the fault
of the king, by his inconsiderate entering into
ungodly alliances and relations, feeble preludes of
that which the unhappy marriage of his son with
the daughter of Jezebel should afterwards bring
down in heavy judgments on his house and
people. On this account, in the dangerous pos-
ture of affairs introduced in this way, along with
solemn rebuke, comforting encouragement was in
place; the certainly guilty king, deserving of
punishment, but not in the same degree as the
sovereigns of Israel, was yet one with whom, as
the rough Jehu acknowledged, "good things
were found" (xix. 3). He deserved along with
explained; 2. The Philistines (?) and the Edomites, who
were tributary to Judah, may have been compelled to add
their contingent to his force; 3. If we reckon the auxiliary
troops of Simeon, Philistia, and Edom at 200,000 men, of
the remaning 600,000 Jewish troops, on an average, 20,0110
men were due to each of the 120 cities which belonged to
the tribe (Josh. xv.). which does not seem unnattu ally high,
as numerous villages belonged to each of these cities; 4.
An increase of 1311,000 men lit to hear arms since the
census of David, in a period of three generations, is nothing
wonderful, especially -with the accession of many from the
other tribes to the southern kingdom, if we consider the
extraordinary fertility of the land, the small means of sub-
sistence required in the south, and the Industrial produc-
tivity of the Jews at that time. A somewhat satisfactory
account would thus be furnished with regard to the 780,000
Jewish troops. But how stands it with the 880,000 warriors
whom the small rocky and mountainous territo-y of Benja-
min had to produce ?
CHAP. XXI.
219
reproving instruction also strengthening encour-
agement, that he might continue to walk in the
ways of his fathers David and Asa (xvii. 3, xx.
32). He was worthy to be aroused to abide in
the path of theocratic righteousness, that at least
under his rule the inevitable evil effects of that
affinity with an idolatrous house might be re-
strained as far as possible, and the people retained
in that moderate state of piety and morality
which is indicated (xx. 33) by the sentence : "the
people had not yet directed their heart to the
God of their fathers." What he himself says
and does, also, in conformity with such encourag-
ing and strengthening words of the prophets,
bears the stamp of true repentance, humble
acknowledgment of his guilt, and firm continuance
in the path of righteousness. As the reproof of
Jehu appears to have wrought in him the counter-
part of that which Asa had once done on the
occasion of a similar announcement from Hanani
his father (comp, xix. 4 ff. ), so his address in the
campaign against the eastern nations to the people,
or rather in the name of the people to the Lord
(xx. 6-11), vies with the following prophetic
utterance of Jahaziel in realizing firm confidence
in God and triumphant faith. It is, however, a
confidence in God resting on the ground of peni-
tent and believing confession of sin which he
here expresses ; it is a truly penitent and believ-
ing resignation to the divine grace working all in
all, an essentially evangelical experience of salva-
tion, whence his subsequent admonition to his
warriors : " Believe, and ye shall be established "
(xx. 20), springs, a monitory and prophetic word,
in which he himself becomes a prophet, a pro-
phetic type, and a presumptive prophetic source,
from which the greatest of the Old Testament
seers for a century and a half afterwards, in all
probability, drew their almost literally coinciding
words (see on this passage). At all events, the as-
sumption that Isaiah, the seer of Davidic princely
blood, consciously rested on this believing word
of a royal ancestor, that might have been early
celebrated on account of the divine blessing
attending it, is a good deal more natural than
either the assertion of an only accidental depend-
ence of the similar phrases, or than the easy
expedient of a thoughtless hyper-criticism, accord-
ing to which the Chronist made his royal hero
speak after the manner of Isaiah, or use a play of
words borrowed from this prophet.
4. It is, before all, the antique, thoroughly
fresh, and concrete characteristic, foreign like-
wise to the tone of mythical legend or arbitrary
invention in the sources, as they lie clearly dis-
cernible at the ground of our author's narrative,
which must be set forth in an apologetic respect,
and maintained with all emphasis against such
doubts as that above indicated, with respect to
the originality of Jehoshaphat's address, xx. 20 ;
or as Gramberg's and Credner's conje tare (ex-
pressed on Joei iv. 11), that the whole narrative
zx. 1-30 is nothing but a free, half-poetical re-
modelling of the short statement in 2 Kings iii.
23 f. With regard to the character of our chap-
ter as supported throughout by definite histori-
cal traditions and solid sources, Movers and
Bertheau have already made striking remarks ;
comp. the latter, p. 349 ff. : " 1. In the accounts
of Jehoshaphat's institutions, which were de-
signed to spread the knowledge of the law and
secure to his people an orderly administration A
justice, the many details and names (among
others, that of the high priest Amariah, xix. 11,
who was also in other accounts a contemporary
of Jehoshaphat) are a sure proof of this, that our
historian found exact statements in his sources,
if he also elaborated the historical material in his
own way. 2. This applies also to the reports of
the defensive preparations and the division of
the army, xvii. 15-19. 3. In the remarkable
narrative of the battle in which the Moabites,
Ammonites, and Meunites destroyed one another
(xx. 1-30), we discern, indeed, throughout the
mode of thought and style peculiar to our author,
but we discover also very distinct historical re-
collections : the localities are exactly described,
vers. 16-20 ; the designation ' new court ' is
found only in ver. 5 (it must be taken from a
source in which the new building was mentioned) ■
the series of the forefathers of Jahaziel, ver. 14,
is a proof that he had already drawn the atten-
tion of the older writers to him, who were in a
position to give an account of his forefathers.
This battle of extermination was before the mind
of the prophet Joel when he called the place ot
the divine decision ' the valley of Jehoshaphat '
(comp. on xx. 26). . . . The statement in 2
Kings iii. 23 refers to a quite different situation ;
and as it might have presented the starting-point
and the historical ground for the reports in
2 Chron. xx., it is not to be overlooked. 4.
Finally, our author must have found reports of the
action of the prophets Jehu (xix. 2 f. ) and Eliezer
(xx. 37), since he tells of the contents of then-
speeches in their own words. The brief report
also in 1 Kings xxii. 41-51 seems to point to
the contents of several narratives of Chronicles :
1 Kings xxii 47 refers to the extirpation of
idolatry (2 Chron. xvii. 3-6) ; 1 Kings xxii.
46 speaks of the military force of Jehoshaphat,
of which 2 Chron. xvii. 2, 10-19 treats more
fully, "and so forth. To the arguments for its
authenticity here set forth, mostly taken from the
internal value of the sources of our section, with
which are to be compared the apologetic discus-
sions of Kleinert (Das Deuteronomium, etc., p.
141) respecting the law reform of Jehoshaphat
in its relation to Deut. xvii., is to be added a
weighty, if only indirect and extra-biblical, testi-
mony— the recently - discovered inscription of
Mesha king of Moab, a highly-important monu-
mental document for the history of one of the
neighbouring states of the kingdom of Jehosha-
phat, which serves to confirm, at least in general,
the historical relations as our section represents
them, and, especially in a chronological respect,
in so far as it proceeds most probably from the
time between the campaign described in ch. xviii.
and that in ch. xx., fits well into the series of
events here described ; comp. Schlottmann, as
quoted, especially p. 621 ff.
e. Joram : The Letter of the Prophet Elijah. — Ch. xxi.
Ch. XXI. 1. And Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried w th his fathers
in the city of David ; and Joram his son reigned in his stead.
220 II. CHRONICLES.
2 And lie had brethren, sons of Jehoshaphat, Azariah and Jehiel, and
Zechariah and Azariah, and Michael and Shephatiah : all these were sons of
3 Jehoshaphat king of Judah. And their father gave them many gifts of
silver and of gold and of precious things, w.th fenced cities in Judah ; but
4 the kingdom gave he to Joram, because he was the first-Dorn. And Joram
went up to the kingdom of his father, and strengthened himself, and slew all
his brethren with the sword, and also some of the princes of Israel.
5 Joram was thirty and two years old when he became king, and he reigned
6 eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel,
as the house of Ahab did ; for he had a daughter of Ahab to wife : and he
7 did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord. And the Lord would not
destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that He had made with
David, and as He had promised to give a light to him and his sons for ever.—
8 In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made them-
9 selves a king. And Joram went over with his princes, and all the chariots
with him ; and he rose up by night, and smote Edom, who compassed him,
10 and the captains of the chariots. And Edom revolted from under the hand
of Judah unto this day. Then Libnah revolted at that time from under his
11 hand, because he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers. He also made
high places in the mountains 1 of Judah, and he debauched the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, and perverted Judah.
12 And there came to him a writing from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus
saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in
the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah.
13 And didst walk in the way of the kings of Israel, and didst debauch Judah
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem after the whoredom of the house of Ahab ;
and hast also slain thy brethren, the house of thy father, who were better
14 than thou. Behold, the Lord will bring a great plague on thy people, and
15 thy sons, and thy wives, and all thy goods. And thou shalt be in great sick-
ness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out from the sickness in a
year and a day.
16 And the Lord stirred up against Joram the spirit of the Philistines and
17 the Arabs, that were near the Ethiopians. And they came up into Judah,
and brake into it, and took away all the substance that was found in the
king's house, and his sons, and his wives ; and not a son was left him but
18 Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. And after all this the Lord smote him
19 in his bowels with an incurable disease. And it came to pass after many
days, namely, about the time of the end of two years, his bowels fell out
with his sickness, and he died with sore pains ; and his people made no
20 burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. Thirty and two years old
was he when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem ; and
he departed without regret ; 2 and they buried him in the city of David, but
not in the sepulchres of the kings.
/. Ahaziah. — Ch. xxii. 1-9.
Ch. xxii. 1. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son,
king in his stead ; for the troop that came with the Arabs to the camp had
slain all the eldest : and Ahaziah son of Joram king of Judah became king.
2 Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he became king ; 3 and he reigned
one year in Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Athaliah, daughter of
3 Omri. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab ; for his mother
4 was his counsellor to do wickedly. And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord,
like the house of Ahab ; for they were his counsellors after the death of his
5 father, to his destruction. He also walked in their counsel, and went with
Joram son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at
6 Bamoth-gilead : and the Syrians smote Joram. And he returned to be healed
in Jezreel of the wounds4 which they had given him at Raman, when he
fought with Hazael king of Syria : and Ahaziah s son of Joram king of Judah
CHAP. XXII. 10-XXIII.
7 went down to see Joram son of Ahab at Jezreel; for he was sick. And the
downfall of Ahaziah was from God, in coining to Joram ; and when he came,
he went out with Joram against Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had
8 anointed to cut off the house of Ahab. And it came to pass, when Jehu
executed judgment upon the house of Ahab, he found also the princes of
Judah, and the sons of the brethren 6 of Ahaziah, that ministered to Ahaziah,
9 and slew them. And he sought Ahaziah ; and they caught him when he was
hiding in Samaria, and brought him to Jehu, and slew him, and buried him ;
for they said, He is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all
his heart : and the house of Ahaziah had none to retain strength for the
kingdom.
g. Athaliah's Reign and Fall. — Oh. xxii. 10-xxiii.
10 And Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, and she
11 arose and destroyed 7 all the seed of the kingdom of the house of Judah. And
Jehoshabath daughter of the king took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole
him from among the king's sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse
in a bed - chamber : and Jehoshabath, daughter of King Joram, wife of
Jehoiada the priest, — for she was Ahaziah's sister, — hid him from the sight of
12 Athaliah : and she slew him not. And he was with them in the house of
God hidden six years ; and Athaliah reigned over the land.
Ch. XXIII. 1. And in the seventh year Jehoiada was encouraged, and took the
captains of hundreds, Azariah son of Jeroham, and Ishmael son of Johanan,
and Azariah son of Oded, and Maaseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of
2 Zichri, into covenant with him. And they went about in Judah, and gathered
the Levites out of all the cities of Judah, and the chiefs of the fathers of
3 Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. And all the congregation made a cove-
nant in the house of God with the king ; and he said unto them, Behold, the
4 king's son shall reign, as the Lord hath spoken of the sons of David. This
is the thing that ye shall do : a third of you, who enter on the sabbath, of
5 the priests and of the Levites, shall be porters at the thresholds. And a
third shall be at the king's house ; and a third at the gate Jesod ; and all the
6 people shall be in the courts of the house of the Lord. And none shall enter
the house of the Lord, but the priests, and they that minister of the Levites ;
they may go in, for they are holy ; and all the people shall keep the ward of
7 the Lord. And the Levites shall surround the king, every man with his
weapons in his hand : and whosoever goeth into the house shall be put to
death ; and ye shall be with the king, when he goeth in and when he cometh
8 out. And the Levites and all Judah did according to all that Jehoiada the
priest commanded, and took every one his men that went in on the sabbath
with those that came out on the sabbath : for Jehoiada the priest had not dis-
9 missed the courses. And Jehoiada the priest gave to the captains of hundreds
spears and shields and arms, that had been King David's, which were in the
10 house of God. And he set all the people, every man with his weapon in his
hand, from the right to the left side of the house, by the altar and by the
1 1 house, round about the king. And they brought out the king's son, and gave
unto him the crown and the testimony, and made him king : and Jehoiada
and his sons anointed him, and said, Long live the king.
12 And Athaliah heard the cry of the people running and praising the
13 king, and she came to the people to the house of the Lord. And she
looked, and, behold, the king stood at his place in the entrance, and the
princes and the trumpets by the king ; and all the people of the land were
glad, and blew on the trumpets ; and the singers with instruments of song,
and the leaders of praise : and Athaliah rent her clothes, and said, Conspiracy,
14 conspiracy! And Jehoiada the priest brought out8 the captains of hundreds,
the officers of the host, and said unto them, Bring her out from within the
ranges, and whoso followeth her shall be slain with the sword : for the priest
15 had said, Slay her not in the house of the Lord. And they gave her space,
222
II. CHRONICLES.
and she went to the entrance of the horse gate9 by the king's house, and they
16 S 6\nd Jehoiada made a covenant between himself, and between all the
17 people, and between the king, that they should be the Lords people. And
all the people went to the house of Baal, and pulled it down and brake its
altars and its images; and Matthan the priest of Baal they slew before the
18 altars. And Jehoiada appointed the offices of the house of the Lord by the
hand of the priests, the Levites, whom David had distributed in the house of
the Lord, to offer the burnt offerings of the Lord, as it is written in the law
19 of Moses, with gladness and with song, in the manner of David. And he set
the porters at the gates of the house of the Lord, that the unclean might not
20 enter And he took the captains of hundreds, and the nobles, and the rulers
of the people, and all people of the land, and brought down the king from
the house of the Lord : and they went through the high gate into the king a
21 house, and set the king on the royal throne. • And all the people of the land
were glad; and the city was quiet, and they had put Athaliah to death by
the sword.
1 FornrO, "on the mountains," the Sept. and Vnlg. read 'nJG, " in the cities."
• mon &6a the Sept. translates dx it ««/.»; but the Vulg.: non recle frmbulavitque von rede). So Luther:
' and walked as was not right." ... , „
• Instead of forty-two, not only the parallel 2 Kings Till. 26, bnt also the Syr. and Arab, versions (as well as some
later mss. and the Aid. edit, of the Sept.), give " twenty-two years " ; but the Vulg., as the Masoretic text and Sept. (AL
and Vat.) : itxoo-iv trSv.
« For D^SEin 'S is to be read, with various better hss., also with the Sept. and 2 Kings viii. 29: D'SBrl JO.
Peculiar is the decision of Neteler (p 325): 13 is to be retained and rendered by " puncture " (puncture of the
wounds).
» This is certainly to be read instead of IH^TVIt which seems to be simply an error of the pen.
« Instead of "sons of the brethren," 'nS \J3, the Sept., in accordance with 2 Kings x. 12: i.U\<poi,. But see the
Exeg. Expl.
' ^"Wl is without donbt, according to 2 Kings xi. 1, to be changed into *13NriV (Sept.: kxu\ura ; Vulg. • m-
ter/ecit.)
• NXi'1 is possibly a mistake for 1VM (2 Kings xl. 15), which latter the Syr. and Arab, also read in our p. ssage.
• lyC') besides being superfluous after Si3D, is wanting as well tn 2 Kings xi. 16 as in all old versions of our
passage, and should be erased.
EXEGETICAL.
Irrespective of the letter of the prophet Elijah
(and its accompanying notices concerning the
punishment of Joram therein predicted, xxi.
12-19), we are here presented with parallel texts
to the accounts of the hook of Kings, but cer-
tainly parallels to which the special Levitical
standpoint of the narrator has often, especially
in the description of the fall of Athaliah by the
conspiracy conducted by the high priest Jehoiada,
imparted a characteristic colouring, involving
many deviations from the older text.
1. Joram : a. His Beginnings, and his Mis-
government: ch. xxi. 1-11. — And Jehoshaphat
slept with his fathers. This report of Jehosha-
phat's death and burial is carried, according to
the usual division of chapters, to the history of
Joram, because the first deed of Joram, the
general murder of his kindred, is closely con-
nected with the decease of his father, and selves
to soil with blood the solemn rites of his funeral
(his being "buried with his fathers"), a mode of
division corresponding well with the pragmatical
turn of the Chronist. — Vers. 2-4. Joram's Sixfold
Fratricide. — Azariah and Jehiel, etc. It is against
the identity, asserted by Jewish expositors, of
Jehiel with the Hiel mentioned in 1 Kings xvi.
34, that the latter, who is called a Bethelite (an
inhabitant of Bethel), was neither a king's son
nor a member of the southern kingdom. — All
these were sons of Jehoshaphat, king of Israel.
On the designation of the southern kingdom by
the name of Israel, comp, xii. 1, 6, also ver. i,
xxviii. 19, 27, etc. — Vei. 3. And their fa'her
gave them many gifts. Comp. what Rehoboam
did to his sons, xi. 22 f. — Ver. 4. And Joram
went up; comp. Ex. i. 8, and on the following
phrase, "strengthened himself," ch. i. 1. That
the chief motive for the murder of his brothers
was their non-concurrence with Joram's and his
mother's idolatry, is clear from ver. 13, where
they are said to be better than he : this must
have applied also to the "princes of Israel" who
fell with them as victims in the massacre. More-
over, oriental rulers are wont still in modern
times to inaugurate the beginning of their reign
with such general murder of their kindred ; and
Abimelech had already acted the tyrant by the
practice of a similar but still more wicked
slaughter, Judg. ix. 5.- — Vers. 5-11 agree in all
essentials with 2 Kings viii. 17-22. — Ver. 6. For
he had a daughter of Akab to wife. This quite
definite statement excludes the hypothesis of
CHAP. XXI. 7-17.
223
Hitzig, based upon 2 Kings viii. 26 and 2 Chron.
xxii. 2, that Athaliah was rather the sister ol
Ahab. She is there called Omri's daughter,
because the spirit of Omri, the founder of the
dynasty, displayed itself siost characteristically
and powerfully in this his grand - daughter.
Grandsons and grand-daughters are not seldom
called children of their grandfather, especially if
he was celebrated and influential ; cornp. for
example, xi. 20, Maachah the daughter (grand-
daughter) of Absalom. — Ver. 7. And the Lord
would not destroy the house of David. Some-
what different, but coinciding in sense with the
present passage, is 2 Kings viii. 19 (see Bahr).
In particular, " To give him a light for his sons "
(or ' ' in his sons ") stands there, for which here :
"to give a light to him and his sons." The 1
of our author, inserted before V33?, appears,
moreover, to be neither superfluous nor unsuit-
able, if it be taken explicatively;= "and cer-
tainly" (so correctly Keil, against Berth.). — Ver.
8. In his days Edom revolted from under the
hand of Judah, changed the condition of vassal-
age to Judah, in which it was held from David to
Jehoshaphat (comp. 1 Kings xxii. 48 and above
on ch. xx. 35), into that of a fully independent
state. — Ver. 9. And Joram went over with his
princes. vib' DV is possibly corrupted from
iXVyW, "to Seir" (as should be read 2 Kings
viii. 21, instead of m^VS)- At tne end of tne
verse are wanting the words there forming the
close: "and the people fled to their tents," from
which it is evident that the battle was not par-
ticularly fortunate for the Jewish king, but simply
consisted in cutting his way through the sur-
rounding force. — Ver. 10. Unto this day, that is,
merely unto the time of the older narrator, used as
a. source by the Chronist (comp. Introd. § 5, II.
p. 19). But this is to be regarded as a writer
belonging to the period immediately before the
captivity; and therefore it is to be presumed
that the re-conquest of the Edomites by Amaziah,
xxv. 14 f., was only transient. — Then Libnah
revolted at that time, probably the present Tell es
Safieh (not far from Eleutheropolis, Eobinson,
Pal. ii. 622). The neighbouring Philistines took
an essential part in rending it from Joram, in
which they were aided also by the Phoenicians
(according to Hitzig, Gesch. p. 201) ; comp. Joel
iv. 4 f. ; Amos i. 9. — Because he had forsaken the
Lord God of his fatliers, — a pragmatic reflection
of the Chronist, which is wanting in 2 Kings. —
Ver. 11. He also made high places, which Asa
and Jehoshaphat had removed, xiv. 2 ff., xvii. 6.
The following phrase: "debauched," is to be
understood of the spiritual whoredom of the wor-
ship of Baal; comp. ver. 13. On n*Pl, "and
perverted," comp. Deut. xiii. 6, 11, 14, and Prov.
vii. 21.
2. 6. The Letter of the Prophet Elijah, and the
Fulfilment of its Evil Forebodings : vers. 12-19.—
And there came to him a writing from Elijah the
prophet, saying (or " containing," ibX?)' 3FDD
is not properly a letter, but a writing, a threaten-
ing prophecy in a written form ; whether written
or at least dictated by Elijah is, from the indefinite-
ness of the phrase }nsi>KD, doubtful ; a merely
indirect origin from Elijah is obviously reconcil-
able with this phrase ; and as, according to 2 Kings
ii. 1 ff., iii. 11, Elijah appears to have been no
longer in the land of the living in the reign of
Joram (for the inquiry of Jehoshaphat after a
prophet during the campaign against Mesha,
2 Kings iii. 11, is answered by pointing, not to
Elijah, but only to Elisha, who poured water on
the hands of Elijah), it is most natural to suppose
the oracle to have been spoken by Elijah against
Joram, or rather against Athaliah and her idola-
trous house, but first noted down and reduced to
its present form by a scholar of Elijah. Comp.
Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 2. — Ver.
13. After the whoredom of the house of Ahab ;
comp. on ver. 11. — And hast also slain thy
brethren ; comp. on ver. 4. Even this reference
to the murderous deed practised on his not
idolatrously disposed brothers, may Elijah have
uttered by virtue of his divinely-illuminated pro-
phetic sagacity, at a time when Joram was not
yet king, in connection with the other thoughts
of the present prediction. — Ver. 14. Behold, the
Lord will bring a great plague, the devastating
invasion of the Philistines and the Arabs, ver. 16 f.
— Ver. 15. Until thy bowels fall out from the
sickness in a year and a day, literally, "days
upon days," that is, during many days; comp.
n3e> S>y mw, Isa» xxix- 1 ancl Ps- lxi- 1 i Judg.
xvii. 10. The present determination of time is
popular and proverbial, but indefinite. The dura-
tion of the malady is given more exactly, ver. 19,
in the account of the fulfilment of the oracle. —
Ver. 16. And the Lord stirred up, in conformity
with the prediction communicated. On TJJD
nn riK. comp. 1 Chron. v. 26. The Arabs that
were near the Ethiopians are naturally tribes of
Southern Arabia (as the Sabseans, Job i. 15 ; see
on this passage). We know nothing of the
causes which lay at the ground of the combina-
tion of these tribes with the Philistines to lay
waste Judea. Moreover, the Arabs mentioned
xxii. 1 are the same as those here designated. —
Ver. 17. And brake into it, literally, "cleft it,"
"forced their way into it" ; comp. xxxii. 1 ;
2 Sam. xxiii. 16 ; 2 Kings xxv. 4. — And took
away all the substance that was found in the
king's house. According to this, Jerusalem must
have been conquered by these plundering hordes ;
yet TpanTTQij may also be rendered "belong-
ing to the king's house " (royal domains), as
7 KVD3 certainly signifies something else than
3 XSD3, namely, " possessed! by " (comp. Deut.
xxi. 17; Josh. xvii. 16), and, besides, the absence
:f any mention of plundering the temple or its
treasures must seem trange, if Jerusalem had
been actually taken. We learn, moreover, from
the later reference to the occurrence here men-
tioned, xxii. 1, that only the royal camp was
surprised and plundered, not the royal palace
in Jerusalem. Comp. Kuhlmey, Atttestamentl.
Studien(Zeitschriftfiir luth. Theologie und Kirche,
1844, iii. 82 ff.), as well as Keil on this passage.
— And not a son was left him but Jehoahaz. Not
merely capture, but also slaughter, of all the older
sons is recorded xxii. 1. The only remaining
one is here called Jehoahaz, but there Ahaziah, a
name perhaps assumed on ascending the throne ;
224
II. CHRONICLES.
see o» this passage. — Ver. 18. Smote him (1BJ3,
corresponding to the P1S3D C)33, ver. 14) in
his
boweh with an incurable disease, literally, a
disease with no healing ; comp. xx. 21, 25,
xxxvi. 16. — Ver. 19. And it came to pass after
'many days, literally, "to days from days," for
which is usual the briefer "from days " (D^D'O)]
Judg. xi. 4, xiv. 8. The next words : "namely,
about the time of the end of two years," fix more
exactly this somewhat indefinite date. DVD'
stands here, as in ver. 15, in the sense of "year';
the indefinite phrase, denoting properly, "times,
periods," receives through the context the same
meaning as the Chald. ny, pJIJJ, often in
Daniel ; for example, Dan. iv. 13, 20, 22, vii. 25 ;
comp. also Vulg. and Syr., which render it
directly : ' ' years. " Unnecessary and yielding too
harsh a sense is Keil's proposal, to take the words
VJ5H nNV by themselves, and render: "about
the time of the end (of his life), about two days
(before death)." — His boweh fell out with his sick-
ness. Qj;, during his painful malady (see the
close: "and he died with sore pains"). The
disease consisted probably in a very violent
dysentery or chronic diarrhoea, whereby the
nerve - cuticle of the whole great gut was in-
flamed, and parts of the mucous tunicle
occasionally came off in the form of gut or pipe
(resembling a falling out of the bowels) ; comp.
Trusen, Sitten, G'ebrauche mid Krankheiten der
alten Hebraer, p. 212, and Friedreich, Zur Bibel,
p. 270 (where also other literature). — And his
people made no burning for him, gave him not
the honour of a magnificent funeral ; comp. xvi.
14. The same is indicated by that which i3
related in the following verse, that "he departed
without regret," ITTOn N?3 (sine desiderio, a
nernine desideratus), and that he was not buried in
the sepulchres of the kings ; comp. xxiv. 25, xxvi.
23. On Luther's and the Vulgate's conception of
mnn t&2 ^l, see Crit. Note,
3. Ahaziah's Eeign : ch. xxii. 1-9 ; comp.
2 Kings viii. 26-29, and with regard to the
downfall of Ahaziah, ix., x., a copious narrative
of the revolution effected by Jehu, of which only
a brief abstract (vers. 6-9) is given here, omit-
ting all that refers to the extirpation of the
Israelitish branch of the house of Ahab. — And
the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his
youngest son king, the same who was called, xxi.
17, Jehoahaz (in the Sept. cod, Al. even as here :
'0%°% i'«(). That he was made king by the inhabit-
ants of Jerusalem, indicates that the succession
to the throne was disputed, and therefore that a
party (the Levites and priests under Jehoiada)
was opposed to him, but without prevailing at
first against the adl erents of Athaliah. — Had
slain all the eldest. Comp. the remarks on xxi.
17 ; for this refers to no other fact than that there
described. — Ver. 2. Forty and two years old
was Ahaziah; obviously an erroneous statement,
apparently arising from the exchange of the
numeral letters 3 and ft ; twenty-two must cer-
tainly be read for forty-two, for Joram was thirty-
two years old when he ascended the throne, and
reicned in all only eight years : he could not have a
son forty-two years old : indeed, as the youngest son
of Joram, Ahaziah could not well be over twenty-
two years of age, as his father must have begotten
him in his eighteenth year, and his elder brothers
at a, still earlier age, against which assumption
no serious objection arises, as it was the well-
known custom of the East to marry in early
youth, and as a king's son, he will have had no
small number of concubines. Only we need not
fix the number of his elder brothers at forty-two,
to which 2 Kings x. 13 rightly understood does
not bind us ; see on ver. 8. For the last words :
"Athaliah daughter of Omri," comp. on xxi. 6.
— Ver. 3. For his mother was his counsellor to do
wickedly, in her devotion to the idolatry of the
house of Ahab; comp. xx. 35, xxi. 6 ff.— Ver. 4.
Like the house of Ahab ; for they, the members
of this house. At the close : "to his destruc-
tion," as in xx. 23. — Ver. 5. Walked in their
counsel, and went with Joram, Ps. i. 1 ; these
words are wanting in 2 Kings viii. 28. On
Hazael, Eenhadad's former general, and then
successor, see Bahr on 2 Kings viii. 8 ff. — And
the Syrians smote Joram ; D'tSIH, contracted for
D'tSIKH, 2 Kings viii. 28 (as D'HIDD, Eccles. iv.
14, from D'HlDNn ; comp. also Ezek. xx. 30). —
Ver. 6. And he returned to be healed . . . of the
wounds. So it is to be read instead of : " for the
wounds," which is unmeaning, and only to he
cured by explanatory additions ; see Crit. Note.
— And Ahaziah . . . (see Crit. Note) went down
to see Joram . . . in Jezreel. This going down
was probably from Kamoth, not from Jerusalem •
comp. 2 Kings ix. 14 f. (from which, however,
nothing very certain on this point is to be in-
ferred1.— Ver. 7. And the downfall of Ahaziah
was from God; "the down-treading" (nD13fl,
occurring only here ; comp. nD13D, Isa. xxii.
5). Instead of "against Jehu," the text has
properly : "to Jehu" (?x), 2 Kings ix. 21, more
definitely "to meet Jehu'' (flfcOp?) ; and for
"son of Nimshi, " Jehu is there (2 Kings ix. 2)more
precisely called "son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nim-
shi. " With the history of Jehu's call and anoint-
ment by Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings xix. 16 ; 2
Kings ix. 2 ff. ) our author here proves himself to
be acquainted, but does not enter into particulars,
because the fate of the Jewish royal house was his
immediate concern. —Ver. 8. When Jehu executed
judgment; tDBK'3, execute judgment, — other-
wise with j-|N (Ezek. xvii. 20, xxxviii. 22) orfith
■> (Jer. xxv. 31), here with qjj ; comp. Joel iv. 2.
— Sons of the brethren of Ahaziah. As the brethren
of Ahaziah named in 2 Kings x. 12 ff. from their
great number (42) could only be his brethren in
the wider sense (kinsmen, cousins), so the Sept.
is wrong in making " Irrethren " out of these
brethren's sons ; and it is not less wrong in
Bertheau to affirm two different traditions con-
cerning the fact, according to one of which the
Jewish princes put to death between Jezreel and
Samaria, at Jehu's command, were brothers ;
according to the other, brothers' sons of Ahaziah;
see, on the contrary, Mov. p. 258, Ew. inDerlsr
Gesch. ; also Bahr, and especially Keil, who sees
CHAP. XXII. 6-XXIII. 4.
22.1
no difficulty in the partly very youthful age
(between five and eight or nine years) of these
princes. — That mijtistered to Ahaziah, were
invested with offices in his court, the youngi-st
as pages, as, for example, Daniel and his friends
in the court of the Babylonish Icing, Dan. i. 4 ff.
— Ver. 6. And he sought Ahaziah. The fuller
accounts of the death of Ahaziah in 2 Kings ix.
27, 28 deviate in several respects, in which
Ahaziah is mortally wounded, not in Samaria,
but in fleeing from Jezreel to Megiddo, and dies
at Megiddo. See Bahr on the passage, who
rightly rejects Keil's attempt to make up the
ditference of the two accounts as too artificial. —
And the house of Ahaziah had none to retain
strength for the kingdom, nb "IVS??, asinxiii. 20:
"to be fit for the kingdom.'' On the whole
sentence, comp. Dan. ix. 26 Qp pXl).
4. Athaliah's Reign of Six Years ; Deliverance
of Joash : vers. 10-12 ; comp. 2 Kings xi. 1-3. —
And Athaliah . . . destroyed all the seed. On
the emendation necessary here, according to 2
Kings, see Crit. Note. The " seed of the king-
dom of the house of Judah " (the royal seed)
embraces naturally the cousins and other remote
kinsmen of Ahaziah, the male descendants of
Jehoshaphat yet surviving after the catastrophes
already mentioned (xxi. 17, xxii. 8).— Ver. 11.
Jehoshabath daughter of the king; in 2 Kings with
name slightly changed : Jehosheba ; according to
the close of our verse, a sister of Ahaziah, a daughter
of Joram, perhaps, by another wife than Athaliah,
That Jehoiada the husband of Jehoshabath was
perhaps only a priest, not the high priest, see on
xxiii. 8. — That were slain, or that should have
been slain (DTICIBH). — Ver. 12. And he was
with them in the house of God hidden. Thither
was he brought from his first hiding-place, the
Vd-chamber of the royal palace, as soon as the
lirst favourable opportunity presented itself.
"With them," with Jehoshabath, her priestly
spouse and his nurse (ver. 11). For QHX is,
moreover, in 2 Kings xi. 3, the simpler HRK.
"with her." Comp. for the rest, Bahr on the
parallel passage.
5. Athaliah's Fall through the Revolution
effected by Jehoiada : ch. xxiii.' — According to
the parallel in 2 Kings xi. 4-20, Jehoiada em-
ployed in his enterprise the royal "runners" or
guards, according to our passage, the Levites and
priests, without, however, excluding the former
(for in ver. 1, five captains of hundreds, that is,
of the life-guards, are expressly named), or be-
traying any design to transform the narrative of
the author of Kings into his Levitical sense in an
unhistorical way. He stands much more (as is
immediately evident from ver. 1) on independent
older reports, which he takes in the main from
the same sources from which 2 Kings xi. 4-20 is
derived ; only that he finds these sources richer,
and by the addition of still other reports, pro-
duces a more complete account of the fact, filling
up the parallel in various ways, and even deviat-
ing from it in some respects. Here and there his
statements are less clear than those of the older
texts, and show plainly enough the peculiar
colouring of his Levitical standpoint, but with-
out warranting the charge of biassed invention,
which de Wette, Thenius, Bertheau, Hitzig (p.
204 ff.), and nearly Movers (p. 307 ff.), here bring
against the Chronist. Comp. Bahr on Kings, p.
343, and Keil, pp. 305-310; also Neteler, p. 236 ff.
— In the seventh year Jehoiada . . . took the
captains of hundreds, the centur.ons of the royal
life-guards, as appears from 2 Kings xi. 4 if.
Five of these captains are then named, a guarantee
of the well-grounded accuracy of the present
narrative. Before the first three of these names
stands the introductory p (as xvii. 7; 1 Chron.
v. 26), and before the last two n^V — Ver. 2. And
they went about in Judah, }3bsl, as xvii. 9; comp.
Song iii. 3 ; on the following niax "B'KI, " trihe-
chiefs," "heads of families," for 'x fTO '"V
comp. 1 Chron. viii. 6. — Ver. 3. And all the
congregation made a covenant. ?np>n~i>3 means,
not the whole Israelitish. community (Berth.),
but according to the context, the congregation
of Levites and heads of families appointed by
Jehoiada at Jerusalem in the temple. What is
related of "the covenant made with the king,"
the young Joash, is merely completive of the
report in 2 Kings xi. 4, not contradictory (against
Berth., etc., comp. Bahr on this passage). — Ai
the Lord hath spoken of the sons of David, in the
oracle of Nathan, 2 Sam. vii. (comp. xxi. 7). —
Ver. 4. A third of you (properly, "the third part
of you," 2 Chron. xxvii. 1) who enter on the
Sabbath, of the priests and of the Levites.
According to this, the first of the three posts ij
to be occupied by persons "who enter on the
Sabbath" (naB>n 'SB), who are expressly de-
scribed as belonging to the priests and Levites.
In 2 Kings xi. 5 also the first third is so desig-
nated, which seems to indicate that there also
priests and Levites are regarded as standing under
the command of the five captains of hundreds ;
comp. moreover, the corresponding "coming out
on the Sabbath, " vers. 7, 9. Keil justly observes
(Apol. Vers. p. -362 ff., and Cornm. p. 309 f.),
"that the priests and Levites in courses per-
formed the temple service from one Sabbath to
another" is known from Luke i. 5; comp. with
1 Chron. xxiv. ; whereas nothing is said of such
an arrangement on the part of the praetorians, so
that by the phrases : entering on the Sabbath
(resuming service), and coming out on the Sab-
bath (retiring from it), we must understand the
Levites. If the praetorians (life-guards) were thus
intended in 2 Kings xi., this should have been
clearly affirmed. From the words spoken of the
centurions of the life-guards: "the third part of
you," this no more follows than from the fact
that in 2 Kings xi. 11 the appointed posts are
called B'jnn, "the runners, guards." If we
assume that for this extraordinary occasion the
Levitical attendants were placed under the com-
mand of some centurions of the royal guards who
were in concert with the high priest, the designa-
tion of the men whom they commanded as D'XI,
guards, is fully explained, after these men (on
account of the priestly and Levitical elements
assigned to them) were described as those ' ' enter-
ing and coming out on the Sabbath." Accord-
ingly, if 2 Kings and Chronicles agree in thia,
226
II. CHRONICLES.
that they presuppose the troops employed by
.Tehoiada to be composed of Levites, life-guards,
and other Jews, they do not essentially differ with
regard to the localities which the three divisions
of the troops had to occupy. For, according to
2 Kings xi. 5, 6, the first third was to take "the
watch of the king's house," the second that at!
"the gate of Sur," the third that at "the gate
behind the runners ;" besides, those coming out
on the Sabbath were to occupy the temple in two
divisions, and so protect the young king (vers. 7,
8). According to our verses, on the contrary, the
first third was to be porters at the thresholds,
and so (1 Chron. ix. 19, 22) guard the entrance
to the temple, the second was to stand (ver. 5) in
the house of the king, the third at the gate Jesod,
while "all the people" were to fill the court of
the .house of God. Two of these statements
appear quite reconcilable ; for the occupying of
the king's house is by both texts assigned to a
third, and the gate Jesod (foundation -gate) should
be the same as the gate TlD (the latter is probably
miswritten for the former, or it denotes "a gate
of retreat," a side gate [?] ; comp. Bahr). But
with regard to the third, an incurable contra-
diction appears to exist between the two texts ;
the "gate behind the runners" must apparently,
according to 2 Kings xi. 19, be sought not in the
temple but in the royal palace, whereas our author
assigns to the corresponding division its post, not
hero, at one of the palace gates, but at the thres-
holds of the temple gate. The only possible
arrangement would be that proposed as a hint by
Keil, that the runners' gate was placed where
the passage, mentioned 1 Kings x. 5, 2 Kings xvi.
18, from the palace to the temple was situated,
and therefore the division in question was con-
ceived to be guarding at the same time the palace
and the temple. It is easier to reconcile that
which is said in both passages concerning the
employment of the rest of the armed men (in our
text, ver. 5: "all the people") to occupy the
temple (or in particular its court). Yet here also
in the two reporters somewhat diverse conceptions
of the event seem to have existed, and in such a
way that the author of 2 Kings conceived and
represented the whole as a military, the Chronist
as a Levitical, measure. Comp. especially in this
respect, vers. 6-8. — Ver. 6. And all the people
shall keep the ward of the Lord, behave in a legal
manner, and beware of entering the inner temple
chambers, the proper sanctuary. For the phrase,
comp. xiii. 11. — Ver. 7. And the Levites shall
surround the king, not form a dense and close
circle around him, but occupy all the entrances
to the temple around the chamber of the king. —
Ver. 8. And the Levites and all Judah. For this
2 Kings has: "and the captains of hundreds."
But this is not a real contradiction ; in 2 Kings
the commanders' are named, in our passage the
3ommanded, as the executors of Jehoiada's direc-
tions.— All that Jehoiada the priest commanded.
Neither here nor xxii. 11, nor generally in the
accounts of the Chronist, does Jehoiada bear the
title of high priest; but even in the book of
Kings he is not so called, but either simply
Jehoiada, without addition, or "Jehoiada the
priest" (2 Kings xi. 15, xii. 3, 8, 10); that he is
identical with the pinjn |nbn named 2 Kings
xai. 11 is as improbable as that in the parallel
2 Chron. xxiv. 6, 1 1 (see on the passage) the
designation B>&nn |H3 refers to tim as ^igb
priest. Contrary, therefore, to the usual view,
which makes Jehoiada high priest, Neteler appears
justly to assume that he was the leading chief of
the priesthood (t^XlH), but not the high priest
proper, tut that one of his sons was invested with
this dignity; with which assumption the absence
of Jehoiada's name in the list of the high priests,
1 Chron. v. 30 ff., admirably agrees. That the
Azariah named 1 Chron. y. 36, the son of
Johanan, who ministered as priest in the house
built by Solomon, was the son of our Jehoiada,
and thus the high priest acting in his time and
under his paternal guidance (2 Kings xii. 11), is
a wholly arbitrary conjecture of this learned man,
which fails on this account, that, 1 Chron. v. 37,
an Amariah is named as son of this Azariah, who
can scarcely be different from the high priest
Amariah named, ch. xix. 11, as the contemporary
of Jehoshaphat. — For Jehoiada the priest had not
dismissed the courses. nippniSil, the priestly
divisions for performing the temple service accord-
ing to the order made by David, 1 Chron. xxiv.-
xxvi. The dismissal ("IDS) of these divisions as
well as their summoning was the business of the
high priest, 1 Chron. xxiv. 6, 19; but Jehoiada
may have acted for his son (possibly a minor),
just as if he had been high priest himself ; comp.
as a New Testament parallel, the relation of
Annas to his son-in-law Caiaphas, Luke iii. 2;
John xviii. 12 ff. — Ver. 9. And Jehoiada the
priest gave , . , spears, and shields, and arms.
D,t3?B', here probably in the more general sense
of weapons, arms, as in Song iv. 4, where, like-
wise, po precedes ; yet it might also signify
targets (along with shields of another kind) ;
comp. 2 Kings xi. 10 and 2 Sam. viii. 7; Ezek.
xxvii. 11. On the captured arms deposited by
David as a dedicated gift in the house of God,
comp. 1 Chron. xviii. 7 ff. and 2 Chron. ix. 24,
xii. 10. — Ver. 10. Every man with fits weapon in
his hand. irpK', properly, his missile; comp.
xxxii. 5; Job xxxiii. 18. The "setting round
about the king "is to be understood as the sur-
rounding (ver. 7). — Ver. 11. And they brought
out the king's son. This account of the crowning
of Joash agrees in substance with 2 Kings xi. 12,
only that the clapping of the hands as the out-
ward expression of the people's joy is here omitted
as unessential. — Ver. 12 ff. Athaliah's Execution,
the Renewal of the Covenant, and the Solemn Pro-
cession of the King to his Palace, — all this related
essentially as in 2 Kings xi. 13-20. — Ver. 13.
And the singers with instruments of song. This
more copious description, corresponding with the
favourite manner of the Chronist. of the musical
demonstrations of the joyful multitude (comp.
1 Chron. xv. 16, xvi. 42) is wanting in 2 Kings.
— Ver. 14. Brought out; comp. the Crit. Note.
— Ver. 15. And she went to the entrance of the
horse gale. For this is in 2 Kings: "And she
went the way in which the horses entered the
king's house." The redundant ~\yy of our pas-
sage, beside N13D, which the old versions do not
express, came into the text perhaps by an unsuit-
CHAP. XXIII. 16-21.
227
able reference to Neh. iii. 28. The horse gate
there mentioned, which was a city gate, is not to
be thought of here, although Josephus here con-
fuses them. — Ver. 16. And Jehoiada made a cove-
nant between himself and between all the people.
Instead of "between himself" (iys) stands in
2 Kings: "between Jehovah," an unimportant
difference, for the priest causing the covenant to
be made represented Jehovah. That he was the
high priest in particular follows no more from this
than from ver. 8; comp. on xxiv. 11. — Ver. 17.
And all the people, went to the house of Baal. On
the conjectural site of this temple of Baal, comp.
Biihr on 2 Kings xi. 18. — Vers. 18, 19 form an
enlargement peculiar to our author of the brief
statement in 2 Kings : "And the priest appointed
officers (offices) over the house of the Lord, where-
in, again, the singers and the porters are specially
mentioned. — Whom David had distributed, had
determined to minister before God in certain
regularly succeeding divisions ; comp. 1 Chron.
xxiii. 6, and for the following, Ezra iii. 2, 10.
— And he set the porters at the gates, properly,
" over the gates " ; comp. 1 Chron. ix. 23. — That
the unclean might not enter, literally, "one un-
clean in respect of anything" ; comp. Lev. v. 2, 3;
Isa. xxxv. 8. — Ver. 20. And he took the captains
of hundreds, and the nobles (^"VISII, Jer. xiv. 3,
Ps. xvi. 3), and the rulers of the people (literally,
"those ruling among the people"; comp. Isa.
xxviii. 14). Instead of this, in 2 Kings : "the
captains of hundreds, and the life-guards, and the
runners. " In the following part also, our author
with singular constancy avoids the mention of
the runners ; for instead of: "and came by the
way of the gate of the runners to the king's
house" (2 Kings xi. 19), he puts: "and went
through the high gate," etc. This high gate
appears from xxvii. 3 (comp. also 2 Kings xv.
35) to have been a gate in the temple, not, as
probably the runners' gate, in the king's house ;
out as it might have been situated over against
the royal palace (perhaps over the bridge leading
from Moriah to Zion), its name involves neither a
t«iographical impossibility nor a contradiction of
2 Kings (comp. Keil on 2 Kings, p. 271).
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS AND
APOLOGETIC REMARKS, ON CH. XXI.-XXIII.
1. The bad seed sown by Jehoshaphat through
the unfortunate affinity with the house of Ahab
springs up only too soon, and bears corrupt fruit
to the royal house and people of Judah. With
the malignity of a fury or a demon, Athaliah
the daughter of Jezebel proceeds, during the two
reigns of her husband Joram and her son Ahaziah
that were guided by her, and during the six years
of her sole sovereignty, to gloat over the blood of
every, member of the unfortunate house of David
from which the least resistance to her idolatrous
course might be apprehended. The all too close
connection, no longer, as with Solomon and
Hiram, amounting to mere friendship, with the
Tyrian princely family, into which Judah, also
following the bad example of the house of Omri,
had thoughtlessly entered, fearfully avenges itself.
The worst Sultanism is transplanted thence into
the royal castle on Zion.1 And as the severe
1 Compare the remark of J. H. MIchaelis: "Tyrian,
Uraelitish, JewiBh history here coincide. Tyre brought
punishment inflicted by Jehu on the house of
Omri took place in Jezreel, and swept away at the
same time the Jewish king Ahaziah and his male
kinsmen in the northern kingdom (884 according
to the usual reckoning, 880 according to Hitzig ;
according to Schrader and Neteler, certainly after
850, as follows from the synchronism of the
Assyrian history ; see unuer), the cruel scourge is
not yet taken from Judah's back, but continues
to lacerate it full six years more. And to all this
is added for this kingdom the humiliating and
disgraceful circumstance that it is a woman, and
even a foreign woman, who usurps the sole sove-
reignty, and maintains it for those years by the
forcible setting aside of the male heir of the house
of David. So much the more beneficent appears
the manner in which the reform, rendered neces-
sary by this temporary degeneracy of the Jewish
royal house and state, was finally executed. No
blood-dripping Jehu, spreading terror and amaze-
ment around, no tempestuous desolating form of
the fanatical zealots in Roman or Herodian times,
proves necessary to effect the return from the
worship of Baal to that of Jehovah, and the re-
storation of the theocratic character of the com-
munity. The mild, not terrible, but venerable
form of a pious priest, closely related by family
ties to the royal house of David, accomplishes
almost without blood the necessary revolution.
The single sacrifice that is needed for this end
is the tyrannical and idolatrous stranger who has
been the origin of the evil that has broken over
the land for the last twenty years. With the
slaying, or rather execution, for nothing is said of
wild revenge or tumultuary massacre, of her and
her Baal-priest Matthan, the judgment on the
disturbers of the theocratic order seems to be
executed, and peace restored. That our author,
by his peculiar mode of elevating the Levitical
and priestly element into the factors of the revolu-
tion, places in a peculiarly clear light this emi-
nently peaceful course of the same; that he, in har-
mony, again, with his often otherwise manifested
historical tendency, represents the whole in some
measure as a revolution carried on with music and
song, as a transference, accomplished with ringing
notes and flying banners, of the whole people into
the camp of the legitimate party (comp. oh. xxiii.
13, 18), — this lends to his representation a peculiar
charm, in contrast with the more concise and
jejune description, only relating that which is of
political or military importance, in the book of
Kings. In this narrative, also, the circumstance
that the whole people of Judah and Benjamin
rises up as one man to shake off the long enough
borne and already sufficiently hated foreign yoke
by one powerful movement of its neck, stands
forth conspicuous in the light of day. It is shown
more clearly than in the parallel account of the
older history, how slightly the foreign and idola-
trous lust had struck its roots into the conscious-
ness and life of the people, and with what com-
parative rapidity and ease it could be set aside
again. A conjecture, to which we must have
hy marriage her then prevalent spirit and misfortune into
the Israelitish history. Contemporary with Joram is
Pygmalion king of Tyre, who murdered the husband of hi*
siBter Dido merely to possess himself of his treasure. Joram
likewise alter Jehoshaphat '» death (2 Chron. xxi.) murdered
all his brothers, as it appears, for no other cause (?) but to
possess himself of the treasures which their father had be-
queathed to them (?)," etc. This latter assumption, though
one-sided and exegetically unfounded (comp. on xxi. 4), ft
yet on the whole very striking.
228
II. CHRONICLES.
come on receiving exclusively the narrative of the
book of Kings, that a prominent part in the revo-
lution effected by Jehoiada must have been due
to the numerically strong Levitical element in
the population of the Jewish state, — this conjecture
is strikingly confirmed by the Chronist's narrative,
with its emphatic marking of the priestly and
Levitical character of the catastrophe, and its
almost unseemly depreciation of the share of the
runners in it (comp. especially on ch. xxiii. 20 f. ),
without being under the necessity of charging the
narrator with any bias in moulding the narrative
after his Levitical standpoint. For it would be
strange if an event such as this shrewd and bold
political stroke of the priest Jehoiada were con-
ducted in so exclusively political and military a
way, and with so little participation of the clergy,
as appears in 2 Kings.
2. In an apologetic respect, with regard to the
account of the fall of Athaliah by means of
Jehoiada, we have to refer partly to what has been
just observed, and partly to the detail of the
exposition. On the contrary, the ill-foreboding
writing of Elijah to Joram (ch. xxi. 12-15) needs
a more special elucidation in the evangelical and
apologetic interest This remarkable document,
the only definite proof of the acquaintance of our
author with the existence of the greatest and
most powerful prophet of the time of the divided
kingdom, presents to the expositor the not unim-
portant chronological difficulty, that, if actually
composed by Elijah, and addressed to Joram as
already reigning king of Judah, it necessitates
the assumption of an extension of the activity of
Elijah far into the twelve years of the reign of the
Israelitish Joram (896-884 in the usual reckoning,
857-846 in that of Schrader and Neteler), whereas,
according to 2 Kings ii., the taking up of the
prophet into heaven seems to have occurred at the
latest in the beginning of this reign, thus all
events under Jehoshaphat (+ 890 or 889 in the
usual chronology, 850 or 849 in the modern
Assyriologic chronology). Various ways have
been taken of removing this difficulty. Older
Jewish and Roman Catholic expositors (of the
latter, for example, Estius, Malvenda, Tirinus,
Calmet), and some evangelical modems (especially
Menken, and Dachsel in his Bibelw. ), make Elijah
write after his ascent into paradise, and send it
by an angel to Elisha, or a still surviving disciple
of the prophet, to forward to Joram. This over-
strained supra- naturalistic solution of the problem
is equally void of exegetical warrant ' with the
superficial purely natural assumption, that the
writer of the letter was not Elijah the Tishbite,
but another prophet of the same name (Lightfoot,
If or. Hebr. on Luke i. 17), or with the no less
arbitrary and text-defying attempt to change the
name Elijah (ch. xxi. 12) into that of Elisha
(Olerli., Saurin, Dfc:. torn. ii. p. 344). But even
the chronological proof of the possibility, that
Elijah may have survived the death of Jehosha-
phat and the beginning of the reign of the Jewish
1 And theological warrant; for as A. C.ilov. aptly says:
Non triumphnntium in caelis est B'Udire aut ad pamitentiam
revneare morlales in te>ra. Habent Afosen et prophetas; si
Vlos non audiant. negue si quit ex mortuis resurrexerit, nedum
ti quis ex exits literas perscripserit, credent (Luke xvl. 31)
Likewise J J. Rambach on our passage, who declares it
inconceivable : Deum in gratiam impii regis ejusmndi quid
fecisse, cujus nu'lum aliu'd exernplum extat. immo quod nee
necessarw/i erat. quum plures alive essent ratwnes, quibus
Deus voluntalem suam ei manifestare pnterat (Luke xvl. 27.
29). Comp. also the remarks of Keil, p. 298, against Mmken.
Joram (890 or 889-884), that he might thus have
directed the writing shortly before his departure
to the latter king as his contemporary (Seb.
Schmid, Lightf. Op. t. i. p. 85; Usher, Mai,
Burmann, etc., and recently Keil, p. 298, at least
tentatively), could only be maintained with diffi-
culty, and only by the assumption of an inaccurate
statement on the part of the author of the book
of Kings, as the position of that which is related,
2 Kings ii. Iff., of the ascension of Elijah is such
that it appears to have happened either under the
reign of Ahaziah of Israel, the predecessor of
Joram, or immediately after his death (896, or
eventually 857). There remains after all this only
the twofold possibility, that either — 1. Elijah
wrote the letter some time before his ascension,
and left it behind him to one of his disciples, with
the charge to hand it to the later King Joram of
Judah (Starke, Buddeus, Rambaeh, etc., and re-
cently Keil, as well as Heugstenberg, Oesch. ii. 2,
243), or that, 2. Elijah merely made over by word
of mouth the contents of the letter some time
before his ascension to one of his disciples, per-
haps to Elisha, with the charge to make it known
to Joram by a writing composed in his name
(Witsius, Giirtler, Hackspan, Not. philol. on 2
Chron. xxi. ; S. Schmid, De Uteris Elice ad
Joramum, Argentor. 1717; Wilisch, etc.). The
latter assumption, or that of an only ideal
authorship of Elijah in relation to the writing,
a composition of it iv vrvi6fjt.cx.T\ x.1'1 Swaps!
'nx'uu (Luke i. 17), but certainly on the ground
of an actual prediction of Elijah, has most in its
favour. It avoids the inherently improbable sup-
position, that Elijah wrote with his own hand a
letter, which he knew could only be delivered in
the course of at least five or six years after his
ascension to God (for the writing appears directed
to the king, not to the crown prince). On the
other hand, it is reconcilable with the indefinite
designation of the writing as coming from Elijah
(see on ch. xxi. 12), and excludes the suspicion of
pseudepigraphic fiction after the manner of so
many apocryphal writings of later times, bearing
the names of celebrated sages or men of God.' It
recognises the genuine prophetic content ajd
character of the writing ; for it discerns actual
prediction, true action of prophetic foresight in it,
without overlooking the difference between the
author of this prophetic kernel, and the later
composer or redactor. Comp. on the possibility
or even probability of a divine disclosure being
made to Elijah of the future destiny of Joram, the
husband of the daughter of Jezebel, as well as of
a charge to Elisha to announce afterwards the
contents of such a revelation to Joram, on the one
hand, Hengstenberg as quoted : " Elijah had
(1 Kings xix. ) foreseen the elevation of Jehu to
the throne of Israel, and the extirpation of the
family of Ahab by him ; also the accession of
1 The Apocrypha of Jewish-Hclletiistic literature heaving
the name of Elijah belong to a pretty late period, as the
Apocalypsis Elite, from which, according to Origen and the
Church-fal hers, the quotation in 1 Cor- ii. 9 is to be taken;
comp. Fabr. fori pseudepigr.V T. vol. i. p. 1072. Concern-
ing the Ehas of the Jewi-h- Christian fables or legends,
comp the itporis of F.piphanius. Dorotheus of Tyre, Isidore
of Seville, and in theTalmud. There are still Mahommedan
or Chiis'ian (at least half-Christian) nations in the East, for
example in the Caucasus, who worship in Elias (on account
of 1 Kings xvil. 1 f.) a kind of ron-god or Jupiter plvvius
(see Ausland, 1872, No. 29. p. 679). What a contrast be-
tween this Elijah of the fable and that of Old Testament
history, as welt, according to 1 and 2 Kings, as our docu-
ments preserved In Chronicles!
CHAP. XXIV.
229
Hazael, and the heavy misfortune brought by him
on the kingdom of Israel. If the future was in
this respect disclosed to him, the greatest of all
the prophets of the Old Testament, why might
not this also have been revealed to him, that
Jorum, who had already before his decease con-
nected himself with the abominable Athaliah,
will, by his grievous sins, bring upon himself
the judgment of the Lord ? " on the other hand,
Keil, p. 299 : "To whom God revealed the eleva-
tion of Jehu to the throne of Israel, the accession
of Hazael, etc., events which took place after the
death of Joram of Judah, to whom God already,
under Ahab, committed the anointing of Jehu to
be king of Israel (1 Kings xix. 16), which, fourteen
years after the death of Ahab, Elisha performed
by a scholar of the prophet's (2 Kings ix. 1 ff.) — to
him the Lord might also in the second year of
Ahaziii.li of Israel, when he announced to this
king his death, about seven years before Jehosha-
phat's death, reveal the wickedness of his successor
Joram, and commit the announcement of the
divine punishment. But if Elijah made over the
anointing as well of Hazael as of Jehu to his
servant Elisha, why might he not also have en-
trusted to him the handing; of the written predic-
tion of woe to Joram ? " We find this statement
so far completely suitable and convincing, but
cannot agree with the two learned men from
whom it proceeds in thi«, that they hold Elijah
to be the writer (composer) of the letter in its
extant form. We find it much more satisfactory
for the establishment of the essential authenticity
of the document, if the mediate origin of it from
Elijah (the powerful ' ' prophet of deed, " who was
no man of the fen, and of whose action as a
writer nothing is said) is maintained. With this
also agree the generally acknowledged contents
and tone of the writing, quite irrespective of the
personal position of the prophet, which, how-
ever, is not on this account to be held (with
Berth, and other recent critics) to be an idealiz-
ing composition of a later historian ; for in that
case it would be different only in degree (as a
pseudepigraphon within the canon) from the pro-
ducts of the post-canonical literature, above which
it seems exalted by its genuine prophetic con-
tents.
h. Joash : the Prophet Zechariah Son of Jehoiada. — Ch. xxiv.
et. Reign of Joash under the Guidance of Jehoiada: Repair of the Temple: vera. 1-14.
Ch. xxiv. 1. Joash was seven years old when he became king ; and he reigned forty
2 years in Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba. And
Joash did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of
3 Jehoiada the priest. And Jehoiada chose for him two wives ; and he begat
eons and daughters.
4 And it came to pass after this that it was in the heart of Joash to renew
5 the house of the Lord. And he gathered the priests and the Levites, and
said to them, Go out into the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money
to repair the house of your God from year to year, and hasten ye the matter :
6 but the Levites hastened it not. And the king called for Jehoiada the chief,
and said unto him, Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out
of Judah and Jerusalem the tax of Moses the servant of the Lord, and of the
7 congregation of Israel, for the tent of witness 1 For Athaliah the wicked
doer [and] her sons ' have broken up the house of God, and bestowed all the
8 consecrated things of the house of the Lord upon Baalim. And the king
commanded, and they made a chest, and set it without at the gate of the
9 house of the Lord. And they proclaimed in Judah and Jerusalem, to bring
in to the Lord the tax of Moses the servant of God upon Israel in the wil-
10 derness. And all the princes and all the people were glad, and they brought
11 and cast into the chest, till it was full. And at the time when the chest was
brought to the survey of the king by the Levites, and when they saw that
there was much money, then went the king's scribe and the officer of the
head priest and emptied the chest, and took it, and carried it to its place
12 again : thus they did day by day, and gathered money in abundance. And
the king and Jehoiada gave it to the work-master of the service of the house
of the Lord, and they hired masons and carpenters to renew the house of the
Lord, and also smiths in iron and brass to repair the house of the Lord.
13 And the workmen wrought, and furtherance was given to the work by their
14 hand : and they set the house of God in its form, and strengthened it. And
when they had finished, they brought before the king and Jehoiada the rest
of the money, and they made of it vessels for the house of the Lord, vessels
for ministering and offering, and cups, and vessels of gold and silver : and
they offered burnt-offerings in the house of the Lord continually all the days
of Jehoiada.
230 II. CHRONICLES.
$. Death of Jehoiada: Stoning of his Son, the Prophet Zechariah:
vers. 15-22.
15 And Jehoiada was old and full of days, and he died ; he was a hundred
16 and thirty years old when he died. And they buried him in the city of
David with the kings ; for he had done good in Israel, and for God and His
17 house. And after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and
18 bowed down before the king : then the king hearkened unto them. And
they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served the Asherim
and the idols : and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their
19 trespass. And he sent prophets among them, to bring them back to the
20 Lord ; and they testified against them, and they did not give ear. And the
Spirit of God clothed Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest2 ; and he stood up
before the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye
the commandments of the Lord, and do not prosper 1 for ye have forsaken
21 the Lord, and He has forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and
stoned him by command of the king in the court of the house of the Lord.
22 And Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada had done
to him, and slew his son : and when he died, he said, The Lord shall see and
require.
y. Distress of Joash by the Syrians, and his End: vers. 23-27
23 And it came to pass in the course of a year, that the host of Syria came
up against him ; and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all
the princes of the people out of the people,3 and sent all the spoil of them
24 unto the king to Damascus.4 For the host of Syria came with few men ; and
the Lord gave into their hand a very great host, because they had forsaken
the Lord God of their fathers : and they executed judgments upon Joash.
25 And when they went from him, for they left him with many wounds, his
servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons5 of Jehoiada the
priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died : and they buried him in the
26 city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings. And
these were the conspirators against him : Zabad son of Shimath the Am-
27 monitess, and Jehozabad son of Shimrith the Moabitess. And his sons, and
the greatness6 of the burden upon him, and the building of the house of God,
behold, they are written in the commentary of the book of the Kings : and
Amaziah his son reigned in his stead.
i. Amaziah. — Ch. xxv.
«. Duration of his Reign, and its Spirit: vers. 1-4,
Ch. XXV. 1. Amaziah became king when twenty and five years old ; and he reigned
twenty and nine years in Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Jehoaddan
2 of Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, but
3 not with undivided heart. And it came to pass, when the kingdom was
established to him, that he slew his servants who smote the king his father.
4 But he put not their sons to death, but as it is written in the law in the book
of Moses, as the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the
sons, nor shall the sons die for the fathers ; but every one shall die for his
own sin.
/3. The Conquest of the Edomites in the Valley of Salt: vers. 5-13.
5 And Amaziah gathered Judah, and arranged them by father-houses, by
captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, for all Judah and Benjamin :
and he mustered them from twenty years old and upwards, and found them
three hundred thousand choice men, going out to war, holding spear and
CHAP. XXV. 231
6 shield. And he hired out of Israel a hundred thousand mighty men of valour
7 for a hundred talents of silver. And a man of God came to him, raying, 0
king, let not the army of Israel go with thee ; for the Lord is not with
8 Israel, with all the sons of Ephraim. But go thou ; do, be strong for the
battle; [otherwise7] God shall make thee fall before the enemy; for with
9 God is power to help and to cast down. And Amaziah said to the man of
God, But what shall we do for the hundred8 talents which I have given to
the host of Israel ? And the man of God said, It rests with the Lord to give
10 thee much more than this. And Amaziah separated them, to wit, the host
that was come to him from Ephraim, to go to their place : and their anger
was greatly kindled against Judah, and they returned to their place in hot
11 anger. And Amaziah took courage, and led forth his people, and went to
12 the valley of Salt, and smote of the sons of Seir ten thousand. And the
sons of Judah took ten thousand alive, and brought them to the top of
the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, and all of them
13 were broken in pieces. And the men of the host which Amaziah sent
back from going with him to battle, fell upon the cities of Judah, from
Samaria even to Beth-horon, and smote of them three thousand, and took
much spoil.
y. Amaziah's Idolatry, War with Joash of Israel, and End: vers. 14-28.
14 And it came to pass, after Amaziah was come from smiting the Edomites,
that he brought the gods of the sons of Seir, and set them up for him as gods,
15 and bowed down before them, and burnt incense to them. And the anger of
the Lord was kindled against Amaziah, and He sent unto him a prophet,
who said to him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, who did
16 not deliver their own people out of thy hand 1 And it came to pass as he
talked with him, that he said unto him, Have we made thee councillor to the
king ] Forbear ; why should they smite thee t And the prophet forbare,
and said, I know that God hath resolved to destroy thee, because thou hast
17 done this, and hast not hearkened to my counsel. And Amaziah king of
Judah took counsel, and sent to Joash son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu king of
18 Israel, saying, Come,' let us look one another in the face. And Joash king
of Israel sent to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, The thorn that was in
Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to
my son to wife ; and a beast of the field that was in Lebanon passed by and
19 trampled on the thorn. Thou sayest, Lo, thou hast smitten Edom ; and thy
heart hath lifted thee up to boast : now abide at home ; why provokest thou
evil, that thou mayest fall, and Judah with thee 1
20 And Amaziah hearkened not ; for it was of God that they might be given
21 up, because they sought after the gods of Edom. And Joash king of Israel
went up, and they looked one another in the face, he and Amaziah king of
22 Judah, at Beth-shemesh, which is of Judah. And Judah was smitten before
23 Israel ; and they fled every man to his tent. And Joash king of Israel took
Amaziah king of Judah, son of Joash, son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and
brought him to Jerusalem, and brake clown the wall of Jerusalem from the
24 gate of Ephraim to the corner gate,10 four hundred cubits. And all the gold
and the silver, and all the vessels that were found in the house of God with
Obed-edom, and the treasures of the king's house, and the hostages ; and he
25 returned to Samaria. And Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah lived after
26 the death of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel fifteen years. And the
rest of the acts of Amaziah, first and last, behold, are they not written in the
27 book of the kings of Judah and Israel? And from the time that Amaziah
turned away from the Lord, they made a conspiracy against him in Jeru-
salem : and he fled to Lachish: and they sent after him to Lachish and there
28 put him to death. And they brought him upon horses, and buried him with
his fathers in the city of Judah.11
M2 II. CHRONICLES.
k. Uzziah. — Ch. XXVI
a.. His early Theocratic Inclination and Prosperous Reign : vers. 1-15.
Chap. xxvi. 1. And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, when sixteen years old,
2 and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. He built Eloth, and re-
3 stored it to Judah, after the king had slept with his fathers. Sixteen years
old was Uzziah when he became king ; and he reigned fifty and two years in
i Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Jechiliah 12 of Jerusalem. And he
did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that
5 Amaziah his father had done. And he continued to seek God in the days of
Zechariah, who understood the visions 13 of God : and so long as he sought
the Lord, God made him prosper.
6 And he went out and fought with the Philistines, and brake down the
wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built
7 cities about Ashdod and among the Philistines. And God helped him against
the Philistines, and against the Arabs that dwelt in Gur-baal, 14 and against
8 the Meunites. And the Ammonites 15 gave gifts to Uzziah : and his name
9 went even to Egypt ; for he became very mighty. And Uzziah built towers
in Jerusalem, at the corner gate and at the valley-gate, and at the corner, and
10 fortified them. And he built towers in the wilderness, and dug many wells ;
for he had much cattle in the lowland and in the plain ; husbandmen and
vine-dressers in the mountains and in Carmel ; for he was a lover of land.
11 And Uzziah had a host of fighting men, that went out to war in troops, by
the number of theii muster at the hand of Jeuel 16 the scribe, and Maaseiah
12 the officer, at the hand of Hananiah, one of the captains of the king. The
whole number of the chiefs of the fathers for the mighty men of valour
13 was two thousand and six hundred. And at their hand was an army of three
hundred thousand and seven thousand and five hundred fighting men in full
14 strength, to help the king against the foe. And Uzziah prepared for them,
for the whole army, shields and spears, and helmets and coats of mail, and
15 bows and sling-stones. And at Jerusalem he made engines, the invention of
craftsmen, to be on the towers and battlements, to shoot arrows and great
stones : and his name went forth far abroad ; for he was marvellously helped
till he was strong.
/3. His Boasting, and Divine Chastisement hy Leprosy: his End: vers. 16-23.
16 And when he became strong, his heart was lifted up to do corruptly, and
he transgressed against the Lord his God ; and he went into the temple of
17 the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest
went in after him, and with him eighty priests of the Lord, men of valour.
18 And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It pertaineth not
unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, the sons
of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense : go out of the sanctuary ; for
thou hast transgressed ; and it shall not be for thine honour from the Lord
19 God. And Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense :
and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy burst forth on his fore-
head before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense-
20 altar. And Azariah the head priest and all the priests looked upon him, and,
behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they drove him out thence ; and
21 even he himself hasted to go out, because the Lord had smitten him. And
Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a sick-
house as a leper ; for he was cut off from the house of the Lord : and Jotham
his son was over the king's house, judging the people of the land.
22 And the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, Isaiah son of Amos the
23 prophet wrote. And Uzziah slept with his fathers ; and they buried him with
his fathers in the burial field of the kings ; for they said, He is a leper : and
Jotham his son reigned in his stead. t
JHAP. XXVII , XXVIII. 233
I. JOTHAM. — CH. XXVII.
CHAP, xxvii. 1. Jotham was twenty and five years old when he became king ; and
he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Jerushah
2 daughter of Zadok. And he did that which was right in the eyes of the
Lord, according to all that his father Uzziah did ; only he entered not into
3 the temple of the Lord : and the people did yet corruptly. He built the
high gate of the house of the Lord ; and on the wall of Ophol he built
4 much. And he built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he
5 built castles and towers. And he fought with the king of the sons of Amnion,
and prevailed over them : and the sons of Amnion gave him in that year a
hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand cors of wheat, and ten thousand
of barley : this the sons of Ammon paid him also in the second and third
6 year. And Jotham strengthened himself ; for he established his ways before
the Lord his God.
7 And the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars and his ways, lo,
8 they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. He was
twenty and five years old when he became king ; and he reigned sixteen years
9 in Jerusalem. And Jotham slept with his fathers ; and they buried him in
the city of David : and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead.
m. Ahaz : The Prophet Oded. — Ch. xxviii.
a. Idolatry of Ahaz : his Defeat by the Syrians and Ephraimites : vers. 1—8.
CHAP, xxviii. 1. Ahaz was twenty17 years old when he became king; and he
reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem : and he did not that which was right in
2 the eyes of the Lord, like David his father. And he walked in the ways of
3 the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim. And he
burnt incense in the valley of Ben-hinnom, and burnt his sons in the fire,
after the abominations of the nations, whom the Lord had cast out before
4 the sons of Israel. And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places,
5 and on the hills, and under every green tree. And the Lord his God gave
him into the hand of the king of Syria ; and they smote him, and took from
him a great many captives, and brought them to Damascus : 1S and he was also
given into the hand of the king of Israel, and he inflicted on him a great
6 blow. And Pekah son of Remaliah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty
thousand in one day, all sons of valour, because they had forsaken the Lord
7 God of their fathers. And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah
the king's son, and Azrikam, the governor of the house, and Elkanah the
3 vicegerent of the king. And the sons of Israel took captive of their brethren
two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and stripped them of great
spoil, and brought the spoil to Samaria.
(8. Oded the Prophet procures the Release of the Captives : vers. 9-15.
9 And a prophet of the Lord was there, of the name of Oded; and he
went out before the host that came to Samaria, and said unto them, Behold,
in the wrath of the Lord God of your fathers against Judah He hath given
them into your hand ; and ye slew of them with a rage that reacheth unto
10 heaven. And now ye purpose to subject the sons of Judah and Jerusalem
for bondsmen and bondsmaids to you : are there not even with you yourselves
11 trespasses against the Lord your God? And now hear me, and release the
captives which ye have taken of your brethren ; for the hot anger of the Lord
12 is upon you. Then arose men of the chiefs of the sons of Ephraim, Azariah
son of Johanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, and Hezekiah son of Shallum,
13 and Amasa son of Hadlai, against those who came from the war, And said
unto them, Ye shall not bring the captives hither ; for with the trespass of
234 II. CHRONICLES.
the Lord upon us ye intend to add to our sins and to our trespass : for great
14 is our trespass, and there is hot anger against Israel. And the armed host
left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the congregation.
15 Then there rose up the men who were expressed by name, and took the
captives, and clothed all that were naked of them from the spoil, and gave
them clothes, and shoes, and food, and drink, and anointed them, and carried
them on asses, all the weary, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palms,
beside their brethren : and they returned to Samaria. %
y. Further Visitations of Ahaz on account of his Idolatry: his End: vers. 16-27.
16 At that time King Ahaz sent unto the kings of Assyria to help him.
17, 18 And again the Edomites came and smote Judah, and took captives. And the
Philistines invaded the cities of the lowland and of the south of Judah, and
took Beth-shemesh, and Ajalon, and Gederoth, and Socho with her daughters,
and Timnah with her daughters, and Gimzo with her daughters : and they
19 dwelt there. For the Lord humbled Judah on account of Ahaz king of
Israel, because he had revolted in Judah, and transgressed greatly against the
20 Lord. And Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came against him, and distressed
21 him, and strengthened him not. For Ahaz had plundered the house of the
Lord, and the house of the king and the princes, and given it to the king of
22 Assyria ; and it was not a help to him. And in the time of his distress he
23 transgressed yet more against the Lord, this king Ahaz. And sacrificed to
the gods of Damascus that smote him, and said, Because the gods of the kings
of Syria, they help them, I will sacrifice to them, that they may help me : and
24 they were the downfall of him and of all Israel. And Ahaz gathered the
vessels of the house of God, and cut up the vessels of the house of God, and
shut the doors of the house of the Lord ; and he made him altars in every
25 corner of Jerusalem. And in every single city of Judah he made high
places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God
of his fathers.
26 And the rest of his acts and all his ways, first and last, behold, they are
27 written in the book of the kings of Judali and Israel. And Ahaz slept with
his fathers, and they buried him in the city in Jerusalem : for they brought
him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel : and Hezekiah his son
reigned in his stead.
1 The absent copula before rPJ3 is supplied in the Sept., Vulg., and Luth., and rightly.
* The Sept. and Vulg. take JH^H rather as the accus. belonging to Zechariah (tav Upia, sacerdotem).
• The Vulg. and Syr. do not translate DJJD; the Sept. (» rS x«£) appears to have read DJJ3.
* Hebr. p^D"n, as always iu Chronicles; comp. 1 Chron. xviii. 5.
> For JTPliT '"Ji the Sept. and Vulg. probably read aright , )3. The plur. seems a slip of the pen.
• So according to the Kethib 3"lV On the Keri 3T>, "be multiplied" (the sentence upon him), see Exeg. ExpL
' Before S|pl{5>;)< is tw\ to be supplied, with almost all recent expositors. See Exeg. Expl.
•For niND? we should certainly read, with the Keri (and a considerable number of mss.) : DND^.
8 ?p, Kahili; the Perils XYj>. Comp. Exeg. Expl.
10 rOiSH "IJ}E>, "gate of turning," is undoubtedly an error for 1133!} 'E>, "corner gate"; comp. xxvi 9, and
especially the parallel 2 Kings xiv. 13.
11 For !TR!V "l'JQ <he old versions (Sept., Vulg., Syr.) have: "in the city of David."
'* The Keri amends Hv,3S after 2 Kings xv. 2, into !T93\ which is scarcely light.
" Instead of niX"13 shouM rather be read, with the Sept. (i, <{ipv xupUv), Syr., Targ. Kaschi, Krmvlii, as4 son*
Hebrew mss. of de Rossi : JILT'S*
M Sept. : M ris «'t/m» (perhaps thinking of Petra, the capital of Edom).
** Sept. ; el Mttrauoi, by mistake (from .the preceding roue M<vo/«v).
CHAP. XXIV. 1-15.
23f
» So the Kethib (PNIJP) ; the Keri has $WJP (as Ezra Till. 13).
" The Sept., Syr., and Arab, have twenty-five, a reading which Houoigant, Dathe, Ewald, Berth., and most modern!
prefer. Camp, also J. A Benge.1, in the -sss.igo quoted, Introd. § 6, Eem. (p. 28).
« Properly " Damascus"; comp. 1 C.lron. xvlll. 6, 6; 2 Chron. xvL 2, xxiv. 23.
EXEQETICAL.
We take together the reports, contained in eh.
xxiv.-xxviii., of the fire reigns from Joash to
Ahaz, partly on ajcount of their general simi-
larity, partly because in 2 Kings xii., xiv.-x.vi.,
we have pretty full and nearly literal parallels to
them.
1. Eeign of Joash under the Guidance of
Jehoiada : Repair of the Temjtle : ch. xxiv
1-14. — The paifillel account in 2 Kings xii
1-17 is more detailed in the statement of several
circumstances, especially with regard to the
repair of the temple, but yet receives many im-
portant supplements from the present narrative,
which is derived from the same sources, but
constructed on different views and principles. —
Ver. 2. All the days of Jehoiada the priest. Some-
what different in 2 Kings : " during all his days,
while Jehoiada instructed him." — Ver. 3. And
Jehoiada chose for him two wives. i?"6<t2>s1 here
obviously expresses this sense, not as in xiii. 21 :
" took to himself" ; for it refers to this, that the
young king soon married and begat an heir to the
throne. — Vers. 4-14. The Repair of the Temple ;
comp. Bahr's exposition of 2 Kings xii. 5-17. —
To renew the house of the Lord; comp. xv. 8, and
the synonym "to repair" (properly, "strengthen,
make strong again ) in ver. 5 ; 2 Kings xii. 6.
— And hasten ye the matter, properly, " with
respect to the matter." On the relation of the
following statement, according to which the
Levites hastened not, to the apparently different
narrative in 2 Kings, comp. Bahr. — Ver. 6. And
the king called for Jehoiada tlie chief, namely,
of the priesthood, by which, however, is not
necessarily meant the high priest ; the phrase
BWIfl Ji"l3, "head-priest, supreme priest, ' may
(as, for example, above xix. 11 of Amariah, or
beneath xxvi. 20 of Azariah, under King Uzziah)
denote the legal high priest, but has not neces-
sarily this meaning; comp. on xxiii. 8. — Why
hast thou not required of the Levites to bring
in, literally, "asked cf the Levites, " etc. (comp.
Job v. 8 ; Ps. cxlii. 3)? The "tax" or assess-
ment of Moses QlNB'D, as ver. 9; comp. Ezek. xx.
40) is that of the sanctuary (heave-offering) im-
posed, Ex. xxx. 12-16, xxxviii. 25, by Moses, and
willingly paid by the community of Israel, of half
a shekel a head. — Ver. 7. For Athaliah . . .
(and) her sons. By these "sons " of Athaliah are
scarcely meant the priests of Baal (Jerome) or
certain bastard sons of the queen (Ewald, Oesch.
iii. 1, . 290), but probably Ahaziah with his
brothers and brothers' sons (comp. xxi. 17, xxii.
3 f.), that might have shown their zeal for
idolatry at a very early age (comp. Berth., also
Hitz. Oesch. p. 203). — Broken up the house of
God; }»-iej as I Chron. xiii. 11 ; Job xxx. 14 ;
• "T
Eccles. x. 8. — All the consecrated things of the
house of the Lord; all the gold amd silver vessels,
weapons, etc., preserved there as gifts. Of such
profanation of the temple treasures by the idola-
trous sons of Athaliah, moreover, the Chronist
only reports, who here supplements the statements
of 2 Kings.— Ver. 10. Cast into the chest till it
was fun n^i> iy, as xxi. 1 (comp. also
n|?! 1JJ, 2 Kings xiii. 17, 19) ; literally, "even
to making full," whereby may be meant either
the fulness of the number of givers, or even the
fulness of the chest that received the gifts. The
latter sense, which the Sept and Vulg. express,
commends, itself most, as ver. 11 shows, and
should not therefore have been questioned by
Berth., Kamph., etc.— Ver. 11. Ami at the time,
etc., literally, "and it came to pass at the time
when one brought the chest to the survey of the
king, " that is, for the royal surveillance or keep-
ing (mpS, as in xxiii. 18).— And when tliey saw
that there was much money, properly, "and on
their seeing," etc. — Thus they did day by day,
literally, " to day by day " (comp. 1 Chron. xii.
22), that is, every day when it was necessary,
every time that the chest was full.— Ver. 12.
And the king . . . gave it to the work-master of
the service of the iouse of the Lord. jyihlf
- -:
nin,|"n',3 here, not "service in the house of the
Lord," as 1 Chron. xxiii. 24, but labour, repair
of the house of the Lord.— And they hired,
literally, "and they were hiring," continually
from day to day ; comp. Matt. xx. 1 ff.
" Masons and carpenters " ; so in 1 Chron. xxii.
14 ; comp. Ezra iii. 7.— Ver. 13. And further-
ance was given to the work by their hand, liter-
ally, "there went up (was laid, Jer. viii. 22)
binding on the work"; on fDVIK, "binding,
healing," comp. Neh. iv. 1 ; Jer. xxx. 17. — And
they set the house of God in its form; literally,
" on its measure " (Ex. xxx. 32), that is, in the
original proportions. — Ver. 14. And they made
of it vessels, literally, "made it vessels" (into
vessels); comp. Ezra i. 7. — Vessels for minister-
ing and offering, altar vessels (comp. Num. iv.
12), from which cups (Ex. xxv. 29) and other
gold and silver vessels are there distinguished. —
And they offered burnt-offerings . . . all the days
of Jehoiada : as long as he had the direction of
the temple worship, it was conducted in a regular
and legal way ; that it had quite ceased after
Jehoiada's death, neither the present phrase nor
the subsequent narrative affirms.
2. Death of Jehoiada : Stoning of his Son :
the Prophet Zechariah : vers. 1 5-22. There is
no parallel to this section in 2 Kings xii. ; but it
is of no less importance for the pragmatic under-
standing of that which is related underneath, ver.
23 ff., concerning the last events in the life of
Joash. — And Jehoiada was old and full of days.
WO* V2&, as otherwise only of the patriarchs
Abraham and Isaac, of David (1 Chron. xxiv. 1 ;
comp. xxix. 28), and of Job (xiii. 17), so in
general is it used only of five men of God in the
Old Testament ; comp. Achelis, Das Zeitalter der
Patriarchen, a contribution to the understanding
23d
II. CHRONICLES.
of Scripture (Barm. 1871), p. 46. From the
following statement of his age as 130 years at
his death, it follows that he must have been
about 100 years old when he helped his nephew
by a successful revolution to the throne (877 B.C.
by the common chronology) ; for the repair of the
temple carried on by Joash and him (which he
survived for a time, according to ver. 14 of our
chapter), fell, according to 2 Kings xii. 7, in the
twenty-third year of that king. — Ver. 16. And
they buried him . . . with the kings. With this
honourable distinction bestowed upon him at
his death, the directly following record of the
slaughter of his like-minded sou stands in the
same contrast as that presented by Christ, Matt,
xxiii. 29 ff., over against the Pharisees. — Ver. 17.
Bowed down before the king, earnestly entreating
for what 1 The following words show that it was
for permission to worship strange gods along with
the Lord. That Joash himself forthwith took
part in this worship of idols is not affirmed, but
that he bore the full responsibility of it, and after-
wards took a direct part in the impiety, is plain
from ver. 21 f. ; comp. ver. 25. — Ver. 18. Served
the Asherim, etc. ; comp. on ch. xiv. 2. For the
flame of wrath (P|Vp) which this enkindled,
comp. xix. 2, 10, xxix. 8.— Ver. 19. Testified
against them, by way of warning, pointing to the
inevitable consequences of their apostasy ; comp.
2 Kings xvii. 13 ; Ps. 1. 7 ; Neh. ix. 26, 29.
Was Joel also among these prophetic monitors ?
As we may conjecture from his book that his
age nearly coincided with the reign of Joash, it is
not improbable ; comp. Wiinsche, Die Weissagung
des Proph, Joel, Introd. p. 13 ff. ; also Keil, Introd.
to the 0. T. p. 322 f.— Ver. 20. And the Spirit
of God clotlied Zechariah son of Jehoiada the
priest. On {jojj, "clothe," comp. 1 Chron. xii.
18. The identity with the Zechariah mentioned
by Christ, Matt, xxiii. 35, Luke xi. 51, as slain
between the temple and the altar, who is called
in the former passage "the son of Barachias," is
to be assumed the more certainly, as — 1. The place
of his death quite agrees there and here (the
4v<rtKirTrif,i» is the altar of burnt-offering, which
stood in the court ; comp. ver. 21) ; 2. An
allusion is made in the speech of Christ to our
passage before mentioning the martyrdom of
Zechariah ; see above on ver. 16 ; and 3. The
Barachias named in Matt, xxiii. 35 as the father
of Zechariah may have been the son of Jehoiada,
and Zechariah his grandson, which is highly pro-
bable, from the great age to which Jehoiada
attained. — Stood up before the people, properly,
"above the people" (^ ^, as in xiii. 4); the
inner court, from which he spoke, and where he
was afterwards slain, was higher than the outer,
where the people stood. — And do not prosper, or :
and will be unfortunate, will have no success.
The two things are, in a theocratico-prophetical
point of view, inseparably connected : the forsak-
ing of the Lord (comp. xii. 5, xv. 2, etc.), and
becoming unfortunate ; comp. xxvi. 5 (Uzziah).
Ver. 21. And they conspired against him; comp.
ver. 25 ;■ 1 Kings xv. 27, and also ch. xxiii. 13.
The true witness of God is slain by stoning, the
very penalty which is in the law (Lev. xx. 2,
xxiv. 23) imposed on idolaters, to which there-
fore hii murderers were doomed. — Ver. 22. And
Joash . . . remembered not the kindness; IDfl,
as in Mic. vi. 8. Joash appears here designated
as the murderer of the son (or grandson) of
Jehoiada, certainly not for mere silent connivance
at the wicked deed, bat for positive and direct
participation in it; comp. ver. 21.— Tlie Lord
shall see and require, or " will see (comp. Ps.
lxxxiv. 10) and require '' (EHI, here " seek
revenge, punish;" comp. Ps. ix. 13 ; 1 Sam. xx.
16).
3. Distress of Joash by the Syrians, and his
End : vers. 23-27. Here again 2 Kings xii.
18-22 affords a parallel, where that which relates
to the invasion of the Syrians is narrated more
particularly, and their king, Hazael (Haza-ilu of
the Assyrian inscriptions), is named as executor of
this judgment on Joash. — And it came to pass in
the course of a year, "in the circuit of a year,"
the year beginning with the death of the prophet
Zechariah. — That the host of Syria, as in ver. 24.
— And destroyed all tlie princes of the people out
of the people, out of the mass of the people (comp.
Ps. lxxxix. 20), so that these were spared, but
their chiefs, who were the authors of the religious
and moral evil (ver. 17 f.), were overtaken by the
doom of extermination. On the variants in the
old versions with respect to " out of the people,"
see Crit. Note. — With few men, literally, "with
smallness of men" ; comp. Job viii. 7. — And they
executed judgments upon Joash. O'DSB* tW)),
as in Ex. xii. 12; Num. xxxiii. 4; Ezek. v. 10, 15;
elsewhere with 2, here with ]-|K (comp. ntfJJ
- " T T
ns 3to, 1 Sam. xxiv. 19). The judgment upon
Joash refers especially to the mortal wound which
he received. — Ver. 25. For they left him with
many wounds. D'^flD, less suitably translated
" diseases " by Luther, occurs only here ; but
comp. the similar Qi^nri, xxi. 19. With re-
spect to the somewhat surprising " sons of
Jehoiada " (instead of son), see Crit. Note. — And
slew him on his bed ; narrated more particularly
2 Kings xii. 21. The burial was not in the tombs
of the kings, 'but in another place, as in the case
of Joram ; see xxi. 20.— Ver. 26. On the names
of the conspirators, of which one is different in
2 Kings xii. (Jozachar for Zabad), see Bahr on
this passage.— Ver. 27. And his sons, and the
greatness of the burden upon him, the greatness
of the treasure which he had to send as tribute
to Hazael in Syria; comp. 2 Kings xii. 19. So
it is perhaps to be explained (with Then, and
Kamph.) on the basis of the Kethib kwqt\ 21)
Y?V- Possible also is the interpretation adopted
by Cleric, Keil, and others: "and the multitude
of prophetic oracles concerning him " (comp. ver.
19), though in this case the singular KtJ^n is
somewhat strange. On the contrary, the refer-
ence, attempted by the Vulg., Luther, and others,
of the N^DH 21 to the temple tribute (vers. 6, 9)
imposed by Joash would require a change into
riN{5>D, and the v^J) would not suit this view
(for which wo should rather expect J>mB" by)-
The Keri 3T> gives rise to the sense: "and with
CHAP. XXV. 1-13.
237
regard to his sons the oracle (that of the dying
Zechariah, ver. 226) multiplied itself in them,"
which is obviously much too obscure, and could
scarcely be intended by the Masoretes themselves.
The Sept. alters the text quite arbitrarily, *«;
rfirii^hv xbrS oi *im (n$Dn for Nfet3!"l), and
so the Syriac. — Behold, they are written in the
commentary of the book of Kings, the elaboration
of this book ; comp. on xiii. 12, and Introd.
§ 5, 'i.
4. Amaziah: a. Duration of -&> Reign, and its
Spirit: ch. xxv. 1-4; comp. the essentially paradel
verses, 2 Kings xiv. 1-6. — Ver. 2. And he did . . .
hit not with undivided heart. For this is in
2 Kings: "yet not like David his father, he did
according to all that his father Joash did. " This
more particular statement our author avoided,
perhaps, on account of the less favourable light in
which he had exhibited Joash. The following
also: "only the high places were not removed, "
etc., he omits; perhaps he intended sufficiently
to indicate this partial continuance of idolatry by
his "not with undivided heart" (comp. xvi. 9).
— Ver. 4. Put not their sons to death, according
to the law, Deut. xxiv. 16 ; comp. Biihr on
2 Kings xiv. 6.
5. Continuation : 6. The Conquest of the
Edomites in the Valley of Salt : vers. 5-13.
Again a section peculiar to the Chronist, for which
nothing is found in 2 Kings xiv. 7 but the brief
notice that Amaziah smote the Edomites in the
valley of Salt, took their city Sela, and gave it
the name Joktheel. — And he mustered them
(comp. Num. i. 3) and found them 300,000 choice
men ; thus almost a million less than the force of
Judah and Benjamin under Jehoshaphat, ch. xvii. ,
and, if the numbers there are to be considered
incorrect, even much less than the sum total of
the troops of the south kingdom given in xiv. 7
for the time of Asa. But it is obvious that the
number of troops must be shown to be much
diminished by defeats sustained during the last
reigns and other calamities, and therefore in need of
being strengthened by foreign mercenary soldiers,
as the following verse clearly proves. — Going out
to war (comp. 1 Chron. v. 18), holding spear and
shield; comp. 1 Chron. xiii. 9; Jer. xlvi. 9. — Ver.
7. With all the sons of Ephraim. This is a more
definite addition to " Israel" (comp. Isa. xvii. 3,
xxviii. 1) that appears not unnecessary, because the
author often designates the kingdom or people of
Judah also as Israel (comp. on xii. 1). — Ver. 8.
But go thou alone, do, or "execute it"; comp.
1 Chron. xxii. 16 ; Ezra x. 4. — Be strong for the
battle, (otherwise) Got* shall make thee fall before
the enemy. The seuoe is obvious ; " be strong,
then will God not let thee fall." Sefore T^BO'
is to be supplied $), with Ew., Berth., Keil,
Kamph. , etc. ; for the Qx 13 can neither be taken
(with Cleric. ) = sin minus, nor (with Seb. Schmidt,
Eamb., etc. ) = alioquin. That the text certainly
needs emendation is manifest from the arbitrary
and diverse interpretations presented by the old
translators ; for example, the Sept. Iti £«» vimxifiy;
K*rii%vm in tovtois ; Vulg. quod si vultis in robore
exercitua bella consistere; Luther, "For so thou
comest as to show a boldness in fight, God will
let thee fall before thy enemies. " — For with God
it power to help and to cast down, literally "pre-
sent is might in God," etc. For the sentence
comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 12 ; 2 Chron. xx. 6; also the
well-known verse of G. Neumark, "He is the
only wonder-man, who now lift up, now cast down
can." — Ver. 9. What shall we do for the 100
talents ? In the mouth of a prudent ruler, who
counts the cost in all his steps, certainly a very
pardonable question, even as the answer given to
it is highly worthy of a trustful man of God.
11*1:1, "troop," that is, a body of mercenaries;
comp. xxii. 1; 2 Kings xiii. 20 f — Ver. 10. To
wit, the host, etc. ^ before -man is the defining
i)= namely (comp. ver. 5a); the whole is in appo-
sition to the suffix in D^*13»1.— And they returned
to their place in hot anger, literally, "in the glow of
anger" (comp. Ex. xi. 8), enraged at the bad usage
they had received, and at the prospect of booty
being first held out to them and then withdrawn
(comp. Acts xvi. 19).— Ver. 11. And Amaziah
took courage, pinnn, as in xv. 8 ; comp. also
tne ptfl of the prophet in ver. 8. On the situa-
tion of the valley of Salt (south-east of the Dead
Sea), see Bahr on 2 Kings xiv. 7.— Ver. 12. And
brought them to the top of the rock (j^3Dn EW'")^),
probably the rock on or at which the Edomite
capital Sela lay, so that the rendering "on the
top of Sela" (Kamph., etc.) is admissible. The
passage in 2 Kings xiv. 7, where the taking of
Sela after the victory in the valley of Salt is
recorded, and the present one thus complete one
another. That the present report of the Chronist
is merely derived from a misunderstanding of the
text of the old source, somehow become illegible
(Then, on 2 Kings xiv. 7), appears an inadmissible
assumption on this account, that our writer would
not have imputed so frightful and barbarous a
proceeding as the throwing of thousands of cap-
tive Edomites down a precipice (comp. for the
matter of fact, Ps. cxxxvii. 9; Luke iv. 29), on
light grounds or on a mere misunderstanding, to a
king like Amaziah (comp. on 1 Chron. xviii. 2,
xx. 3). Besides, the number 10,000 here, as in
the previous verse, is a round number, and not to
be pressed in its literal sense. — Ver. 13. And the
men of the host (literally, "sons of the host," that
is, the troops belonging to it) fell upon the cities of
Judah; comp. for construction, Gen. xxii. 24.
This pillaging raid of the mercenaries is to be
regarded as simultaneous with the absence of
Amaziah in Idumea, and favoured thereby ; comp.
the similar events in the thirty years' and the
seven years' wars ; also the invasion of Switzerland
by the Armagnacs, and of Elsass under the Em-
peror Frederic in. (1444), etc.— From Samaria
even to Beth-horon, that is, with Samaria as start-
ing-point, and Beth-horon (see for its site or
1 Chron. vii. 24) as the termination of their raid,
so that all the towns between these two, so far as
they belonged to Judah, were exposed to pillage.
6. Close : c. Amaziah 's Idolatry, War with
Joash of Israel, and End : vers. 14-28. The
second book of Kings presents no parallel to the
statements regarding the desertion of Amaziah to
the gods of the conquered Edomitts, vers. 14-16.
On the contrary, the report of the war with Joash
of Israel (vers. 17-24) agrees almost literally with
2 Kings xiv. 8-14, as also the following vers.
238
.T. CHROKICLES.
25-28 with the closing remarks there, vers. 17-20
— After Amaziah was come from smiting the
Edomites ; comp. 2 Sam. i. 1. The "gods" of
the children of Seir are naturally their idols
(otherwise D^DB or D'SpS1') > an|i the conquered
Edomites are here called children of Seir, not
because they were identical with the tribe of
Seirites or Meunites (xx. 1, 10, 22) who dwelt
with them, but because here, where the peculiarity
of their gods as hill-gods caine into view (comp.
1 Kings xx. 23), it was very natural to designate
them according to the hill-country in which they
dwelt. — Ver. 16. Have we made thee counsellor to
the king? properly, "given"; the plural ?]yrti
is of communicative import, spoken from the
position of the king and his council. With the
question: "Why should they smite thee ?" comp.
the similar one: "Why will ye die, 0 house of
Israel?" (Ezek. xxxiii. 11.) — / know (have now
observed) that God hath resolved to destroy thee ;
comp. 1 Sam. ii. 25 (Eli) ; and Ex. vi. 1, x. 1,
xi. 1, etc. (Pharaoh). — Because thou hast done
this (worshipped the gods of Edom), and hast not
hearkened to my counsel. Thus the prophet de-
clares himself authorized to give counsel to the
king, however scornfully the latter may have
deprecated this as an assumption on his part. —
Ver. 17 ff. ; comp. Bahr on 2 Kings xiv. 8 ff. —
Took counsel, namely, with his counsellors and
courtiers; comp. x. 6; 1 Chron. xiii. 1. Luther's
rendering is also possible: resolved, came to the
decision after counsel taken. — Gome (^p=PI3,>,
"come on"; comp. Num. xxiii. 13; Judg. xix.
13), let us look one another in the face, measure,
have a passage at arms with one another. —Ver.
19. Thou sayest, Lo, thou hast smitten Edom, or
if thou hast smitten. It is, moreover, of the same
import if we render (with Luther, Kamph., etc.)
" Ihave smitten. "—And thy heart hath lifted thee
up (or "carried, urged thee ;" comp. Ex. xxxv.
21, 26) to boast, properly, "to make heavy";
comp. Isa. viii. 23. It is considerably different
in 2 Kings xiv. 10 ; see Bahr on the passage. —
"Ver. 20. For it was of God that they should be
given up, literally, " that they might be given
into the hand (of the enemy)"; comp. Deut. i.
27; 1 Kings xx. 42, etc.— Ver. 22. And they fled
every man to his tent, to bis house ; comp. x. 16 ;
1 Kings viii. 66. — Ver. 23. From the gate of
Ephraim to the corner gate ; so according to the
emendation njsn "IJ?tJ> for |"J3iBn V, which
latter reading gives no rational sense, as the
direction in which the gate in question turns
itself must have been stated if n^iBH 'b* meant
the gate turning itself (comp. Ezek. viii. 3). —
Ver. 24. And all the gold, namely, "he took," a
verb (rip?) which is to be supplied from 2 Kings
xiv. 14. — Vers. 25-28. Comp. Bahr on the parallel
2 Kings xiv. 17-20; and with regard to "the
book of the kings of Judah and Israel " (ver. 26),
Introd. § 5, ii. —Ver. 28. In the city of Judah
appears to be an error in copying for " in the city
of David," occasioned by the following DJJ-^3
miff (xxvi. 1) ; comp. Crit. Note. If the
Masoretic reading is to be retained, we might
be tempted to think of the designation *i*.n
'UiU, occurring Luke i. 39, which, however, can
scarcely be supposed to refer to Jerusalem (see
Van Oosterzee on this passage).
7. Uzziah : a. His early Theocratic Inclination
and Prosperous Keign: ch. xxvi. 1-15; comp.
the very brief parallel, 2 Kings xiv. 21, 22, xv.
1, 2, where the present (vers. 6--15) report of the
successful wars of Uzziah, his buildings, and his
strong military force, is wanting. There, more-
over, this king, along with the pre"sent name (W^J?,
"might of Jehovah "), bears also the name Azariah
(ilHTy or irp-tfy, " wnom Jehovah helps ").
Comp. 2 Kings xiv. 21, xv. 1, 6, 8, 23, 27, where
the latter form is used, with 2 Kings xv. 13, 30,
32, 34, where "Uzziah" stands, the form which
the Chronist, irrespective of 1 Chron. iii. 12,
always uses, and which is also found in the super-
scriptions of the prophets Hosea, Amos, and
Isaiah, as in Isa. vi. 1, vii. 1. The Assyrian
cuneate inscriptions (the tablets of Tiglath-pileser ;
see Sehrader, p. 114) present exclusively the
form Azariah (Az-ri-ya-hu), whereby the opinion
of those who regard this form as the later, or as
the result of a mere error of writing, is refuted (so,
for example, Gesen. -Dietrich in Lexicon). Bat
Hitzig's hypothesis also (Gesch. p. 209), that the
name Azariah was transformed from that of the
high priest contempoiary with him (ver. 17) to
the king, is refuted by this evidence of Assyrian
inscriptions. Much rather the only assumption
that remains warranted is : " that the similar
names of almost equal import were used simul-
taneously " (Berth. ); as was the case, for example,
with Uzziel and Azarel, a descendant of Heman
(1 Chron. xxv. 4, 18). Not even the conjecture
expressed by Bahr on 2 Kings xiv. 21 : " that the
name Uzziah appears to have come into more
general use after he ascended tlie throne," will
harmonize with the fact th it the Assyrian kings
know only the name Azariah. — Ver. 2. He built
Eloth. On the emphatic prefixing of this notice,
even before the chronological dates of the follow-
ing verse, see Bahr on the passage. — Ver. 3.
Reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem, 810-759
B.C., according to the usual chronology, though,
according to the Assyrian monuments, consider-
ably later (according to Neteler, p. 225 ff., 786-735).
On the name of the queen-mother Jechiliah (in
2 Kings Jecholiah, not Jechaliah, as Luther
writes), see the Crit. Note. — Ver. 5. And he con-
tinued to seek God, literally, ' ' and he was to seek
God, was out to seek Him " ; comp xxxi. 21 ;
Ezra iii. 12. — In the days of Zechariah, wlio un-
derstood the visions jf God. Accordingly this
Zechariah, who is otherwise unknown (for he
cannot be identified with the Zechariah son of
Jeberechiah mentioned Isa. viii. 2, as he was at
least a generation older), must be considered a
prophet, and Q'nlwn nisn3 ^asn nmst be re-
garded as a chosen periphrasis for flS'in, the
seer (comp. Dan. i. 17). But as the vision of
God cannot be taken as a work of human activity,
the reading of the Sept. and other old witnesses
(see Crit. Note) commends itself more, which
givss the sense "expert in the fear of God," or
even " teacher of the fear of God " (comp. Neh.
viii. 9). Zechariah remains a prophetic teacher
and counsellor of King Uzziah even with this
CHAP. XXVI. 6-18.
239
reading (for his possible priestly character would
have been marked by a ]nbn) ; but that he was a
" master in divine visions" is not to be read from
it ; and still less is it to be inferred that he and
no other was the author of the oracles of Balaam
(us is asserted in an arbitrary way by Fiirst, Gesch.
der bibl. Literatur. ii. pp. 231, 359). — Vers. 6-15.
Uzziah's Successful Wats, Building of Cities, etc.
(without parallel in 2 Kings). — And he. . . fought
with the Philistines, to punish their pillaging
inroad under Joram (xxi. 1 6 f. ). This punishment
must have been inflicted by him in very full mea-
sure, probably by the subjection of their whole
territory ; for the cities said to have been destroyed
by him, Gath (see on xi. 8), Jabneh (=Jabneel,
Josh. xv. 11, later=Jamnia in the Maecab. and
in Josephus), and Ashdod (now Esdud, comp. on
Josh. xiii. 3), were at that time the chief places of
the Philistines.— Ver. 7. And God helped him . . .
against the Arabs, who are named also, xvii. 11,
with the Philistines. Where Gurbaal was is un-
certain ; it is by no means to be identified (after
the Sept. , see Crit. Note) with the Edomite Petra ;
rather with Gerar (Gen. xx. 1), of which the Targ.
thinks. Concerning the Meunites, see on 1 Chron.
iv. 41; 2 Chron. xx. 1. — Ver. 8. And his name
went even to Egypt, literally, "even to the en-
trance of Egypt." But by the name of Uzziah is
scarcely meant merely his fame (Luther), but also
his active influence, his power. — For he became
very mighty, literally, " showed himself mighty
(Dan. xi. 7) unto the height " (comp. 1 Chron.
xiv. 2, xxix. 25). — Ver. 9. And Uzziah built
towers . . . at the corner gate. The corner gate
(comp. xxv. 23) lay at the north-west end of the
city ; the valley gate on the west side, where the
Jaffa gate is now. On the east, over against these
two points belonging to the west side where de-
fence was most needed, is JfiVptsn, the corner, to
be sought — namely, a bend of the eastern wall
near the horse gate ; comp. Neh. iii. 19, 20, 24, 25.
—Ver. 10. And he built towers in tlte wilderness,
in the wilderness of Judah, to protect the herds
grazing there; comp. 1 Chron. xxvii. 25; Mic. iv.
8; Isa. v. 2; in which latter place mention is made
of the digging of a well along with the tower build-
ing.— For he had much cattle in the lowland, etc.,
properly, "and in the lowland and in the plain,"
etc. It appears, therefore, as if three regions were
here distinguished— 1. The wilderness (of Judah)
west of the Dead Sea ; 2. The lowlands at the
Mediterrannean (comp. 1 Chron. xxvii. 28) ; 3.
The plain (lit^eri), perhaps the plain beyond
the Jordan, the territory of the Reubenites, a
region specially adapted for grazing, which Uzziah
was under the necessity of taking from the Am-
monites (ver. 8).— Husbandmen and vinedressers
in the mountains. Kamph. connects against the
accents, "in the plain, husbandmen." He will
also explain ^01331 neither of the Mount Camel
(Josh. xix. 26; Song vii. 6), nor of Carmel in the
South of Judah (1 Sam. xv. 12), but renders " in
the fruitful field" (comp. Isa. xxix. 17), for which
there is no constraining necessity. — Ver. 11. And
Uzziah had a host of fighting men, literally, "a
host (comp. xiv. 7) maker of war" (comp. ver. 13,
xi. 1), that went out to war (comp. 1 Chron. v. 8)
in troops (in a marshalled host).— By the number
of thei" muster at the hand of Jeuel. T3, m
afterwards, " under the guidance of Hananiah," ia
expressed by "at the hand" ("p ?]), as 1 Chron.
xxv. 6). The captain Hananiah appears therefore
as superintendent, Jeuel and Maaseiah as subor-
dinate executive officers in the business of the
muster. — Ver. 13. And at their hand (Q"V »/,
as in the previous verse) an army of 307,500
fighting men. Thus each of the 2600 father-
houses constituted a corps under the command of
the bravest among them. The total number of
307,500 warriors agrees in the main with the
above statement of the strength of the army under
Amaziah, xxv. 5, and presupposes the more cer-
tainly an actual numeration for its basis, as it is
not a round number. — Ver. 14. And Uzziah
prepared for them ; comp. 1 Chron. xv. 1, xxii. 5.
— Ver. 15. He made engines, the invention of
craftsmen, literally, "devices (nfabETI, excogitata),
the device of the deviser " (ati^n rQBTiO), skil-
fully contrived engines of war, as the following
words show — a kind of catapults or balisters, for
assaulting besieging troops from the walls and
towers of defence. — And his name went forth,
etc. ; comp. above, ver. 8.
8. Uzziah : b. His Boasting and Divine Punish-
ment by Leprosy; his End: vers. 16-23. Comp.
2 Kings xv. 5-7, where, however, the mere fact
of the king's becoming leprous is mentioned, with-
out particularizing the cause, so that in fact the
three verses correspond only to our vers. 21-23. —
And when he became strong. lnptrQI. as in
xii. 1. For the following: "to do corruptly''
(rpnB'fOi comp. xxvii. 2. — Went into the temple
of the Lord to burn incense, which, according to
Ex. xxx. 7, 27, Num. xviii. 1-7, only priests
were to do. Uzziah wished to exercise regal and
sacerdotal functions at the same time (as the
Egyptian kings, and afterwards the Roman em-
perors). He fell into the same sin as Saul before
him (1 Sam. xiii. 9 f.). It was not the restitution
of a formerly legitimate union of regal and sacer-
dotal power, as it was nominally possessed by
David and Solomon (Thenius, Ewald), which was
his aim ; for only occasionally, and in certain
religious solemnities of an extraordinary kind,
had those kings exercised several priestly func-
tions, with the permission of the lawful priests (so
correctly Bertheau, Keil, etc.). — Ver. 17. And
Azariah the priest. Whether he was. actually
high priest is not determined with perfect cer-
tainty from his subsequent designation as ]ri3
tt>N"in (as in the case of Jehoiada ; see on xxiii.
8) ; yet it is most probable that the "head
priest," who was accompanied with eighty priests,
was the actual legitimate holder of high-priestly
office. But very improbable is the identity as-
serted by Keil of this Azariah with the Azariah
named in the list of high priests, 1 Chron. v. 36,
37, as the father of Amariah, who belongs cer-
tainly to a considerably earlier time (see on this
passage). On the predicate "men of valour,"
Vn '33, <*>mP- l Chron. v. 18.- Ver. 18. And
they withstood Uzziah, "stood against" him;
comp. Dan. xi. 14.— And it shall not be for thine
honour from the Lord God, that is, thy offering
incense serves not, as thou fanciest, to inczsase
240
II. CHRONICLES.
thy honour and glory before God, but rather
brings thee shame, Because thou thereby showest
thyself to be disobedient and apostate. — Ver. 19.
And while he was wroth with the priests, the
leprosy burs', forth on his forehead, in punish-
ment of his impious attempt. The punishment
is the same that Miriam endured on account of
her rebellion against Moses (Num. xii. 10), and
with which Elisha's servant Gehazi was visited
for his covetousness (2 Kings v. 27). In a physi-
cal and pathological sense, also, the malady may
have been brought on in all these cases in essen-
tially the same way, — " by a strong physical ex-
citement, which brought the leprosy, already
existing as a tendency in the system, suddenly to
a visible eruption" (Friedreich, Zur Bibel, etc.,
pp. 223, 230). "VVedel (Exercitationes medico-
philologicce, ii. 4. 9) quite arbitrarily asserts that
Uzziah's malady was not leprosy, but syphilis.
Not less arbitrary and contrary to the text is the
attempt of K. Ad. Menzel to reduce the whole
malady to a bold and sly mystification of the
high priest Azariah, who suddenly cried out that
he saw the sign of leprosy on the forehead of the
king, and by this application of his medical
authority so far robbed him of his self-command
that he allowed himself to be arrested and put in
a place of confinement (Religion und Staatsidee,
p. 89 ; comp. on xvi. 13). A special contrast to
this crude attempt at a natural explanation by a
miracle-rejecting rationalism is presented by the
Jewish legend in Josephus, Antiq. ix. 10. 4,
which makes Uzziah be punished not merely by
becoming leprous (supposed to be produced by a
sunstroke which fell through the split roof of
the temple on his face), but also by a simul-
taneous violent earthquake, the same which is
mentioned Amos i. 1, by which that splitting of
the temple roof was effected. — Ver. 21. And dwelt
in a sick-house, properly, "a house of separation";
see Bahr on 2 Kings xv. 5, where also all that is
necessary is remarked on the probable (amounting
only to a few years) duration of Uzziah's illness
and of Jotham's regency. — Ver. 23. And they
buried him with his fathers in tlie burial-field of
tlie kings ; for they said, He is a leper. They
wished not to defile the proper tombs of the kings
by burying his body in them, and therefore buried
it in the field adjoining these tombs. In the
parallel 2 Kings xv. 7 f. this important detail is
wanting.
9. Jotham : ch. xxvii. ; comp. 2 Kings xv.
32-33, and Bahr on this passage. — Ver. 2. Only
he entered not into the temple of the Lord; he
abstained from such an impious undertaking as
that of his father, xxvi. IB ff. This remark is
wanting in 2 Kings. On the contrary, instead of
the rather indefinite : " and the people did yet
corruptly" (comp. on xxvi. 16 ff.), we find there
the more special statement: "the people still
sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places."
— Ver. 3. And on the wall of Ophel tie built
much; fortified thus the southern slope of tl»e
temple mountain, which is called Ophel (i>3j)rt ;
comp. xxxiii. 14 ; Neh. iii. 26, 27), and therein
continued the fortifications of his father Uzziah,
which had applied more to the west and east
sides of the city wall. In 2 Kings this is want-
ing, as also the notice in the following verse of
the towns and castles built by Jotham (for fi^Ta,
"castles, forts," see on xvii. 12), while the pre-
vious notice regarding the building (anew) of the
upper temple gate, the north gate in the inner
court of the temple, is also found there.— Ver. 5
And he fought with the king of the sons of Amnion.
Of this victorious war with the Ammonites, also,
nothing is found in 2 Kings. This war, like the
buildings, appears to be a continuation of that
waged by Uzziah ; for, according to xxvi. 8, the
Ammonites had also to pay tribute to that king.
It was therefore an attempt at revolt, for whijh
they were now punished by Jotham with the im-
position of a new and heavier tribute (100 talents
of silver, with 10,000 cors of barley and wheat
yearly, is pretty well for a not very numerous
people). — This the sons of Ammon paid him also
in the second and the third year, but no longer
than during these three years; perhaps on account
of the war of Syria and Ephraim with Judah,
which took its rise under Jotham, 2 Kings xv.
37, and procured for the Ammonites their former
independence. — Ver. 6. And Jotham strengthened
himself, namely, "in his kingdom"; comp. xiii.
21 , and the following : " he established his ways, "
Prov. xxi. 29. — Ver. 7. And all his wars. That
these wars of Jotham, of which only one is here
mentioned, were uniformly successful is not
stated in the text ; and therefore the war com-
menced with Syria and Ephraim, in which
Jotham suffered some very severe defeats, may
be here included (against Keil). In other re-
spects the closing notices, vers. 7-9, agree essen-
tially with 2 Kings xv. 36, 38.
10. Ahaz : a. His Idolatry, and Defeat by th«
Syrians and Ephraimites : ch. xxviii. 1-8 ; comp.
2 Kings xvi. 1 ff. , where the first four verses, re-
lating to the idolatry of Ahaz, agree tolerably well
with vers. 1-4 of our text ; while the report of the
war given in vers. 5-18 presents considerable
deviations from the narrative in our ch., vers. 5 ff.,
9, and 16 ff. Comp. on these differences,' as well
as on the whole report of the war, C. P. Caspari,
Der syrisch-ephraimitische Krieg unter Jotham
und Alias, Christiania 1849. — Ahaz was twenty
years old. Thus also 2 Kings xvi. 2 ; but on
account of the age of his son and successor, — Heze-
kiah being already twenty-five at the death of
Ahaz, — it is more probable that the reading of the
Sept. , Syr. , and Arab, is to be preferred, and the
age of Ahaz at his accession set down at twenty-
five (not, however, at thirty, as Hitzig, Gesch.
Isr. p. 214, will have it). Moreover, the name
Ahaz (HIX) is on the Assyrian monuments Ja-
hu-kha-zi, which is elsewhere = the Hebr. Jehoahaz
OnKirTO ; see Schrader, pp. 25, 147, 151 ff. This
difference "is either to be referred to this, that
the later Jews in the Old Testament changed the
actual name of the king, namely Jehoahaz, in
consequence of his idolatrous propensity, into
Ahaz, by the omission of the divine name , or to
this, that the Assyrians falsely transferred to
Ahaz the like-sounding name of an earlier king
(Jehoahaz), as they made Jehu a son instead of a
successor of Omri" (Schrader, p. 152). If the
first of these two conjectures, according to which
Ahaz is a curtailed name, be correct, we may
compare the change of such names as Jerubbaal
(into Jerubbesheth) or Mephibaal (into Mephi-
bosheth), and also the legend of the mediaeval
sects, as the Euehites, Bogomiles, etc., that
Satan was originally called Satanael, and afiei
CHAP. XXVIII. 2-15.
241
his fall his name was deprived of the last syllable.
Gimp., moreover, on ver. 21.— Ver. 2 f. And made
ahomoUen images for Baalim j comp. Ps. evi. 19 ;
Judg. xvii. 3, etc. Both these words and the
following: "and he burnt incense in the valley
of Ben-hinnom," are wanting in 2 Kings; but
they have there fallen out by an oversight (occa-
sioned by a twofold qji) ; comp. Bahr on the
passage. — And burned his sons in the fire, or
"made his sons pass through the fire." Accord-
ing to 2 Kings, he performed this barbarous
human sacrifice only in the case of one son,
which is intrinsically the more probable (comp.
2 Kings iii. 27, xxi. 6) ; the plur. VJ3T1K of
our passage is thus, as in xxxiii. 6, merely a
rhetorical generalization (Casp., Keil, Bahr, etc.).
On vers. 36 and 4, comp. BahVs exposition of the
parallel text.— Ver. 5. The Lord his God gave
him into the hand of the king of Syria. These
introductory words of the following report of the
war, compared with 2 Kings xvi. 6 fi'., demon-
strate that our writer proposes to give rather a
rhetorically conceived than a strictly historical
description of the chastisements inflicted on Ahaz
by the Syrians and Ephraimites. Comp. Caspari
as quoted, p. 42 ff., and Keil, p. 325 f. : "The
facts, which show how Ahaz, notwithstanding
the grievous blows which fell on him and Judah,
sinned yet more grievously against the Lord his
God, are brought out of the historical material
into relief, and oratorically represented, so that
they display not only the increasing obstinacy of
Ahaz, but also, by adducing the conduct of the
citizens and warriors of the kingdom of Israel,
the depth to which Judah had fallen." — And they
miote him, literally, "on him," that is, they in
nicted a defeat on his army. — And took from him
a great many captives, "led captive from him a
great leading of captives" (ffiyip, as in ver. 11;
Neh. iii. 36).— Ver. 6. And Pekah, son of Rema-
liah, slew in Judah 120,000 in one day, that is,
in a great battle, with the pursuit and plundering
that followed. Against the suspicion east on this
mimber by de Wette, Gesenius, Winer, and others,
as exaggerated, see Caspari, p. 37 ff., who points
with justice— 1. to the fanaticism of the Israelites
and Syrians, who aimed directly at the annihila-
tion of the Jewish power (Isa. vii. 6 ; 2 Kings xv.
16; comp. also ver. 9) ; 2. to the military strength
of the Jews (307,500), stated shortly before under
Uzziah, xxvi. 13, which shows that it was about
a third of their force that was put to the sword ;
3. to the round number 120,000 (as also the sub-
sequent number of 200,000 captives), showing
itself to be the product of a rough estimate, and
not an exact enumeration. — Ver. 7. And Zichri
. . . slew Maaseiah the king's son, probably a
royal prince of an older generation, uncle, cousin,
or brother of Ahaz, for he himself at this time
had scarcely a son of military age. Azrikam also
is perhaps to be regarded as a relative of the king,
for a "governor of the house" can scarcely de-
signate a president of the temple (according to
1 Chron. ix. 11; 2 Chron. xxxi. 13); rather might
it be the title of a higher officer of the royal house
or palace. — And Elkatnah the vicegerent of the
king, literally, "the second after the king," his
minister (chancellor, vizier). — Ver. 8. And the
ions of Israel took captive of their brethren.
Ibserve the- importance of this reference to the
character of the war, as a barbarous strife between
brother tribes.
11. Continuation : b. Oded the Prophet effects
the Release of the Captives : vers. 9-15 (without a
parallel in 2 Kings).— And a prophet of the Lord
was_ there of the name of Oded, in Samaria, the
capital of the northern kingdom. Here, as well
as in other places of this kingdom, prophets of the
true God appear active till its complete fall (722
B.C.), as in particular the ministry of Hosea
teaches, which was likewise exercised on this
soil. — And he went out; comp. the report, xv.
2, of Azariah son of Oded under Asa. — In the
wrath . . against Judah. Not so much your
bravery as the judicial sentence of God for the
punishment of idolatrous Israel is the cause of
the great victory over your adversaries — a victory
which you have abused by a frantic slaughter and
carnage. On "that reacheth unto heaven,"
comp. Gen. xviii. 21 ; Ezra ix. 6.— Ver. 10. And
now ye purpose to subject; comp. Gen. i. 28 ;
Lev. xxv. 42 ff. — Are there not even with you
yourselves trespasses against the Lord? look for
once at yourselves, whether ye do not perceive
there enough of that which inculpates you before
God. To this exhortation to repentance is suit-
ably added the warning in ver. 11, to beware of
the further abuse of the power given them to
execute the divine judgment, and therefore of
the unmerciful treatment or even the longer,
retention of the captives. — Ver. 12 f. Four of
the chiefs of Ephraim declare their concurrence
with this exhortation and warning of Oded.
Their names occur only here, but they present, at
all events, a weighty testimony for the concrete
historical character and credibility of the present
account. — For with the trespass of the Lord upon
us, that the effect of our heavy guilt with God
(ver. 10) may fall upon us, that the heavy punish-
ment of sin may overtake us. niiV flDti'N is
here the effect, the punishment of guilt con-
tracted before God. — Ver. 14. And the armed
host left, the armed escort who conducted the
captives to Samaria. yhv\T\, as in 1 Chron. xii.
23. — Ver. 15. The men who were expressed by
name, the notable men mentioned by name in the
old records, who specially distinguished them-
selves at that time by a noble emulation of love
and compassion for the poor captives ; comp. 1
Chron. xii. 31, xvi. 41 ; 2 Chron. xxxi. 19. The
analogy of these passages forbids us to think only
of the four named in ver. 12. — And clothed all
that were naked of them, literally, "all th6
nakedness" (abstr. pro concr.). — And anointed
them, because they should return home happy
and cheerful.- — And carried them on asses; to
which is appended a limiting and more exactly
defining phrase, all the weary (or "stumbling,"
7B>i3"?3?)' Observe the pictorial reality am*
epic breadth of the whole description, whict
exhibits itself even in designating Jericho as tht.
city of palms (comp. Judg. iii. 13), and by the
mention of it (as the border town of Judah,
whither the captives were first brought ; comp.
Josh, xviii. 21 ) accords with the story of the good
Samaritan. For, in fact, there is heie a grand
archetype of the deed of compassion described in
this didactic narrative of the Lord, as sure as
they were inhabitants of the city and later
242
II. CHRONICLES.
country of Samaria, who took so loving an
interest in the helpless Jews. The thought that
Christ drew directly from this episode of the
present war several points of His noble lesson
3hould by no means be absolutely rejected. Comp.
Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.
12. Close : c. Further Visitations of Ahaz on
account of his Idolatry ; his End: vers. 16-27.
Only the part of this section that refers to the
relations of Ahaz to the Assyrian world-power
(his seeking aid from Tiglath-pileser, his pay-
ment of tribute to the same, and his fall occa-
sioned by this slavish submission to the idolatry
of Syria and Damascus, vers. 16, 20-25) is reported
in 2* Kings xvi. (vers. 7-18), and there, indeed,
much more fully than here. On the contrary,
there is wanting there a statement of the con-
temporaneous humiliations of Ahaz by the Edom-
ites and Philistines, as they are here reported,
vers. 17-19. — At that time King Ahaz sent unto
the kings of Assyria. The rather indefinite
KTin J1JJ3 admits the assumption that this em-
bassy to Assyria took place immediately after
the invasion of Rezin and Pekah ( Berth. ), as well
as that several months or years elapsed between
these events (Keil). But according to 2 Kings
xvi. 6 if., the consequence of that first heavy
defeat by the Syrians and Ephraimites, the
taking of Elath by Rezin (and that which was
'connected with it, the invasion of the Edomites
and Philistines), seems to have been the motive
of Ahaz to apply to the Assyrians for aid. The
plural " the kings of Assyria " is p rhaps not
rhetorical, as above, ver. 3, V33 (Keil), but, as it
seems, originally written under the consciousness
that the head of the Assyrian government was
composed of several factors, namely, the king
and the so-called eponymus or archon of the
current year ; see in particular xxx. 4, where
this view seems undeniable ; also xxx. 6 ; and
comp. Schrader, Studien und Kritiken, 1871, part
iv. ; Die Keilschriften, etc., p. 308 ff.— Ver. 17.
And again the Edomites came, perhaps made
free again by Rezin's expedition against Elath,
2 Kings xvi. 6, from the Jewish yoke, which lay
upon them from the time of Amaziah and Uzziah
(xxv. 11, xxvi. 2). The tense is to be taken as
the pluperfect : " and moreover ("lij)1, etprceterea,
et imuper ; comp. Isa. i. 5) the Edomites had
come " ; and so in the two following verses, for
they also report something that preceded the fatal
treaty with Tiglath-pileser, and served to bring
it about. — Ver. 18. And the Philistines invaded.
Of the places conquered by them, Beth-shemesh
(1 Chron. vi. 44), Ajalon (1 Chron. vi. 54), and
Socho (2 Chron. xi. 7) have occurred already in
our book. For Gederoth (in the Shephelah),
comp. Josh. xv. 41 ; for Timnah, now Tibneh,
Josh. xv. 10 ; for Gimzo, now Jimsu, a large
village between Lydda and Beth-horon, Robins.
Palest, iii. 271 The mention of daughter
cities (literally, "daughters") along with the
chief places, as in xiii. 9. — Ver. 19. For the
Lord humbled Judah on account of Ahaz king of
Israel. Ahaz is perhaps ironically so named ;
for the title " King of Israel " can scarcely be an
honourable designation in him, as in Rehoboam
(xii 6) or Jehoshaphat (xxi. 2), or as in his fore-
fathers in general, ver. 27. It contains, perhaps,
an allusion to the contrast between his idolatrcus
reign and the mind and walk of the true ' ' Israel
of God" (comp. Gal. vi. 16, Caspari, Keil, etc.).
— Because he had revolted in Judah. So in
yiSH '3 with 3 following certainly to be taken.
not as Kamph. and others think : "becau.se he
made Judah refractory " ; comp. rather Ex. v. 4,
which speaks also igainst the rendering of he
Vulg. : eo quod ludasset eum auxilio, and of
Luther (that he made Judah naked). — Ver. 20.
And Tiglath-pilneser. Concerning this form, at
corresponding not so well to the Assyrian as th«
Tiglath-pileser of the other Old Testament sources,
see on 1 Chron. v. 6 ; for the conjectural identity
of Pul with Tiglath-pileser, see on 1 Chron. v. -6.
— And distressed him, and strengthened him not.
This is the only rendering agreeable to the con-
text, according to which, pjn nere> contrary to its
usual intransitive meaning, expresses the active
sense of strengthening (confortare, roborare).
See for justification of this rendering against
Luther, Then., Bertheau, etc. (who take pjn
according to xxvii. 5, Jer. xx. 7, etc. = "over-
come"): "he oppressed and besieged him, but
subdued him not," in particular Keil on thi*
passage ; rightly also Neteler and Kamph. —
Ver. 21. For Ahaz had plundered the house oj
the Lord. This was at the time that he sent
the embassy with its cry for help to the mighty
Assyrian king (ver. 16), for with empty hands
he need not approach him (comp. also 2 Kings
xvi. 7, 8). ppn here is not "divide " (Luther),
but "plunder, spoliare'' (Vulg.); comp. ppn,
booty, share of spoil (Num. xxxi. 36 ; Job xviL
5). The strong expression corresponds to the
rhetorical tone of the narrator ; thereby the
certainly historical statement shows that the
treasures of the king's house, as well as those of
the "princes" (the high officers of the palace,
or perhaps also the princes of the royal house ;
comp. on ver. 7), must have contributed, that
the gift (-|nb>, see 2 Kings xvi. 8) sent with the
ambassadors might be worthy of acceptance.
That Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser is
attested, besides our passage and the report in
2 Kings xvi. 7-9 (comp. also Isa. xxxvi 5, where
Rabshakeh charges Hezekiah with revolt from
Assyria), also by the Assyrian monumerts. In
line 61 of an inscription composed in the last
year of Tiglath-pileser's reign (ii. R. 67), it is
said that this king received tribute (madatv) from
" Mittini of Askalon, Ahaz (Jehoahaz— Ja-hu-
kha-zi) of Judah, Kozmalak of Edom. " That here
Ahaz is spoken of as a tributary of the great king,
and not Uzziah (as H. Rawlinsen thought on
account of the surprising form of the name), is
shown by the naming of the rulers of Pkilistia
and Edom, who in Uzziah 's time would scarcely
have been co-ordinated with the Jewish king,
the naming of whom along with Ahaz is quite
consistent with the contents of the verses of our
chapter. Comp. Schrader, p. 151 ff. — Ver. 22.
And, in tlie time of his distress, a date of like
indefiniteness and pliability with &onn nj?3 in
ver. 16. That the revolt of Ahaz to the gods o)
the Syrians thus took place after the distresses
which the Edomites, Philistines, and Syrians
prepared for him, cannot be definitely concluded
from this passage ; rather it seems to follow from
CHAP. XXVIII. 24-27.
243
vei. 23 that he had already, during the war with
Rezin, begun to testify his respect for the gods of
his foe and his country. There is therefore no
proper contradiction between our passage and
2 Kings xvi. 10 ff. ; only that there is given a
more concrete and definite report concerning this
turning of Ahaz to the Syrian gods than in our
section, which also, again, bears an eminently
rhetorical and pathetic character, as indeed all
that is related from ver. 5 onwards. — Ver. 24.
And Ahaz . . . cut up the vessels of the house
of God, that is, as is stated more precisely in
2 Kings xvi. 17, he broke out the sides of the
bases, removed the lavers from them, transferred
the sea from the brazen oxen to a stone pave-
ment, etc. — And shut the doors of the house of
the Lord, that is, according to xxix. 3, 7, the
doors not of the court, but of the temple itself,
or the porch before the holy and most holy
places. Accordingly, the shutting of these doors
signified that he suspended the worship of God
in the holy and in the most holy place, while he
left the altar of burnt-offering in the court ; with
which 2 Kings xvi. 15 f. agrees, although there the
erection of a separate altar of burnt-offering, built
after the model of Damascus of Syria, beside the
brazen altar of Solomon, is reported (see Bahr on
the passage). — And made him altars in every
comer of Jerusalem. Among these altars is
included the new altar of burnt-offering in the
court, 2 Kings xvi. 10-16, built at the command
of Ahaz by the priest Uriah after the pattern of
the idol-altar at Damascus. The ^3 in n3B"?33
is not to be pressed, nor, for example : " under
every tree," in ver. 4, nor the phrase : "in every
single city of Judah," in the following verse. —
Ver. 25. And provoked to anger the Lord (DJJ3,
hiph., as in Deut. xxxii. 16 ; 1 Kings xiv. 9).—
Ters. 26, 27 ; comp. the briefer closing notice in
2 Kings xvi. 19, 20. — And they buried him in the
city in Jerusalem; thus not: "in the city of
David," as is usually said, and further not : " in
the sepulchres of the kings of Israel " (see on ver.
19), but apart from the proper tombs of the kings —
perhaps in the field mentioned in xxvi. 23, where
the leprous Uzziah was buried. 2 Kings xvi. 20
reports nothing of such an exception that was
made with respect to the grave of Ahaz.
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS AND
HOMILETIC HINTS ON CH. XXIV.-XXVI1I.
1. A period of fully a century and a half (877-
727 in the usual chronology) is occupied by the
five reigns here combined, comprising a reign
of forty, of nearly thirty, and of fifty-two years.
But none of them yields any permanent gain for
the development of Judah into the normal form
of a truly theocratic condition, as the deep cor-
ruption exhibited under the last, an instance of
decided misrule, shows. "When the Canaanitish
idolatry, naturalized by Athaliah, after a short
predominance, was again expelled, as an element
utterly foreign to the Davidic house and the
Jewish people, five reigns regularly following in
legitimate succession, of which perhaps none
was begun otherwise than under favourable
auspices, and with joyful hopes on the side of
the theocratic party, furnish before the end of
150 years the sad result of a decided relapse into
that idolatry. For the less insidiously evil and
murderous than merely weak policy of Ahaz in
every instance must be regarded as such a re-
lapse, though it might not be the Tyrian-
Canaanitish idolatry of Athaliah to which he
chiefly yielded, but the Damascene-Syrian super-
stition of his adversary Bezin, and though,
further, the outward form and show of the
legitimate worship was perhaps better observed
under him than under the priest - opposing
daughter of Omri. On the whole, it is manifest
that under Ahaz the corruption of religion and
morals had gnawed more deeply than at th*t
time, and 3truck firmer roots into the conscious-
ness and customs of the people. It is now, at
least, quite contrary to the state of things then,
directly a priest, perhaps the high priest (Uriah,
2 Kings xvi. 10 ff.), who readily enters into the
king's idolatrous intentions, and lends a hand to
desecrate the sanctuary of Jehovah with foreign
modes of worship, elaborated after heathen
models ; a characteristic which the Chronist
perhaps only neglected expressly to mark, be-
cause it disgusti-d and annoyed him to report
anything so unreasonable and abominable as this
treason of a priest of the Lord. And as the
priest, so the people does not now, at the beck of
a true witness, as then of Jehoiada, rise up as one
man to put an end to the foreign hateful thing
at one blow, but presents so little resistance to
the seductions to spiritual and corporeal adultery
proceeding from the court, that it remains,
during a reign of almost sixteen years, on the
path of Baal-worship, and establishes not only
idolatrous altars in every corner of Jerusalem,
but also high places for burning incense to
strange gods "in every single city of Judah"
(comp. xxviii. 24, 25), without standing up in
righteous indignation against such a course, or
even earnestly seeking a return to theocratic
obedience. That it could come to this a century
and a half after the events under Athaliah, tells
not of a gradual progress to a better state of
things, but rather of a slow but irresistible sink-
ing into worse and worse — of a constant ripening
of the people for that fearful judgment of God
which now fell on the kindred people of Ephraim
immediately after the death of Ahaz at the end
of these 150 years, and with respect to which for
Judah, with all the energy of many attempts at
reform (especially under Hezekiah and Josiah),
nothing beyond a postponement, a delay of less
than 150 years more was secured.
2. None of the four comparatively theocratic
reigns before Ahaz had been able to check the
descent of the people with uneasy certainty and
constancy on this downward path to final corrup-
tion ; for none possessed the reverence for God
and law, untainted by heathenish abominations,
which characterized the rule of an Asa or Je-
hoshaphat. For Joash maintained a decidedly
theocratic demeanour only so long as his pater-
nal friend, instructor, and counsellor Jehoiada
governed him, or so long as those two symbols
given him (xxiii. 11) at his accession— the crown
as the sign of power, and the law as the sign of
theocratic wisdom— exercised their united influ-
ence over him ; • after whose death he permits, at
1 Comp. Luther's marginal note on this passage: "Finely
are both the crown and the book presented to the king, that
he might be not only mighty, but also wise, or (as we may
say) know God's word and right. _ Thus, even now, we
make kings with a sword and book."
244
II. CHRONICLES.
the request of the worldly-minded " princes of
Judah (representatives of the higher nobility, to
whom the "priestly power" might long since
have well been an abomination), the entrance
again of :iolatry and causes the faithful witness
ot the truth, warning them of the ;vil conse-
quences c f such a course, the son of his instructor
Jehoiada (and therefore his near relative), to be
slain in the court of the temple. Whereupon
also the threatened judgment of God, accom-
plished by a desolating raid of the Syrian Hazael,
suddenly enters, and in a very short time brings
about the end — and that a terrible end — of the
unfaithful king. This reign resembles in more
than one respect the history of such rulers of the
Middle Ages or of modern times as the German
emperors Otto in. and Henry iv., or in many
respects Louis xiv. of France, who enjoyed the
guardianship of excellent regents of the spiritual
order at the beginning of their career, but after-
wards failed to beware of the evil consequences
of their passing over to a false independence.
Not much better or happier was the reign of
Amaziah, whose early measures, as the sparing of
the children of the murderers who conspired
against Joash (xxv. 4 ; comp. Deut. xxiv. 16)
shows, were entirely accordant with the precepts
of the law ; but who afterwards, in consequence
of a successful war with Edom, which seems
to have made the conqueror presumptuous, de-
generated into heathenish practices, offered the
tribute of worship to the gods of the conquered
Edomites (naturally without meaning to abolish
the legitimate worship of Jehovah, proceeding on
some sort of theoretical and practical mingling of
the two modes of worshipping God), and added
to this the further folly of a supercilious provoca-
tion of the powerful Joash of Israel to war. A
severe humiliation by this foe, as a reward for
this haughty bearing (conjoined with which are
here, again, scornful neglect and rough treatment
of one of the prophets of Jehovah, ver. 16), here
also failed to delay the issue ; and the end of the
king, effected by a band of traitors and con-
spirators, ver. 27, was as violent as that of his
father. With respect to external politics as well
as military and economic (financial), consolidation
of their power, the two following reigns appear
to have been more fortunate. The vigorous
Uzziah, reigning more than a half century, re-
stores in many respects once nore the glorious
days of a Jehoshaphat, especially with regard to
the maintenance of his sway over the southern
tribes, and the great advance of the defensive
power and financial capability of the country.
But when the true spiritual adviser whom
he long followed, the prophet Zeehariah, was
separated from him, he also exhibited haughti-
ness, daring arrogance, and false independence in
spiritual things. And if his people were not in-
volved in the judgment incurred by this guilt,
yet his transgression brought on himself a heavy
and shameful fall, for which there was no re-
covery on this side the grave. He dies as one
"smitten of God" (Isa. liii. 4 ; comp. Job ii. 7,
vi. 4 f., xvi. 12 ff.) in a sick-house, and does
not even in death partake of the honour due
to a king of the line of David, and also a
powerful and celebrated prince (xxvi. 28). To
his son Jotham, reigning a much shorter time,
but in a like spirit and with like external for-
tune, a humiliation of the same kind is certainly
spared ; for "he entered not into the temple ol
the Lord," ventured on no such daring stretch of
his authority as Uzziah in his attempt to burn
incense. And how far he was thereby from being
without guilt, or free from inward participation in
such offences, is shown by the reckless audacity
with which his on and successor, during his
whole reign (of equal length with that of hia
father), ventured to addict himself to the de-
moralizing idolatry of the neighbouring nations,
and to procure for it unlimited entrance among
his people. Of the father of such a son we can
form no very favourable opinion, even if the
scanty notices of our author announce little
or nothing positively unfavourable concerning
him.
3. The penal judgment of God for such con-
tinued yielding to the seducing and corrupting
influence of heathenism, as it was decreed against
Judah, soon after the corruption had broken forth
in all its grossness, in the so-called war with
Syria and Ephraim, appears, according to the re-
presentation of the Chronist, to have been terribly
great and severe. More than 100,000 fighting
men fall as the sacrifice of a single battle-field,
and almost double that number of women, chil-
dren, and other prisoners of war are dragged away
as slaves, and owe their instant unconditional
release to the compassion of their kinsmen, the
victorious Ephraimites, evoked by a bold and
vehement prophetic admonition ; so that in this
case the Jews were put to shame by the more
righteous and pious conduct of the citizens of the
neighbouring kingdom (which, however, took
place on the very eve of their religious and
political ruin). But the spiritual blessing which
should have sprung from so heavy and deeply
humiliating a visitation was gone. No trace of
the return of the heart to the true God and to
His law comes to light in the subsequent accounts
concerning the acts and events of the reign of
Ahaz. And the calamities added to that great
defeat, the invasions of the Edomites and Philis-
tines, as well as the distress from the Assyrian
king, whose alliance naturally soon proved to be
an oppressive sovereignty, produce, instead of
repentance toward God, only increasing submis-
sion to the idols. As slave- children with venal
servility kiss the rod with which they are
chastised, so Ahaz thinks he must present more
demonstrations of respect to the gods of his
victorious foes, in proportion as they prepare for
him heavier humiliations. And no one among
the people brings him back from such folly ; the
voice of no prophet, though they press as strongly
and closely upon his ear as that of an Isaiah
(Isa. vii.-x. ), is able to check the criminal course
into which he has gone with his princes, his
counsellors, and his strong party among the
people. First under his son Hezekiah, repent-
ance and amendment, the path to which was
already prepared in many hearts by the previous
afflictions, come to light ; and that unusually
severe judgment of God finally proves to be a
wholesome corrective measure, the effect of which
is to save, create new life, and purify ; comp.
Hezekiah 's own reflections on it, xxix. 9, — a pas-
sage which, at the same time, deserves to be taken
into account as a supplementary testimony to the
greatness of the loss suffered by the people from
the defeats in question.
4. In the representation of the author of the
CHAP. XXIX.
245
books of Kings, this pragmatic connection of the i
defeats of Aliaz, especially that inflicted on him ,
by the Syrians and Ephraimites, with his sins
and his sinking into ever worse impenitence and
idolatry, is less sharply and clearly exhibited than
in the strong, rhetorically-coloured, and generally
animated and impassioned style adopted by our
author. But its substantial credibility can suffer
no damage from thi», that it here and there
presents other points of view, and in part con-
nects the events otherwise. As the reports of the
Chronist, giving great prominence to the Levitical
element in the revolution conducted by Jehoiada,
as well as in the contributions for the temple and
its repair under Joash, in contrast with those of
the books of Kings, do not deserve to be cast in
the shade and disparaged; or as that which our
author more specially relates concerning TJzziah's
transgression and punishment from his Levitical
point of view is not to he suspected in comparison
with the allusive brevity of the older parallel
account ; even so we have no right to hesitate with
regard to that which is peculiar to him in the
description of the Syro-Ephraimitish war. The
roundness, resting rather on an estimate than an
exact enumeration, of the high numbers in xxviii.
6-8 is the only thing that is to be conceded to the
judgment of the opponent calling in question the
strict historical accuracy of his narrative (see
above on this passage). All other details of this
description clearly rest on good historical ground ;
neither the names of the persons that fell, ver. 7,
in the great engagement with Pekah among the
king's relatives and nearest circle, nor those of the
nobles of Ephraim who supported by their vote
the admonition of Oded to release the Jewish
captives (ver. 12), look like mere invention. The
invention of such names, in order to invest an
account, legendary in itself, with the appearance
of historical truth, would, in fact, he an incon-
ceivable monstrosity, a unicwm in the history of
literary fictions. But they both hold and support
each other, the undeniable historical reality of
these names, and the credibility of the facts with
which they are connected and environed. The
entrance also of the prophet Oded, and the words
spoken by him, are accredited by the reacting
power of these concrete names. What is done
to the Jewish captives by those four chiefs of
Ephraim seems purely inconceivable without a
vehement admonition, such as that spoken by
Oded according to vers. 9-11. Caspari therefore
declares it to be the "highest levity" (against
Gesenius, in his Commentary on Isaiah, p. 269,
and other impugners of the historical truth of
this prophetic utterance) to hold the report in
vers. 9-11 to be unworthy of credit, and yet to
regard the contents of ver. 12 ff. as historical.
And in the same relation of supplement and of
correspondence to 2 Kings stands in general all
that our author reports different from the state-
ments there concerning Ahaz and the steps taken
by him for the furtherance of idolatry. As the
remarks made by him, vers. 17-19, concerning
the invasions of the Edomites and Philistines,
agree excellently with 2 Kings xvi. 6, so between
that which he relates, vers. 23-25, regarding the
idolatrous profanation of the temple and its
vessels and 2 Kings xvi. 10-16 there is no con-
tradiction whatever, but merely a relation of
supplement and confirmation. On the whole, it
would seem superfluous, indeed almost paltry,
after Caspari's emphatic and pertinent argument
in favour of the essential harmony of the two
reports of the war, to enter further into subtle
critical disquisitions or wide apologetic investiga-
tions regarding their apparent or even real points
of difference.
«. Hezekiah : The Prophet Isaiah. — Ch. xxix.-xxxii.
ec. HezekiaVs Beginnings ; the Cleansing and Consecration of the Temple: ch. xxix.
CHAP. XXIX. 1. Hezekiah became king when he was twenty and five years old, and
he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem j and his mother's name was
2 Ahijah, daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the eyes
of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.
3 He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of
4 the house of the Lord, and renewed them. And he brought in the priests
5 and Levites, and assembled them in the broad way of the east, And said
unto them, Hear me, ye Levites ; now sanctify yourselves and sanctify the
house of the Lord God of your fathers, and remove the filthiness out of the
6 holy place. For our fathers have transgressed and done that which was evil
in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him, and have turned
7 their face from the dwelling of the LORD, and shown the back. They have
also shut the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned
incense nor offered burnt>offering in the holy place unto the God of Israel.
8 And the displeasure of the Lord was against Judah and Jerusalem, and He
delivered them to horror,1 to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with
your eyes. And lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and
our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. Now it is in my
heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that the hotness of
His anger may turn away from us. My sons, now delay not ; for the Lord
hatli chosen you to stand before Him to serve Him, and to be His ministers
and incense-burners.
9
10
11
246 II. CHRONICLES.
12 Then the Levites arose, Mahath son of Amasai, and Joel son of Azariah,
of the sons of the Kohathites ; and of the sons of Merari, Kish son of Abdi,
and Azariah son of Jehalelel ; 2 and of the Gershonites, Joah son of Zimmah,
13 and Eden son of Joah. And of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel j3
14 and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah. And of the sons of
Heman, Jehuel 4 and Shimi ; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and
15 Uzziel. And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and
came at the command of the king, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the
16 house of the Lord. And the priests went into the interior of the house of
the LORD to cleanse, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in
the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord ; and the
17 Levites took it to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron. And they
began on the first of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the
month they came to the porch of the Lord ; and they sanctified the house of
the Lord eight days, and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made
18 an end. And they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed
all the house of the Lord, and the altar of bnrnt-offering and all its vessels,
19 and the table of shew-bread and all its vessels. And all the vessels which
King Ahaz in his reign cast away in his infidelity we have prepared and
sanctified, and behold, they are before the altar of the Lord.
20 And Hezekiah the king rose early and gathered the rulers of the city,
21 and went up to the house of the Lord. And they brought seven bullocks,
and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he-goats for a sin-offering for the
kingdom, and for the sanctuary, and for Judah, and he bade the sons of
22 Aaron the priests to offer them on the altar of the Lord. And they killed
the cattle, and the priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar ;
and they killed the rams, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar ; and
23 they lulled the lambs, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar. And
they brought the he-goats of the sin-offering before the king and the congre-
24 gation, and they laid their hands upon them. And the priests killed them,
and offered their blood for sin upon the altar, to atone for all Israel ; for the
25 king had ordered the burnt-offering and the sin-offering for all Israel. And
he set the Levites in the house of the Lord, with cymbals, with psalteries,
and with harps, by the command of David, and Gad the king's seer, and
Nathan the prophet ; for by the Lord was the commandment by His pro-
26 phets. And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests
27 with the trumpets. And Hezekiah said to offer the burnt-offering on the
altar ; and when the burnt-offering began, the song of the Lord began also
28 with the trumpets,5 and after the instruments of David king of Israel. And
all the congregation worshipped, and the song was sung, and the trumpets
29 sounded ; 6 the whole until the burnt-offering was ended. And when they
made an end of offering, the king and all that were with him bowed down
30 and worshipped. And Hezekiah the king and the princes said to the Levites
to praise the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the seer ; and they
praised with gladness, and bowed down and worshipped.
31 And Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye have filled your hand unto the
Lord, draw nigh and bring sacrifices and thank-offerings into the house of
the Lord : and the congregation brought sacrifices and thank-offerings, and
32 every one that was willing of heart, burnt-offerings. And the number of the
burnt-offerings, which the congregation brought, was seventy bullocks, a
hundred rams, two hundred lambs ; all these for a burnt-offering to the
33 Lord. And the consecrated things were six hundred oxen and three thou-
34 sand sheep. Only the priests were too few, and they could not flay all the
burnt-offerings, and their brethren the Levites assisted them till the work
was ended, and till the priests had sanctified themselves ; for the Levites
85 were more upright of heart to sanctify themselves than the priests. And
also the burnt-offering was in abundance, with the fat of the peace-offerings,
and the libations for the burnt-offering : and the service of the house of the
CHAP. XXX. 247
36 Lord was established. And Hezekiah and all the people were glad that
God had prepared the people ; for the thing was done suddenly.
3. The Passoeer: ch. xxx.
Ch XXX. 1. And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to
Ephraim and Manasseh, to come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to
2 keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel. And the king took counsel
with his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover
3 in the second month. For they could not keep it at that time, because the
priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, nor had the people gathered
4, 5 to Jerusalem. And the thing pleased the king and all the people. And they
settled the thing, to issue a proclamation in all Israel, from Beer-sheba even
to Dan, to come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jeru-
6 salem ; for they had not kept it with a multitude as it was written. And the
posts went with the letters from the hand of the king and his princes through
all Israel and Judah, and at the command of the king, saying, Ye sons of
Israel, return unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will
return to the escaped remaining to you from the hand of the kings of Assyria.
7 And be not ye like your fathers and your brethren, who revolted against the
Lord God of their fathers, and He gave them up to desolation, as ye see.
8 Now be not stiff-necked like your fathers ; yield yourselves to the Lord, and
go into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord
9 your God, that the hotness of His anger may turn from you. For if ye return
to the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before
their captors, and they shall return to this land ; for the Lord your God is
gracious and merciful, and He will not turn His face from you if ye return
to Him.
10 And the posts passed from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Ma-
ll nasseh and unto Zebulun ; and they scoffed at them and mocked them. But
some men of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves, and
12 came to Jerusalem. Also the hand of God was upon Judah to give them
one heart to do the command of the king and the princes, by the word of the
Lord.
13 And much people assembled at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened
14 bread in the second month, a very great congregation. And they arose and
took away the altars that were in Jerusalem ; and all the altars for incense
15 they took away, and cast into the brook Kidron. And they killed the pass-
over on the fourteenth of the second month : and the priests and the Levites
were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt-offerings into the
16 house of the Lord. And they stood in their place after their rule, according
to the law of Moses the man of God, the priests sprinkling the blood from
17 the hand of the Levites. For there were many in the congregation that were
not sanctified ; and the Levites took charge of the killing of the passovers for
18 all that were unclean, to sanctify them unto the Lord. For a multitude of
the people, many from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had
not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the passover -not as it was written : for
19 Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon7 every one That
hath prepared his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though
20 not in the cleanness of the sanctuary. And the Lord heard Hezekiah, and
21 healed the people. And the sons of Israel that were in Jerusalem kept the
feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness ; and the Levites
and the priests were praising the Lord day by day, with instruments of
22 might to the Lord. And Hezekiah spake to the heart of all the Levites who
had good understanding of the Lord : and they ate8 the feast seven days,
offering sacrifices of peace, and confessing to the Lord God of their fathers.
23 And the whole congregation resolved to keep other seven days with glad-
24 ness. For Hezekiah king of Judah gave to the congregation a thousand
bullocks and seven thousand sheep ; and the princes gave to the congregation
248 II. CHRONICLES.
a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep : and a great many priests sanc-
25 titled themselves. And all the congregation of Judah, and the priests and
Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers
26 that came from the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, were glad. And
there was great gladness in Jerusalem ; for since the days of Solomon son of
27 David king of Israel was not the like in Jerusalem. And the priests [and] the
Levites9 arose and blessed the people : and their voice was heard, and their
prayer came up to His holy dwelling, to heaven.10
y. Further Religious Reforms o/Hezekiah: ch. xxxi.
Ch. XXXI. 1. And when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out
to the cities of Judah, and brake the statues, and cut down the asherim, and
pulled down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin,
and in Ephraim and Manasseh, completely : and all the sons of Israel returned,
every man to his possession, unto their cities.
2 And Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites after
their courses, every man according to his service, of the priests and the
Levites for burnt-offering and peace-offering, to minister, and to thank, and to
3 praise in the gates of the camp of the Lord. And the king's portion of his
property for burnt-offerings, for the burnt-offerings of the morning and of the
evening, and the burnt-offerings for the sabbaths, and the new moons, and
4 the set feasts, as it is written in the law of the Lord. And he said to the
people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to give the portion of the priests and
5 the Levites, that they might be stedfast in the law of the Lord. And when
the word came forth, the sons of Israel brought abundantly the first-fruits of
corn, must, and oil, and honey, and all the increase of the field ; and the tithe
6 of all they brought in abundance. And the sons of Israel and Judah that
dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought the tithe of oxen and sheep,
and the tithe of holy things11 consecrated unto the Lord their God, and laid
1 them in heaps. In the third month they began to lay down the heaps, and
8 in the seventh month they finished them. And Hezekiah and the princes
came and saw the heaps, and they blessed the Lord and His people Israel.
9, 10 And Hezekiah inquired of the priests and Levites concerning the heaps. And
Azariah the chief priest, of the house of Zadok, answered him and said, Since
they began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have eaten
and been satisfied, and left in abundance ; for the Lord hath blessed His
1 1 people, and this great store is left. And Hezekiah said to prepare chambers
12 in the house of the Lord, and they prepared them. And they brought in
the offerings and the tithe and the consecrated things faithfully ; and over
13 them Conaniah12 the Levite was ruler, and Shimi was second. And Jehiel,
and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel,
and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah were overseers under Conaniah12
and his brother Shimi, by the appointment of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah
14 the ruler of the house of God. And Kore, son of Jimnah the Levite, the
porter toward the east, was over the freewill-offerings of God, to distribute
15 the offering of the Lord, and the most holy things. And by him stood Eden,
and Minjamin, and Jeshua, and Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shechaniah in the
cities of the priests, with truth to give to their brethren, in the courses, to the
16 great as to the small. Beside their register of males from three years old
and upward, to every one that entereth into the house of the Lord, for the
1 7 rate of each day, for their service in their charges by their courses. And the
register of the priests by their father-houses ; and the Levites from twenty
18 years old and upward, in their charges by their courses. And to the register
of all their little ones, their wives, sons, and daughters, for all the congrega-
tion ; for in their faithfulness they sanctified themselves in the holy thing.
19 And for the sons of Aaron the priests, in the fields of the suburbs of their
cities, in every city [were appointed] men who were expressed by name, to give
portions to every male among the priests, and to all the register of the Levites.
CHAP. XXXII. 249
20 And Hezekiah did thus in all Judah, and did that which was good and right
21 and true before the Lord his God. And in every work which he began in
the service of the house of God, and in the law and the commandment to seek
his God, with all his heart ht: did, and prospered.
I. Expedition of Sennacherib against Jerusalem, and averting of the threatened Danger by
Divine Help : ch. xxxii. 1-23.
Ch. XXXII. 1. After these events, and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria
came and entered into Judah, and besieged the fenced cities, and thought
2 to break into them for himself. And Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was
3 come, and his face was for war against Jerusalem. And he took counsel with
his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains, which
4 were without the city; and they helped him. And much people was gathered,
and they stopped all the fountains, and the brook that flowed through the
land,13 saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water 1
5 And he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that was broken, and
raised it to the towers," and another wall without, and strengthened Millo in
6 the city of David, and made weapons in abundance, and shields. And he set
captains of war over the people, and gathered them to him in the broad
7 way at the gate of the city, and spake to their heart, saying, Be brave and
strong, fear not nor be dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the
8 multitude that is with him ; for with us is more than with him. With him
is an arm of flesh ; and with us is the Lord our God, to help us, and to fight
our battles : and the people relied upon the words of Hezekiah king of
Judah.
9 After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem, and
he himself stood against Lachish, and all his power with him, against
Hezekiah king of Judah, and against all Judah that was at Jerusalem, saying,
10 Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust, and why sit
11 ye in restraint in Jerusalem t Doth not Hezekiah mislead you to deliver you
to die by hunger and thirst, saying, The Lord our God shall deliver us from
12 the hand of the king of Assyria] Hath not this Hezekiah removed his high
places and his altars, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, saying, Before one
13 altar shall ye worship, and burn incense upon it 1 Know ye not what I and
my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands 1 Have the gods of the
nations of the lands been at all able to deliver their lands from my hand 1
14 Who was there among all the gods of these nations, that my fathers extirpated,
that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to
15 deliver you from my hand t And now let not Hezekiah deceive you nor
seduce you in this way, neither believe him ; for no god of any nation or
kingdom was able to deliver his people from my hand, nor the hand of my
16 fathers ; much more your God shall not deliver you from my hand. And his
servants spake yet more against the Lord, and against Hezekiah His servant.
17 And he wrote a letter to rail on the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against
Him, saying, Like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered
their people from my hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver His
18 people from my hand. And they cried with a loud voice, in the Jewish
tongue, to the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them
19 and trouble them, that they might take the city. And they spake to the
God of Jerusalem as against the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of
men's hands.
20 And for this Hezekiah the king, and Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet,
21 prayed and cried to heaven. And the Lord sent an angel, and cut off every
valiant hero and leader and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria : and
he returned with shame of face to his own land ; and he came into the house
of his god, and they that came out of his own bowels 16 there slew him with
22 the sword. And the Lord saved Hezekiah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
260 II. CHRONICLES.
from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria, and from the hand of all,16 and
23 defended them around. And many brought a gift to the LORD at Jerusalem,
and jewels to Hezekiah king of Judah ; and he was exalted in the eyes of all
nations thereafter.
i. Sickness, Remaining Years, and End of Hezekiah : vers. 24-33.
24 In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death, and he prayed unto tie
25 Lord : and He spake unto him, and gave him a sign. And Hezekiah repaid
not according to the benefit done to him ; for his heart became proud, and
26 there was indignation against him, and against Judah and Jerusalem. _ And
Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem ; and the indignation of the Lord came not upon them in the
days of Hezekiah.
27 And Hezekiah had very much riches and glory ; and he made himself
treasuries for silver, and gold, and precious stones, and spices, and shields, and
28 all articles of desire. And storehouses for the increase of corn, and must, and
29 oil ; and stalls for all kinds of cattle, and flocks for the folds.17 And he
made him cities, and possession of flocks and herds in abundance ; for God
30 had given him very much substance. And this Hezekiah stopped the upper
outflow of the water of Gihon, and led it l8 straight down to the west of the
31 city of David : and Hezekiah prospered in all his work. And so in the case
of the ambassadors of the princes of Babel, who sent to him to inquire of the
wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, to know all that
was in his heart.
32 And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his kindness, behold, they are
written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz, in the book of the
33 kings of Judah and Israel. And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they
buried him in the height of the sepulchres of the sons of David : and all
Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem gave him glory in his death : and
Manasseh his son became king in his stead.
1 Kethib: njJU (as in Jer. xv. 4, etc.) ; Keri: iTlVT (as, for example, in Deut. xxvili. 25).
1 For the name PSOjIT the Sept, u. Al., gives 'losXA-W ; c. Vat., 'UaXriX; Vulg., Jalaleel.
8 Kelhib : " Jeuel " ; Keri: " Jeiel " ; comp. 1 Chron. ix. 85, and elsewhere.
• Kethib: "Jehuel"; Keri: "Jehiel." The latter form in xxxl. 13 is the Kethib.
• The Sept. does not express the 1 before ^T,"?y. The Vulg. and Syr. appear to have read it, but render very
freely.
« Kelhib: D^VVriD; Keri: D'lXrlD; as in 1 Chron. xv. 24 ; 2 Chron. v. 12, vii. 6, xiii. 14.
1 The Sept, Vulg., and apparently the Syr., though it translates rather freely, give up here the Masoretic division of
the verse, and join "1JJ3 "1SD1 immediately with the following verse. So also E. Kimchi, and after him most of the
moderns.
•For ^73XS1, "and they ate," the Sept. appears to have read \p^) {xetl <n>virf'Ai<ra»).
• The \ before Dss*l?n in some mss., and in the old versions (Sept., Vulg., Syr.), seems a gloss from ver. 25. Comp.
fot tie asyndeton : " the priests, the Levites," for example, xxiii. 18.
lf For D^DKv some mss. and old prints have D^DKTl (accus. of direction).
11 For D,tJ'Tp "IB'JfD the Sept. (imttxttra. *lySr xai iylairai) seems to have read DsKHpfTl tjfli andsonamei
•goats" also along with oxen and sheep.
-' For VWJiS the Kethib has twice (vers. 12, 13) 1IV332 (so also Luther).
ls Instead of J"1Sn"7]in3 the Sept. has read TJJIV^rB i but the Masoretic reading is to be preferred on real
grounds; comp. ver. 30; 2 Kings xx. 20; Sir. xlviii. 17.
» For TAT'liu?}) ?JW (words which the Sept. leaves untranslated), from the et exstruxit turret desuper of tie
Vulg.. ni?1M iTvJ? 7)W seems to have originally stood in the text (Ew., Keil, Kamph., etc.).
« The Kethib W^D is miswritten for ifO^D (contracted from |D and WX\ constr. pL of tW)i a form Uia
H^D, 1 Chron. xx. 4
CHAP. XXIX. 1-19.
251
!• Some Mas. place 1,,3>K after ?3"*laDj a supplement which, unnecessary in itself, is not confirmed by the Sept.
T .
9T Vulff.
" The Sept. (z«j pavipiAi tU rk raifitix) appears to have had another reading ; perhaps also the Vulg. (caulasqu4
pecorum) ; comp. Lather's translation : " and folds for the sheep."
» Kethib: DIE""! (Pt)j Ken: D"1K>S1 (Pi. contracted).
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remark. — While the military
and political side of the reign of Hezekiah, its
1 elation to the Assyrian monarchy, its threatened
annihilation by the invasion of Sennacherib, with
the divine deliverance from this catastrophe, the
later sickness and recovery of the king, and his
proceedings with the ambassadors of Babylon, —
■while all this is much more fully narrated in the
books of Kings (2 Kings xviii. 8-xx. 9), and in
the parallel records of the book of Isaiah, than
here, our author, on the contrary, treats much
more fully and clearly of the reformation of wor-
ship by Hezekiah at the beginning of his reign,
his cleansing and n consecration of the temple,
his grand and general celebration of the passover,
in which many north Israelites participated, and
his other measures for the order and purification
of religious life. To the sections concerning this
inner religious and theocratic side of the reign of
Hezekiah, ch. xxix.-xxxi., correspond in 2 Kings
merely the seven introductory verses of ch. xviii. ,
so that almost the whole contents of those three
chapters are peculiar to the Chronist.
1. Hezekiah's Beginnings : the Cleansing and
Consecration of the Temple : ch. xxix. — Hezekiah
became king. insptn*, the fullest form of this
name, signifies "whom Jehovah strengthens," as
the somewhat shortened ^nspfn, Isa. xxxvii. 1 ff.,
or nspm, 2 Kings xviii. 1 ff. , means ' ' strength
of Jehovah." The Assyrian monuments present
the form Ha-za-ki-ya-hu, corresponding to that
of Isaiah ; see Schrader, p. 168 ff. Moreover, vers.
1, 2 agree almost throughout with 2 Kings xviii.
1-3. For the chronology see Evangelical and
Ethical Reflections, No. 3.— Vers. 3-19. The
Cleansing of the Temple. — He in the first year of
his reign, in the first month, that is, in Nisan,
the first month of the ecclesiastical year, not (as
Caspari thinks, Beitrage zur Einleitung in das
Buch Jesaia, p. Ill) in the first month of the
reign of Hezekiah. How long, that is, how many
months, he had reigned when he in the first
month of the new year began his measures of
reform, remains uncertain ; the assumption of
Von Gumpach [Die Zeitrechn. der Babylonier
und Assyrer, p. 99) and Bertheau, that Heze-
kiah's reign began with the first month (Tisri) of
the previous year, appears a bare conjecture in
ftice of the indefiniteness of the statement in our
text. — And renewed them, repaired them— a re-
novating process which is more exactly described
in 2 Kings xviii. 16 as an overlaying with gold
plate. — Ver. 4 And assembled them in the broad
way of the east, not, perhaps, in the inner court
(Bertheau, Kamph. ), but in an open area outside
the whole temple building, on the south-east or
east ; comp. Ezra x. 9, Neh. viii. 1, 3, 16. — Ver.
6. Now sanctify yourselves, an indispensable
prerequisite for a worthy and effectual perform-
ance of the business of cleansing the temple ;
comp. ver. 15 and Ex. xix. 10. On rFB, filthi-
ness, as a designation of idolatry, comp. Lam. i.
17 ; Ezra ix. 11 ; and the synonym nNDD in ver-
16. — Ver. 6. For our fathers have transgressed
— Ahaz and his contemporaries, for the statement
in ver. 7 suits these only. On "to turn the
back" (properly "give"), comp. Neh. ix. 29. —
Ver. 7. Chey have also shut the doors of the
porch, and thus of the whole temple, for only
through the porch was there access to the holy
and most holy place ; comp. xxviii. 24, where
also the new altar of burnt-offering erected by
Ahaz in the court after the heathenish model is
mentioned, which the Chronist, according to our
passage ("nor offered burnt-offering"), regarded
by no means as a lawful place of worship. — Ver.
8. And the displeasure of the Lord, etc. ; comp.
xix. 2, 10, xxiv. 18, xxxii. 25 ; and for the fol-
lowing strong terms : "horror, astonishment,
and hissing," Deut. xxviii. 25 ; Jer. xix. 8, xxiv.
9, xxv. 9 ; Lam. ii. 15 ; and also ch. xxx. 7. For
ver. 9 comp. the Evangelical and Ethical Reflec-
tions on the verse before, No. 3. — Ver. 10. Now
it is in my heart; comp. vi. 7, ix. 1 ; 1 Chron.
xxii. 7, xxviii. 2.— Ver. 11. My sons, familiar, per-
suasive address, as in Prov. i. 8, etc. — Now delay
not, literally, "withdraw yourselves not" TOEV),
Niph. of flats' > comp. Job xxvii. 8). On b,
comp. xxvi. 18 ; 1 Chron. xxiii. 13 ; Deut. x. 8.
— Ver. 12. Then the Levites arose. Of the fol-
lowing fourteen names, Joah son of Zimmah, and
Kish son of Abdi, occur already in the Levitical
genealogy, 1 Chron. vi. 5 f., 29 ; Mahath, Eden,
and Jehiel recur in xxxi. 13-15.— Ver. 13. And
of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri. That of this
family two Levites are expressly mentioned, is
explained by the high repute which Elizaphan or
Elzaphan, son of Uzziel, son of Kohath (Ex. vi.
18), enjoyed as prince of the house of Kohath in
the time of Moses (Num. iii. 30). Hence their
co-ordination here, on the one hand", with the
three Levitical head families, and on the other
with the three singing families of Asaph, Heman,
and Jeduthun.— Ver. 15. And they gathered
their brethren, the remaining Levites present in
Jerusalem. — At the command of the king by the
words of the Lord ; comp. xxx. 12 ; 1 Chron.
xxv. 5. The king's command was founded on the
divine prescription of the law.— Ver. 16. And
the priests . . . brought out all the uncleanness
. . . into the court, all the sacrificial vessels
employed in idolatry, perhaps also the remains of
the idolatrous offerings, and the like. For ilKDtp,
see on ver. 5 ; for the brook Kidron, comp. xv.
16, xxx. 14.— Ver. 17. They began on the first of
the first month. On the first eight days of the
month they employed themselves in the cleansing
of the court, the eight following in that of the
temple itself, so that they had finished on the
sixteenth.— Ver. 19. And all the vessels which
King Ahaz . . . cast away ; comp. xi. 14.
These are the brazen altar of burnt-offering, the
brazen sea, and the lavers on the stands ; see
252
II. CHRONICLES.
2 Kings x»i. 14, 17. For yan, abbreviated
form of yfran (1 Chron. xxix. 16), see Ew. § 196,
b. — And behold, they are before the altar of the
Lord, the altar of burnt-offering. — Vers. 20-30.
The Sacrifices at the Reeonsecration of the Temple.
— Ver. 21. And they brought seven bullocks. The
seven bullocks, rams, and lambs were, as the
sequel shows, to serve as a burnt-offering, the
seven he-goats, ver. 23, as a sin-offering ; comp.
Ezra viii. 35. — Ver. 22. And the priests received
the blood, " took it," as in ver. 16. — Ver. 2J.
Laid their hands upon them, "leaned their
hands upon them," comp. Lev. i. 4, from which
it moreover follows that this laying on of hands
took place also in the burnt-offerings. Perhaps
it is specially mentioned only in the case of the
sin-offering, because the circumstance that the
king and the congregation (naturally its represen-
tatives, the princes) directly laid their hands on
the sin-offering clearly exhibited the relation of
the expiatory act to the whole of Israel ; comp.
the following verse. — Ver. 24. And tlte priests
. . . offered their blood for sin upon the altar,
literally, "made their blood to atone"; man, as
in Lev. iv. 30, 34, ix. 15. The whole of Israel
is not merely the southern kingdom (Judah and
Benjamin), but, as xxx. 5 ff. shows, the whole of
the twelve tribes ; Hezekiah's great expiatory
\ct was intended to affect even the Ephraimites.
— Ver. 25. And he set the Levitts . with
cymbals ; comp. 1 Chron. xv. 16, and with
respect to the command of David, ch. viii. 14.
For Gad and Nathan as counsellors and assistants
of David in his arrangement of the temple service,
comp. 1 Chron. xxi., xxix. 29. — By His prophets,
" by the hand of His prophets," is an explanatory
apposition to niiT1 T3, and denotes that the
divine commandment is accomplished by the
instrumentality of the prophets. — Ver. 26. With
the instruments of David, with the instruments
introduced into the divine service by David ;
comp. 1 Chron. xxiii. 5 and xv. 16. — Ver. 27.
And when the burnt-offering began, tlie song of the
Lord, began, that is, the praise of the Lord by
singing with musical accompaniment ; comp.
I Chron. xvi. 42, xxv. 7. — And after the instru-
ments of David, literally, at the hands of the
instruments of David ; comp. 1 Chron. vi. 16,
xxv. 2, 3, 6 ; 2 Chron. xxiii. 18. The instru-
ments of David appear, accordingly, as governing
and leading the whole musical performance, accord-
ing to a view of the relation between singing and
music somewhat different from the modern. —
Ver. 28. And tlte song was sung, properly, "was
singing, sounded." The sense of the whole verse
is obvious : during the whole time of the offer-
ing the praising musical performance continued.
Accordingly ver. 30 also must be understood
not as if the Levites had struck up a song of
praise on the close of the offering at the com-
mand of the king, but in the sense of a supple-
mentary notice of this, that they were Davidic
and Asaphie songs, which the Levitical singers
performed during the solemnity. Asaph is here
called a seer (nth), as elsewhere also Heman
II Chron. xxv. 5) and Jeduthun (2 Chron. xxxv.
15). — And they praised with gladness, "even
unto gladness, " as in 1 Chron. xv. 16. — Vers.
21-36. The Presenting of Sacrifices, Thank-Offer-
ings, and Free-Will Offerings, as the Closing Act
of the Consecration. — Now ye have filled your
hand unto the Lord, ' ' have consecrated your-
selves to His service " ; comp. xiii. 9 ; Ex. xxviii.
41, xxxii. 29, etc. The words appear addressed
only to the priests ; but as the following sen-
tence : "Draw nigh and bring sacrifices and
thank-offerings," etc., according to ver. 32 ff.,
applies to the whole community, this is to be con-
sidered as included with the priests, and partici-
pating in their office. Our passage belongs,
therefore, to the Old Testament testimonies for
the universality of the priestly dignity in the
kingdom of God, like Ex. xix. 6 ; Hos. iv. 6 ;
Isa. lxi. 6. — Sacrifices and tliank-offerings, that
is, perhaps, " sacrifices even thank-offerings," or
"sacrifices as thank-offerings"; for, according
to Lev. vii. 11, 16, the thank-offerings (nilin)
appear as a special class of sacrifices (QTQT oi
D'OPB' 'nat), along with vows and free-will
offerings. — Ver. 33. And the consecrated things,
D^Enpri) the holy things ; here the animals pre-
sented as thank offerings. This is clear not
only from ver. 32, but also from such passages as
xxxv. 13 ; Neh. x. 34. — Ver. 34. Only the priests
were too few, ami they could not flay all the burnt-
offerings. " In private burnt-offerings the flaying
of the animal was the business of the worshipper,
Lev. i. 6 ; but in those presented on festivals in
the name of the community, it was the business
of the priests, in which, because it had no
specially priestly character, the Levites might
help" (Keil). — On p^n, "strengthen," here
"assist," comp. xxviii. 20; Ezra vi. 22. — For
the Levites were more upright of heart to sanctify
themselves than the priests, who, perhaps because
they were nearer the court, were more deeply
involved in the idolatrous movement under Ahaz.
3? ■H!^, properly, rectiores animo, better in-
clined, under a more righteous impulse. — Ver.
35. And also the burnt-offering was in abundance,
the voluntary burnt-offerings, ver. 31 f. (70 oxen,
100 rams, 200 lambs in number), which were
added to the proper sacrifice of consecration ;
and hence the burden of labour on the priests was
very great. For the fat pieces next mentioned,
comp. Lev. iii. 3-5 ; for the libations as an
accompaniment of the burnt - offering, Num.
xv. 1-16. — And the service of the house of
the Lord was established, prepared, arranged ;
comp. ver. 36, xxxv. 10, 16. The "service"
(may) is the regular sacrificial worship in the
temple, not its cleansing and consecration, as
Berth, thinks.— Ver. 36. Were glad that God
had, etc.; pann 5>J) = fan 1B>X Sty; comp. 1
Chron. xxvi. 28. This refers not, perhaps, to
the willingness of the people, which God effected
by His grace (Rarnb., Berth.), but the cleansing
of the temple and restoration of the true theo-
cratic worship, which was . accomplished by the
willing part taken by the people. — For the thing
was done suddenly, with unexpected readiness;
comp. ver. 3.
2. The Passover : ch. xxx.— Vers. 1 -12. Pre-
parations for it. — Andiorote letters also toEphraim
and Manasseh, to those belonging to the northern
CHAP. XXX. 2-18.
253
kingdom, who are .lere named by their chief
tribes; comp. vers. 5, 10.— Ver. 2. And the king
took counsel (comp. xxv. 17) . . . to keep the pass-
over in the second month. Such an after-celebra-
tion of the passover is permitted by the law, Num.
ix. 6-13, to those who, from Levitical defilement,
or being on a journey, were prevented from cele-
brating it at the right time, on the 14th Nisan.
On this decision of the law Hezekiah here rests
in transferring the whole celebration from the
first to the second month, because, as is expressly
stated, ver. 3, those two cases of hindrance (im-
purity of the priests, and distance of the greater
part of the people from Jerusalem) were actually
involved. Peculiar, yet destitute of sufficient
ground, is the assumption of Hitzig {Gesch. p.
219), that the law in Num. ix. 6 If. was first
occasioned by Hezekiah's after-celebration of the
passover, even as almost all the laws of the fourth
book of Moses originated in the times of Hezekiah.
— Ver. 3. Because the priests had not sanctified
themselves sufficiently. v^a">, compounded of ^,
HD, and *>|, signifies properly, "to that which
was enough," ad sufficientiam, and, in connection
with t<7, expresses here the thought that a suffi-
cient number of sanctified Levitically clean
priests could not be ready in the month of Nisan
to celebrate the passover at that time (flV3
NTin) ; comp. xxix. 34. Observe, moreover,
how clearly the contents of this verse, as well as
the following, point to this, that the celebration
of the passover, of which it treats, was to take
place, and did take place, in the next month, after
the consecration of the temple, and therefore in the
first year of Hezekiah's reign. Comp. at the close
of this chapter. — Ver. 5. And they settled the thing,
resolved upon it; comp. xxxiii. 8; Neh. x. 33.
For the proverbial form : "from Beer-sheba even
to Dan," to designate tlie whole territory of
Israel, comp. Judg. xx. 1 ; 1 Sam. iii. 20; 2 Sam.
iii. 10, etc.; see above on xix. 4. — For they had
not kept it with a multitude; so is y\? X? most
probably to be taken. The celebration should
take place with a numerous concourse of people;
comp. ver. 13 ; Ezra iii. 4. The explanation
followed by Kimchi, then by Luther, and recently
by de Wette: "For not for a long time," is
verbally inadmissible (comp. for yib, in the
sense of "in multitude, numerous," also ver.
24). A statement also follows in ver. 26 of the
length of time during which the passover had not
been celebrated by gnat numbers. — Ver. 6. And
the posts went, the royal couriers (whether belong-
ing directly to the king's guards is, notwith-
Btanding xxiii. 1 ff., uncertain); comp. Esth. iii.
13, 15, viii. 14. — Remaining to you from the
hand of the kings of Assyria, of Tiglath-pileser
and his viceroys (archons, eponyms) ; see on xxviii.
16. Pul (whether different from Tiglath-pileser,
comp. on 1 Chron. v. 26) cannot be here intended,
because he led no Israelites captive ; see 2 Kings
xv. 19. Neither can Shalmaneser be meant, as
he came to the throne almost at the same time
with Hezekiah, and his invasion took place in
the sixth year of this king, while that which is
here recorded belongs to the first year ; see under
ver. 27. — Ver. 8. Now be not stiff necked like your
fathers, since the time of Jeroboam. On "making
the neck stiff"=beiug stiffnecked, comp. 2 Kings
xvii. 14; Neh. ix. 16 f. ; on "giving the hand,"
for yielding oneself, vowing allegiance to, 2
Kings x. 15; Ezra x. 19; Ezek. xvii. 18 (as also
1 Chron. xxix. 24, Lam. v. 6, "submit to"); for
the close of the verse, xxix. 10. — Tour brethren
and your children shall find compassion before,
literally, ' ' shall ' be for compassion before your
captors;" comp. Neh. i. 11.— Ver. 10. And unto
Zebulun; thus not quite to the extreme no/th
border (not literally even to Dan, ver. 5). Ob-
serve the concrete historical character of this
notice, by no means favouring the suspicion of a
pure fiction of these reports on the part of our
author. The messengers also might very easily
reach Zebulun (and the southern Asher, ver. 11)
in the interval between the 16th Nisan (xxix.
17) and the 1 4th of the following month ; they
could scarcely have travelled to the more northern
Naphtali, next to Dan (Laish), and North Asher.
But these most northern parts of the country had
been quite wasted and depopulated by Tiglath-
pileser ; see 2 Kings xv. 29. That which is here
stated (vers. 10, 11) agrees still less with the
hypothesis of Caspari and Keil, that all that is
related in our chapter happened in the time after
the fall of Samaria (see under ver. 27), as the
artificial attempts at adaptation by Keil show. —
Ver. 12. Also the hand of God was upon Judah
to give them one heart. The phrase : DVT^Nn "P
3 nrVil) nere sensu bono of the blessed effect of
the divine power (comp. Ezra viii. 22), otherwise
usually in the sense of judicial punishment (Ex.
ix. 3; Deut. ii. - 15, etc.). — By the word of the
Lord; comp. xxix. 15. — Vers. 13-22. The Festival
itself. — Took away the altars; those erected by
Ahaz for idolatrous burnt-offerings and incense ;
comp. xxviii. 24. — Ver. 15. And tlie priests and
the Levites were ashamed ; a clause referring to
ver. 3, which points by way of supplement to
this, that the present full participation of the
Levitical spirituality, in contrast with the former
deficiency (especially with regard "to the priests,
xxix. 34), was owing to the feeling of shame mean-
while awakened in the whole order on account of
their former participation in idolatry. — Ver. 16.
And they stood in their place. 1DJ), "place,
stand," as xxxv. 10; Dan. viii. 17, 18. — After
their rule; comp. 1 Chron. vi. 17. — The priests
sprinkling the blood from the hand of the Levites,
that is, the Levites handed them the blood to
sprinkle on the altar. That the Levites here did
this, whereas this handing of the blood was the
part of the several worshipping householders
(xxxv. 6; Ezra vi. 20), is explained, ver. 17, by
pointing out that only the Levites were as yet all
properly cleansed, and not the remaining multi-
tude (rial here, and ver. 18, a neuter substantive
before the preposition, and not an adverb, as in
Ps. cxx. 6). — Ver. 18. Many from Mphraim and
Manasseh, Issaehar and Zebulun. The Chronist
reports this not from "an excess of national
feeling," as if he wished to represent the whole
northern kingdom as subjected to the Jewish king
Hezekiah (H. Schultz, Theologie des Alten T. ii.
309), but simply because some of the tribes of the
northern kingdom, then governed by Hosea, and
already on the verge of total ruin, had sent repre
251
II. CHRONICLES.
sentatives to the passover of Hezekiah, to signify
that the feeling of national guilt was awakened in
them in all its strength. That in ver. 11 the
tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun, but here
Ephraim, Manasseh, Issaohar, and Zebulun, are
named as '" humbled " (returning penitent to the
theocratic centre of worship), appears to rest on
definite historical grounds, the nature of which
we cannot now determine. — Yet they ate the pass-
over not as it was written, as Levitically unclean,
and thus contrary to the precept, Num. ix. 6;
comp. Josephus, de B. Jud. vi. 9. 3, and under
vcr. 26. — The good Lord pardon. With these
closing words of ver. 18 ("Ijn -isa*1 D10H nirP)
are to be immediately connected, notwithstanding
the Masoretic division of the verses, the initial
words of ver. 19 : " Every one that hath prepared
his heart to seek God. " "jj)2 stands thus before
the relative sentence, ver. 19 [rather before ~?3],
without -|t>>K (as ptf, 1 Chron. xv. 12). On
"1Q3, in the sense of forgiving, comp. Ps. Ixv.
4; Lev. xvi. 6, 11.— Though not in the cleanness
of the sanctuary, though they did not strictly
comply with the legal prescriptions concerning
the purity to be observed in approaching the
sanctuary. A remarkable mildness and almost
evangelical freedom of view are expressed in these
words. — Ver. 20. And healed the people, forgave
their guilt, healed them in an ethical respect ;
comp. Ps. xli. 5;Hos. xiv. 5; Jer. iii. 22. The
healing of disease or of death, that was to be
apprehended as punishment for their guilt (Lev.
xv. 31), is scarcely intended (against Berth, and
Kamph. ). — Ver. 21. And the sons of Israel that
were in Jerusalem, "were found"; comp. xxix.
29, xxxi. 1. — With instruments of might to the
Lord, instruments by which they ascribed might
to the Lord, glorified His might (comp. Ps. xxix.
1), therefore with instruments for praising the
might of the Lord. Interesting, but not quite
certain, is the interpretation of Kamphausen, who
takes fjf V332 by itself in the sense: "with in-
struments of might," that is, with loud sound. —
Ver. 22. And Hezekiah spake to the liearl of all
the Levites, spake hearty, loving, encouraging
words to them. — Who had good understanding of
the Lord, of the service of the Lord. — And they
ate the feast seven days. We are scarcely to read
with the Sept. (see Crit. Note) : " And they com-
pleted the feast;" for the reading: "eat the
feast," appears simply modelled after the known:
"eat the passover," as the following: "offering
sacrifices of peace," clearly shows (comp. also Ps.
cxviii. 27). Moreover, the collective worshippers,
not merely the Levites and priests, are the subject.
— And confessing to the Lord God of their fathers,
namely, with praise and thanksgiving — not, per-
haps, with penitent confession of their guilt, as
some of the ancients thought, nilfln is quite
the ifyftvXtyuirtai of the Hellenistic Greek (and so
of the Sept. in our passage). — Vers. 23-27. The
Feast of Seven Days after the Passover. — Resolved
to keep ("make ") other seven days with gladness.
HPIDtJ') adverbial accusative for nnDti'a- — Ver.
24. For Hezekiah . . . gave to the congregation
(properly, heaved, gave as a heave-offering; comp.
xxxv. 7) a thousand bullocks, etc. ; that in, th*
king and princes had contributed victims cc
liberally for the passover, that they had not con-
sumed the whole during the seven days of the
feast, but had still provision for so long an after-
feast. — And a great many priests sanctified them-
selves; the extraordinary abundance of offerings
could thus be orertaken ; comp. ver. 3, xxix. 34.
— Ver. 25. And the strangers that came from the
land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah. These
strangers (D^j) from Israel and Judah are here,
as certainly as they were distinct from "the con-
gregation that came out of Israel" (= Ephraim),
that is, from the Ephraimites mentioned vers. 11,
18, actually "strangers," that is, proselytes. It
is otherwise in xv. 9, where those dwelling as
strangers among the Jews,, from Ephraim and
Manasseh and Simeon, are simply the Israelites
that have migrated thence. — Ver. 26. For since
the days of Solomon . . . was not the like in Jeru-
salem, no so fair and sublime a festival cele-
brated by so great a multitude. But the point
of comparison is perhaps not any passover under
Solomon, but rather the feast of the consecration
of the temple under this king (vii. 1-10). This
resembles the passover of Hezekiah in this respect,
that, with the feast of tabernacles following, it
lasted also fourteen days. Because this only is
intended, and not any passover of Solomon, there
is no contradiction between our passage, or in
general between that which is depicted in oar
chapter and xxxv. 18, and 2 Kings xxiii. 22. If
in the latter passage it is said of Josiah's passover:
"There was not holden such a passover from the
days of the Judges," this remark refers, in the
first place, to the purity and legitimacy of the
feast ; and in this respect the present celebration
by Hezekiah was defective, just as our author
has expressly acknowledged.— Ver. 27. And the
priests (and) the Levites arose; comp. Crit. Note.
That the benediction of the priests was heard,
and actually penetrated to His (God's) dwelling
in the heaven, our historian might conclude with
sufficient certainty, from the further gladness and
elevation of heart which he had to recount in the
two following chapters of Hezekiah's reign (in its
inner as well as outer aspect).
On the date of Hezekiah's passover, first Keil
(Komment. zu den Buchern der Kbnige, 1845, p.
515 f.), then Caspari (Beitrdge zur Einleitung in
das Bach Jesaia, p. 109 ff.), and again Keil
(Komment. zur Chron. p. 343 ff.), laid down the
opinion that it was held not in the first year of
his reign, in the next month after the cleansing
of the temple, but considerably later, namely,
after the destruction of the kingdom of the ten
tribes, in his sixth year. Against this assump.
tion, and for the usual view, according to which
the Chronist in our chapter means to report some-
thing immediately following the feast of the con-
secration described in ch. xxix., speak— 1. The 1
consec. in niw at the beginning of ver. 1 ; 2.
The statement in ver. 3, that "the priests had
not sanctified themselves sufficiently," which
clearly refers to xxix. 34, and does not at all
permit the interposition of a period of six years
between the two chapters ; 3. The naming of the
second month in ver. 2, which is certainly to be
understood from xxix. 3, 17 (the "first mouth,"
that is, Nisan, in the first year of his reign), and
CHAP. XXXI. 1-12.
255
therefore to be referred to the first year of Heze-
kiah. To these in themselves decisive grounds,
which Keil vainly endeavours in a long discussion
to invalidate, are to be added, as further cogent
arguments — 4. The circumstance that our author,
if ne had actually meant to represent the passover
as instituted after the fall of Samaria and the
destruction of the northern kingdom, and even
■with reference to the condition and necessity of
the population occasioned by this catastrophe,
must have expressly said so, as such an important
motn for including the Ephraimites as partakers
in the feast could not have been passed, over in
silence ; 5. The circumstance that the manner in
which these northern guests and their seats are
mentioned in vers. 6, 10 f. and 18 suits only
the time after the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, not
that after the fall of Samaria (see on these pas-
sages, especially ver. 11) ; 6. The circumstance
that the description given in vers. 10-12 of the
preparations for the festival, compared with the
opening of the description of the feast itself in
ver. 13, makes only a short duration of these
preparations probable ; 7. And lastly, the cir-
cumstance that the appearance of a not incon-
niderable number of communicants from the
northern kingdom agrees very well with that
which is attested in 2 Kings xvii. 2 of the com-
paratively pious and theocratic character of Hosea,
the last king of Ephraim, and, on the contrary,
can scarcely be reconciled with the report there,
ver. 24 ff., given concerning the moral and reli-
gious condition of the population left in the
northern kingdom after the defeat of Hosea and
the fall of Samaria. The usual assumption,
which makes the temple consecration and the
passover to take place in immediate succession
in the first year of Hezekiah, appears from all
this to be most agreeable to the text, and alone
truly corresponding with the historical relations
that have to be taken into account.
3. Further Religious Reforms of Hezekiah : ch.
xxxi. — On ver. 1, comp. 2 Kings xviii. 4, where,
however, on the one hand, the destruction of the
images and altars also in Ephraim and Manasseh
is not mentioned ; on the other hand, the break-
ing of the figure of the brazen serpent (Nehush-
tan) is narrated, which our report does not ex-
pressly mention. — All Israel that were present;
comp. xxx. 21. For the statues (monuments)
and asherim, comp. on xiv. 2. — And in Ephraim
and Manasseh completely. With reference to
Ephraim and Manasseh, that is, the northern
kingdom (comp. xxx. 10), this "completely"
(!T?D$> *IV) *s naturally to be understood cum
grano salis, and not to be pressed as a strictly
literal statement. The report that in Manasseh
and Ephraim also the places of idolatrous worship
were removed, could scarcely, on account of 2
Kings xvii. 24 ff., be brought into harmony with
the assumption of Keil that these facts are to be
placed after 722 B.C. — Ver. 2. And Hezekiah
appointed . . . after their courses, according to
the classification originating with David ; comp.
'• Chron. xxiv.; 2 Chron. viii. 14.— Every man
according to his service, properly, " at the mouth
f'f his service"; comp. Num. vii. 5, 7. — In the
gates of the camp of the Lord, in the temple as
well as in the court of the priests; comp: 1 Chron.
ix. 18 ff. — Ver. 3. And the king's portion of his
property for burnt-qfirmgs, that is, the king
furnished what he had to contribute to the burnt-
offering in victims out of his possession (which
is described underneath, xxxii. 27 ff., as very
great). Comp. the prescriptions of the law that
here come into account, Num. xxviii. 3 ff., xxix.
1 ff. — Ver. 4. And he said to the people . . . to
give the portion of the priests and Levites, namely,
the firstlings and tithes of the increase of the
cattle and the field ; see Ex. xxiii. 19 ; Num.
xviii. 12, 21 ff.; Lev. xxvii. 30-33. The motive,
"that they might be stedfast in the law of the
Lord," expresses the thought, that in order to
fulfil their official duties they must be able to
live free and untrammelled by earthly cares ;
comp. Neh. xiii. 10 ff.; 1 Cor. ix. 4 ff.; 2 Thess
iii. 9 ; 1 Tim. v. 17 f.— Ver. 5. And when Hie
word came forth, properly, "spread forth";
comp. Job i. 10. The "sons of Israel" there
mentioned are first only the inhabitants of Jeru-
salem, as ver. 6 shows, for there first is mention
made of the remaining "sons of Israel" (immi-
f rants from the northern kingdom) and "sons of
udah." — Ver. 6. And the tithe of holy things
consecrated unto the Lord their God. If in
Num. xviii. 8 ff. not tithe (irVD) Dut heave-
offerings (niDriJl) of all consecrated things,
that is, of all the consecrated gifts of the Israel-
ites, are said to fall to the Levites, this difference
from our statement is only apparent, not warrant-
ing any emendation of the text after the reading
of the Sept. {WiVtuDcra ttlyuv, Ktti, etc. ; see Crit.
Note). This is merely a diversity of the phrase ;
what is called, Num. xviii., " terumoth, " is here
designated tithe, because the terumoth were in
like manner "a remnant of that which was con-
secrated to the Lord, as the tithe was a remnant
of all the cattle and field produce " (rightly Keil.
against Berth, and Kamph.). — Ver. 7. In the
third month they began to lay down, or found ;
to form the heaps by gathering together the gifts
in grain. The third month, in which Pentecost
falls, is the time of the finished harvest, as the
seventh month (with the feast of tabernacles) is
that of the finished fruit and wine harvest. For
the form "liD"^ with dag. in D, see Ew. § 245 a.
— Vers. 9-19. The Application and Preservation
of the Collected Gifts.— Inquired . . . concerning
the heaps, he inquired how it came that so
great a quantity of gifts was accumulated. Only
to this meaning of his question does the following
answer of the high priest correspond, especially
the closing sentence of it. — Ver. 10. And Aza-
riah the chief priest. Whether this be the sams
as the Azariah occurring, xxvi. 17, in the his^-y
of Uzziah, forty years before, is at least very
uncertain. — And this great store is left, literally,
"and. that which is left (forms) this great store."
Perhaps ini31 simply is to be read ins-.ead oi
"Intel"!) (Kamph.). — Ver. 11. And Hezekiah Mid
to prepare in the house of the Lord, perhaps not
new store-rooms (rii3K^, as 1 Chron. ix. 26),
but only a portion of those already built by
Solomon (1 Kings vi. 5) for the reception of the
stores (ron, as 1 Kings vi. 19).— Ver. 12. And
they brought in the offerings, the first-fruits, ver.
5. On the word "faithfully," conscientiously,
comp. xix. 9. — And over them, over the first"
25fi
II. CHRONICLES.
fruits, tithe, and consecrated things. For the
name Conanjahu, comp. the Crit. Note ; for the
term "second" (next after him), ilJB'O. see 1
Chron. v. 12 ; 2 Kings xxv. 18.— Ver. 13. And
J.ehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath. Two of these
names, Jehiel and Nahath, occurred also in xxix.
12, 14 ; whether they refer to the same persons is
doubtful. — Overseers -under C'onaniah,- literally,
*' -at the hand of Conaniah. " — By the appointment
jf Hezekiah, or by his order. The Azariah,
'ruler of the house of God," named along with
the king is the high priest named ver. 10 (comp.
1 Chron. ix. 11). — Ver. 14. And Kore . . . the
porter toward the east; comp. 1 Chron. ix. 18.
It was his part to distribute ' ' the offering of the
Lord," the portion of the peace-offering belonging
to the Lord, and by him transferred to the priests
(Lev. vii. 14, 32, x. 14 f. ), "and the most holy
things, " the part of the sin and trespass offerings
to be eaten by the priests in the temple (Lev. vi.
10, 22, vii. 6). — Ver. 15. And by him (properly,
"at his hand," ver. 13), under him, under his
oversight. — With truth (comp. ver. 12). This
the Vulg. perhaps rightly connects with the fol-
lowing words: "conscientiously to give," though
against the accents. The object of this "giving"
is that share of firstlings, tithes, and consecrated
things which the Levites dwelling in the priestly
cities were entitled by law to receive. — Ver. 16.
Beside the register of males, with the exception
of the registered males from three years old and
upwards who have "entered into the house of
the Lord," that is, are consecrated to the temple
service in Jerusalem, and are therefore otherwise
provided for (exempted from the provision in the
priestly cities when they were at home) ; comp.,
for example, Samuel, etc. — For the rate of each
day; toi'3 Di,"13"t^, as viii. 13 f. ; Neh. xi. 23.
— Ver. 17 is, like ver. 16, a parenthesis, referring
to the registers of the priests and Levites. — And
the register of the priests. JIKI, according to
Ew. § 277, d; comp. Neh. ix. 34. On the
twentieth year of the Levites, at the beginning
of their official functions, comp. 1 Chron. xxiii.
24, 27. — Ver. 18 is connected with ver. 15, after
the two parentheses vers. 16 and 17. With the
dative there, DiTriN?, corresponds the ETTTiriTI,
which likewise depends on rifl?, "to give to
their brethren," and to the register of all their
little ones for all the congregation. This ~~)J?
">np applies to the whole community of the
Levites, including wives and children, not
merely to the priestly order (as S. Schmidt,
Ramb., Kamph. intend). — For in their faithful-
ness they sanctified themselves in the holy thing.
DmiDN3, as 1 Chron. ix. 22. The "sanctifying
themselves'' (tJ«!pnn) refers to the disinterested
and righteous distribution of the "holy thing,"
that is, the offerings which they were entitled to
receive. — Ver. 19. And for the sons of Aaron . . .
in the fields of the suburbs of their cities ; comp.
Deut. xxv. 34; Num. xxxv. 5. — Were appointed
men, who were expressed by name, men of repute;
comp. xx viii. 15; 1 Chron. xii. 31. These officers,
according to what follows, had the charge of the
Levitical and priestly families occupying the land
around the priestly cities, as those mentioned it,
ver. 15 had the charge of the priests and Levites
in these cities. — Vers. 20, 21. Close of the Report
of Hezekiah 's Reforms in Worship. — And did that
which was good and right (comp. xiv. 1) and true
before the Lord ; JIQKn, as in xxxii. 1 ; Zech
viii. 19. — And in every work which he began . . .
to seek his God, or also, "seeking his God, "while
he sought Him ; comp. xxvi. 5 ; Ezra vi. 21.
4. Sennacherib's Expedition against Jerusalem,
and End : ch. xxxii. 1-23. Comp. the full
parallel account in 2 Kings xviii. 13-xix. 37, and
in Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii., to which the present nar-
rative, notwithstanding its parenetic, rhetorical
brevity, makes some not unimportant additions.
With the three parallel delineations is to be
compared the full Assyriologic commentary of
Schrader, pp. 168-212. — After tJiese events and
this faithfulness, Sennacherib, etc., properly,
" Sancherib " (Sept.: liMvet^nfiiu. in Chronicles,
~2,w.Xtfif> in 2 Kings and Isaiah), the Sin-ahi-irib
or Sin-ahi-ir-ba ("Sin," the moon-god, "gives
the brothers much ") of the Assyrian inscriptions ;
according to the Assyrian canon of sovereigns, the
son, reigning 705-681 B.C., and successor of Sar-
gon, the successor of Shalmaneser and conqueror
of Samaria ; comp. Evangelical and Ethical Re-
flections, No. 3. — And thouglU to break into them
for himself, to take them ; comp. xxi. 17. — Ver.
2. And his face was for ivar against Jerusalem;
comp. xx. 3; Luke ix. 53. — Ver. 3. Took counsel
. . . to stop the waters of the fountains, not to
close them up wholly, but to cover them over
(Luther, cover), and draw away their waters by
subterranean channels. — Ver. 4. A nd tliey stopped
. . . and the brook that flowed through the land,
the Gihon, the brook of the valley of Ben-hin-
nom ; comp. ver. 30; 2 Kings xx. 20. — Why
should the kings of Assyria . . . find much water ?
On the phrase, comp. Isa. v. 4 ; for the plural
"kings,' above on xxviii. 16. — Ver. 5. And he
strengthened himself (p.'fnn'l), as xv. 8, xxiii. 1.
— And built up all the wall that was broken;
comp. Neh. iv. 1 ; Prov. xxv. 28. — And raised it to
the towers, or, raised its towers, according to the
probably original reading ; see Crit. Note. The
Masoretic text gives the quite unsuitable meaning,
"and rose upon the towers," or, "and brought
to the towers " (the wall ? or the war engines ?).
— And another wall without, he built or repaired.
This refers to the wall enclosing the lower city, or
Acra, which already existed, according to Isa.
xxii. 11, the repair of which is here noticed. Foi
Millo, comp. on 1 Chron. xi. 8 ; for the weapons
made to defend these fortifications,. — arrows, mis-
siles, and shields, — comp. xxiii. 10, xxvi. 14. — Ver.
6. And gathered them to him in the broad way at
the gate of the city; whether on the same opei.
area at the gate as that mentioned xxix. 4, to-
ward the east, must, from the indefiniteness of the
expression, remain uncertain ; comp. also Neh.
viii. 1, 16. — And spake to their heart; comp
xxx. 22. — Ver. 7. For with us is more than with
him; comp. 2 Kings vi. 16 and the following
verse, which gives the particulars how there is
"more'1 (2~\, not "a greater," as .Luther trans
lates) with Hezekiah and the Israelites than with
the enemy. On "an arm of flesh " as a designa
tioa of human impotence and apparent powei
CHAP. XXXII. 9-31.
257
comp. Isa. xxxi. 3, Jer. xvii. 5, Ps. lvi. 5 ; on
"to fight our battles," 1 Sam. viii. 20, xviii. 17. —
Vers. 9-19. Sennacherib's Advance to Jerusalem.
Comp. the more ample account, 2 Kings xviii.
17-36. — And he himself stood against Lachish ;
comp. xxv. 27. — And all his power with him,
literally, "all his sovereignty" (irV?B>DD); comp.
Isa. xxxiv. 1. — Ver. 10. Whereon do ye trust ?
literally, "whereon are ye trusting and sitting in
restraint ? " (distress ; comp. Deut. xxviii. 53 if. ;
2 Kings xxiv. 10, xxv. 2; Ezek. iv. 7). — Ver.
11. Doth not Hezekiah mislead you ? literally, "is
not Hezekiah misleading you (JVDD, as 2 Kings
xviii. 32), to deliver you to die by hunger?" etc.
— On ver. 12, comp. 2 Kings xviii. 22 ; on vers.
13-15, comp. 2 Kings xviii. 35, Isa. xxxvi. 20,
xxxvii. 11-13. — Ver. 16. And his servants spake
yet more, the servants already, ver. 9, mentioned,
whose Assyrian titles (Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rab-
shakeh, 2 Kings xviii. 17 ; on which comp.
Schrader's illustrations, p. 198 ff.) our author
thinks fit not to adduce, as he omits the whole
contents of their blasphemous speeches. — Ver. 17.
And he wrote a letter. This was, according to
2 Kings xix. 14, at a later period, after Rabshakeh
had reported to him the obstinate resistance of the
Jewish people ; whereas the speech here reported
in ver. 18 of the servants of Sennacherib in the
Jewish tongue is there (in 2 Kings) addressed to
the Jews at the same time with the first negotia-
tion. Our author has apparently traced the course
of things in a real rather than a chronological
order, because his aim was to exhibit an impres-
sive advance in the steps (first a speech of the
servants in the Assyrian tongue, then a letter of
Sennacherib to Hezekiah, and lastly a demand to
surrender in the Jewish tongue), from the same
rhetorical motive that led him also before, on the
occasion of the war with Syria and Ephraim,
xxviii. 16 ff., to co-ordinate the facts not so much
in a temporal as in a real sequence. — Vers. 20-23.
Hezekiah's and Isaiah's Prayer, and the Divine
Help ; comp. 2 Kings xix. 14-35 ff. ; Isa. xxxvii.
15-19. — And for this, nKP^V, on account of this
railing on the God of Israel, which they must
have heard.— Ver. 21. And the Lord sent, an
angel; comp. 2 Kings xix. 35 ff., and Bsihr on
this passage. The "valiant heroes" destroyed
by the angel are the common soldiers (comp.
xvii. 14), along with whom are then specially
named the "leaders and captains" (officers and
generals). On "with shame of face," comp.
Ezra ix. 7, Ps. xliv. 16; on " they that came out of
his own bowels "= sons, comp. Gen. xv. 4, xxv. 23,
2 Sam. vii. 12, xvi. 11; and see the Crit. Note. —
Ver. 22. And defended them around, literally,
"led them around," D^rU,1 (i°r which Berth, and
Kamph., because the word is omitted in the Syr.
and Arab., think ought to be read on? nj'l,
"and gave them rest around"); comp. pnj, in
the sense of protecting, Ps. xxxi. 4; Isa. xlix. 10,
li. 18, etc. — Ver. 23. And many brought a gift to
the Lord ; comp. xvii. 11, xxvi. 8 ; 2 Kings
xx. 12. Among the ' ' many " seem to be reckoned,
as the following clause shows, members of the
neighbouring nations, who had been delivered by
the helpful interposition of the God of the Jews
from the same calamity of war and danger of
ruin.
5. Sickness, Remaining Reign, and End of
Hezekiah : vers. 24-33. — In those days Hezekiah
■was sick. Considerably fuller in 2 Kings xx.
1-11 and Isa. xxxviii. — Ver. 25. And Hezekiah
repaid not according to the benefit done to him, liter-
ally, "according to the benefit in him"; comp.
Ps. cxvi. 12. — For his heart became -proud, liter-
ally, ' ' lifted itself up " ; comp. xxvi. 16. Wherein
the proud uplifting consisted, namely, in the
boastful exhibition of his treasures to the ambas-
sadors of Babylon (2 Kings xx. 12 ff.), is not here
said, but is briefly indicated in ver. 31 ; neither
is the manner in which " indignation came upon
him" (comp. xix. 10; 1 Chron. xxvii. 24), namely,
by a prophetic warning and announcement of
punishment (Isa. xxxix. 5-7 ; 2 Kings xx. 16 ff),
more particularly defined. The mode of narrative
in our section is generally that of the epitome.
On ver. 26 comp. Isa. xxxix. 8; 2 Kings xx. 19.
— Vers. 27-31. Hezekiah's Riches, and Building
of Cities and Water-courses. — And Hezekiah hat
very much riches; comp. 2 Kings xx. 13, an<>
the earlier accounts in the reigns of David (1 Chron.
xxix. 28), Solomon (2 Chron. i. 12 ff.), and Jeho-
shaphat (xviii. 1 ). Besides the metals themselves,
are mentioned also among his treasures spices (as
Dan. xi. 8) and "shields," that is, costly gilded
weapons and the like (comp. Isa. xxxix. 2). — Ver.
28. And storehouses for the increase of corn.
nW3DD (P- transpos. lit. for niDMD, from DJ3,
heap up), magazines ; comp. Ex. i. 11; 1 Kings
ix. 19; 2 Chron. viii. i. — And stalls for all kinds
of cattle, literally, "for all cattle and cattle."
nilX, "stalls," properly, "racks;" comp. the
only orthographically different nVHN, ix. 25, and
at the close of our verse, niTlK, which seems to
mean folds. But perhaps the last clause is cor-
rupt, and instead of "flocks for the folds," rather
(with the Sept. and Luther) an inversion of the
terms is to be assumed ; see Crit. Note. — Ver. 29.
And he made him cities, Ony, perhaps watch-
towers for the keepers of the cattle ; comp. on
xxvi. 10 and 2 Kings xvii. 9. — And possession of
flocks and herds in abundance ; comp. Job i. 3 ;
for EKQ"1, possession, xxxi. 3. — Ver. 30. This
Hezekiah stopped; see on vers. 3, 4. — And led it
straight down to the west of the city of David, led
it, the water of the brook Gihon, flowing by the
city on the east, by a subterranean channel west-
ward into the city. — Ver. 31. And so in the case
of the ambassadors of the princes of Babel. In-
stead of pi (that cannot be rendered, with Luther
and others, in an adversative sense by " but " or
" though ") we expect J&1 or & pn, " only
not. " But the author does not intend to repre-
sent the interview with the ambassadors of Baby-
lon as an exception to the otherwise prosperous
career of the king, but rather as a confirmation of
that which is said in this respect ; and especially
as Hezekiah was not punished for the perversity
of his conduct at that time, but only humbled,
and for himself, at least, spared the deserved judg-
ment of God (comp. ver. 26). The plural "princes
of Babel," instead of the sing., which, according
to 2 Kings xx. 12 ff., we might expect, is pernaps
258
II. CHRONICLES.
to be interpreted as the term kings in xxviii. 16,
xxx. 6, xxxii. 4. On the king Merodach-baladan,
and on the chronology of this event, see Evangeli-
cal and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.— Vers. 32, 33.
Close of the History of Hezekiah. —And Ms kind-
nets, literally, "kindnesses" (DHDH, otherwise
than vi. 42); comp. rather Neh. xiii. 14 (against
Keil). — \ er. 33. And they buried him in the height
(or also " the ascent" ; comp. xx. 16) of the sepul-
chres of the sons of David, that is, in a place
higher than the previous tombs of the kings, as
in these, perhaps, there was no longer sufficient
space. — And gaoe him glory, namely, by the
burning of spices and the like, as at the death of
Asa (xvi. 14 ; comp. xxi. 19).
T.VANOELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS AND
APOLOGETIC REMARKS- (ESPECIALLY WITH
REGARD TO CHRONOLOGY) ON CH. XXIX.-
XXXII.
1. The relation of our author concerning the
history of Hezekiah includes in itself two un-
- equal parts of tolerably heterogeneous materials, —
a detailed report of the reforms in worship with
which the king began his reign (xxix.-xxxi.), and
an excerpted and compressed description of the
chief warlike events and other public acts and
occurrences of his reign (xxxii.). This plan,
combining the supplementing with the excerpt-
ing process, clearly shows that it is Hezekiah
the reformer of worship, and not the warlike
prince and pious ruler, that he intends first and
chiefly to depict. As a reformer of worship,
Hezekiah deserves indeed to be held up along
with Josiah, among all the kings from Solomon
to the exile. The thoroughgoing spirit, strong
faith, and energy displayed in his measures leaves
all that had been formerly undertaken by Asa
and Jehoshaphat far behind ; and even the later
Josiah, notwithstanding the character of stricter
legality which his measures bore, cannot compare
with him, inasmuch as the reforming activity
of Hezekiah prepared the way for his own, and
thus he stood, as it were, on the shoulders of
Hezekiah, and had to look up to what was accom-
plished by the latter as his model. Between
those less efficient and less decided predecessors
and this successor, more zealous indeed, but less
favoured by fortune, and aiming at no perpetuity
of his labours, Hezekiah stands as the greatest
hero of faith, as the purest evangelical character
among the Jewish kings of the Old Testament.
His work forms, by virtue of his powerful, ruth-
lessly stringent opposition to idolatry, and his
honourable zeal for the law, coupled with sincere
devotedness of heart to God, a striking typical
parallel to that of the evangelical princes in the
age of the Reformation, — John the Constant,
Philip the Magnanimous, Edward vi., Gustavus
Vasa, etc. ; while his predecessors, Asa, Jehosha-
Ehat, and Joash, correspond merely to the
etter disposed kings and emperors of the Middle
Ages maintaining a certain independence towards
Rome (as Frederic Barbarossa, Louis IX. of
France, etc. ) ; but in Josiah is presented the type
of such epigoni of the more potent manifestations
of the Reformation period as Ernest the Pious
of Saxe Gotha, Frederic IV. of Denmark, etc.
So far as such parallels between Israelitish and
Christian history are allowable, — but that they
ihoulJ be instituted with great precaution and
the most careful avoidance of the imminent
danger of arbitrary trifling, is shown by very
many warning examples, especially in the region
of the Roman Catholic theological literature ot
recent times, ' — it is natural to set beside "he gre it
reformatory activity of King Hezekiah the con
temporary movement of a powerful reform and
revival of the whole religious and moral life by
such heroes of prophecy as Isaiah, Micah (and as
probably an older Zechariah, author of Zech.
ix. -xi. ), and to suppose the one conditioned and
supplemented by the other, — his action as the re-
novator of the religious life and the external theo-
cratic order and discipline, and the endeavour of
these prophetic men after the purification of the
religious consciousness and the quickening of the
moral conscience of their people. For certainly
his religious reform would not have been prac-
ticable without the co-operation of this contempo-
raneous life-reform by his prophetic friends and
counsellors ; and we can as little separate the royal
reformer Hezekiah from the royal seer, as those
princes of the Reformation age from the Reformers
Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Calvin, etc. 2
Indeed, the circle of those wise men around
Hezekiah, to whom, according to Prov. xxv. 1,
was due the then completed collection of the old
Solomonic proverbial literature, and in reference
to whom Hezekiah himself has been called the
Pisistratus of the Israelitish literature (Delitzsch,
Kommentar iiber den Psalter, ii. 377), we may
well assert to be a moment of the typical paral-
lelism, and regard the work of these men as a
type of the humanists contemporary with the
Reformers, and often lending them support.
2. That in our author these manifestations, con-
temporaneous with Hezekiah, and co-operating
with him, the importance of which certainly
should not be undervalued, retire into the back-
ground, and that he mentions the prophet Isaiah
only once in passing (xxxii. 20), and those wise
" men of Hezekiah " not at all, corresponds
exactly with his character as a historian abiding
always by the priestly and Levitical point of
view. The credibility of his narrative cannot be
disputed on account of this onesidedness. A
great number of highly definite and concrete
statements in the chapters peculiar to him attest
the character of their contents as well founded,
and free from any suspicion of fiction. Thus the
names of the fourteen Levites in xxix. 12-14
1 We refer especially to the writings of Phil. KremeDtz
(present Bishop of Braunsberg), — The Old Testament as the
Type of the New (Coblenz, 1883); Israel the Type of the Church,
attempt to elucidate the history of Christianity by the typical
history of Israel (Mainz, 1865) ; The Gospel in the Book of
Genesis, or the Life of Jesus typified by the History of the Patri-
archs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (Coblenz, 1867) ;
The Life of Jesus the Prophecy of the Histoy of His Church
(Freiburg, 1869) i likewise to such works as that of the
barefooted Carmelite Carl St. Aloysius, The History of Man,
a Divine Work of Creation on the Region of the Moral World
(Wiirzburg, 1861), and to forth. A useful counterpart to
the extravagances of these works, with their parallelistic
trifling, is pointed out by W J. Thiersch : Genesis, according
to its Moral and Prophetical Import (Frankfurt a M. 1369).
2 Compare the remarks of Rudelbach on the typical
relation of the Old Testament prophets to the Reformers in
several of his writings; for example, in Reformation, luther-
thum, und Union ; in his biography of Savonarola (p. 283
ff.) ; in the treatise, Die Qrundtwig'sche Theorie und dte
Lutherische Kirche (In the Zeitschnft far die gesammte
lutherische Theologie, 1857, i. p. 1.'). To this should be added
the far and wide custom since the Reformation itself (for
example, in Zwingltus in his letter ad Zasium, in Melanch-
thon. etc.) of drawing parallels between Luther and such
prophets of the first rank as Elijah, Isaiah, etc. Comp. also
Ewald, Oeschichleda Voltes Israel, hi. 1, pp. I3L 341.
CHAP. XXIX.-XXXII.
259
rest as undoubtedly on historical tradition as
those of the others in xxxi. 12-15. And as little
as these names can be invented, will that which
is related, xxx. 1 if., 10 f., 18 ff., and xxxi. 1,
concerning the participation of inhabitants of the
kingdom of the ten tribes in Hezekiah's religious
acts and reforms bear a fictitious character. The
authenticity of these statements is liable to no
manner of doubt, view them chronologically as
we will — whether we refer them, with Keil and
Caspari (see on xxx. 27), to events that happened
after 722 B.C., or, with the majority of expositors,
assign them a place in the first years of Hezekiah's
reign. The excerpt also from 2 Kings xviii.-xx.
and Isa. xxxvi.-xxxix., which he presents in ch.
xxxii., proves, by its essential agreement with
these fuller parallels, the conscientiousness and
reliableness of the procedure of our author.
Where he presents smaller supplements to the
reports there, — as, for example, in his accounts of
the fortifications and measures of defence by
Hezekiah in ver. 5 (comp. ver. 30), — these supple-
ments bear in themselves their warrant as actual
and trustworthy. And where he, in accordance
with his rather real than chronological grouping
of events, makes alterations in the order of the
facts to be related, as in vers. 16-18 (comp. also
vers. 24-31), there never results a representation
strictly contrary to history. We are to note,
moreover, the circumstance, significant of his
theocratic idealizing tendency, and recalling
analogous omissions in the history of the reigns
of Ihvid, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat, that he
passes over various incidents less favourable to
the character of Hezekiah as a specially fortun-
ate and illustrious ruler ; for example, the facts
that Sennacherib not only besieged but took
many Jewish cities (comp. xxxii. 1 with 2 Kings
xviii. 13) ; that Hezekiah was compelled to pay a
large tribute to the same sovereign, and for this
purpose to take off the gold plating of the temple
doors (2 Kings xviii. 16) ; that he rent his clothes
and put on sackcloth (2 Kings xix. 1), etc., and,
on the whole, reports only that which proves his
glorious and happy government. His represen-
tation of the work of Hezekiah has thus received
a peculiarly optimistic colouring, beside which
that of the other fuller report looks almost like
pessimism. But even the sharpest critic would
scarcely he able to show that the Chronistic narra-
tive, notwithstanding its idealistic onesidedness,
involves any misstatement of facts or distortion
of history.
3. An important and difficult inquiry, that,
however, concerns the narrative of our book
equally with the older parallel text, is involved
in the synchronism of the history of Hezekiah
in the sacred Scripture and in the contemporary
Assyrian monuments. While the most important
event of this history in a temporal or spiritual
respect, the fall of Samaria or the destruction of
the northern kingdom by Shalmaneser and Sargon
(namely, by Shalmaneser [Salmanu-aser, "God
Salman is good"] as beginner, and by Sargon
[Sarrukin, " mighty the king "] as finisher of the
besieging and destroying work),1 according to the
' This relation of the Shalmaneser of 2 Kirgs to the
Sargon of Isa. xx., Oppert and Schrader (Stud, und Kril.
1370, p. 627 ff.: 1871, p. 679 ff.) have now Anally established,
against the identity or only nominal diversity of these two
governors asserted by many (M. v. Niebuhr Dunker, Sayce,
Kiehm, etc). Comp. also Dlestel, In Knobel's Iiaialt, 4th
edit. p. 189.
unanimous testimony of both sources, is to be
placed in the year 722 (or 721) B.C., with regard
to the next more important event, the invasion of
Sennacherib (ch. xxxii. 1-23, and the parallel), a
difference is exhibited of not less than thirteen
years between the statements of the Assyrian
monuments and those of sacred Scripture. For
those assign this expedition to the year 701, full
twenty years alter the accession of Sargon and
tie. fall of Samaria ; whereas the Bible (2 Kirga
xviii. 13 ; Isa. xxxvi. 1) plxces it in the 14th
year of Hezekiah, only eight or nine years after
the fall of Samaria, which tock place in the sixth
year of this king, 714 B.C. A reconciliation of
these very diverse dates seems at present impos-
sible ; and as there is a great number of Assyrian
inscriptions which agree in assigning the great
Egypto-Palestinian expedition of Sennacherib to
the fourth year of his reign (that is, as he must
have reigned 705-681, to the year 701), it seems
necessary to abandon the biblical date as in-
correct, and to substitute for the 14th the 27th or
28th year of Hezekiah as the date of the event.
A further chronological difference appears to open
between the Bible and the inscriptions with re-
gard to the embassy of the Babylonian king
Merodach-baladan to Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 12 ff. ;
Isa. xxxix. 1 ff.). If we hold this Merodach-
baladan (Assyro- Babylonian, Marduk-habal-
iddina, "Merodach bestowed the son"; see
Schrader, p. 213) to b'e identical with the Mup-
iox.ip.-ra.'Sos of the Ptolemaic canon, the fifth king
of Babylon according to this document, the whore
transaction in question must, as the synchronism
of the Assyrian inscriptions and of this canon
determines the years 721-710 as the period of this
monarch's reign, be placed a number of years
before the invasion of Sennacherib, on the pre-
sumption that this fell in 701. And even if we
take, not that Mardokempad (or Marduk-habal-
iddina), but a later sovereign of the same name
reigning only a short time (six months), men-
tioned by Berosus (or Alexander Polyhistor) in
Eusebius, Ohron. Armen. i. p. 19, edit. Mai, for
the Merodach-baladan of Holy Scripture, as is
done by Winer, Knobel, Hitzig, and recently by
Schrader (p. 213 ff.), yet the reign even of this
second Merodach falls before 701, namely, accord-
ing to the canon of Ptolemy, in the year 704 or
703. The transposition of the reports in question
seems therefore unavoidable. The statement in
Isa. xxxix. (and 2 Kings xx. 12 ff.) concerning
Hezekiah's display of his treasures before the
ambassadors of Babylon must apparently be
placed, with Oppert (" Die biblische ( Jhronologie,
festgestellt nach den assyrischen Keilinschrif-
ten," in the Zcitechrift der Deulschen Morgenl.
Oeselkchaft, 1869, p. 137 ff.), Delitzsch (Kom-
ment. zu Jes. 2d edit. 1869), Diestel (on Knobel's
Isaiah, 4th edit. ), and Schrader (Keilinschriften,
p. 218), before the account in Isa. xxxvi. f.
^2 Kings xviii. f.) of the expedition of Sen-
nacherib, say about ten years, or (with Schrader)
at least two or three years ; and the full treasure-
chambers which Hezekiah shows to the ambas-
sadors must be regarded as those which Sen-
nacherib had not yet emptied (2 Kings xviii. 13
ff.), not (with Keil, Knobel, Thenius, Bahr,
Neteler, and others) as replenished from the booty
left on the part of the hastily retreating army
of Sennacherib, nor even as remaining sufficiently
full notwithstanding the contribution imp
2fiO
II. CHRONICLES.
by the Assyrians. — The question, whether we are
warranted or necessitated by the diverging dates
of the monuments of profane history to assume
so knjfOrtant chronological inaccuracies or per-
versions in the biblical sources, that is, in the
here substantially agreeing reports of the second
book of Kings, the book of Isaiah, and Chronicles,
should scarcely be decided so hastily and un-
ceremoniously in favour of the former testi-
monies, as has been done by Schrader (p. 292 ff.),
in accordance with Diestel (pp. 169, 325), Rohling
(in the Literar. Handweiser fiir das Kathoi.
DeutscUand, 1872, No. 124), and others. With
regard, also, to the wide differences between the
Assyrian and biblical chronology before the reigu
of Hezekiah, which amount,1 in the estimate of
Assyriologists, sometimes to forty or fifty years,
the greatest possible precaution and reserve is to
be recommended in drawing conclusions un-
favourable to the authority of Holy Scripture. For
if not in the way proposed by Oppert (according
to which a break in the list of Assyrian eponyrns
for nearly fifty years would have to be assumed,
and the great difference for this early period de-
rived therefrom ; which, however, Schrader, in the
Zeitschrlft der Deutschen Morgan!. Qesellschaft,
vol. xxv. p. 449 ff., declares to be inadmissible2),
yet in some other way, sooner or later, a greater
approximation of the divergent testimonies might
easily be accomplished, and so the difference of
the dates at least considerably reduced — just as
the chronological deviations of the Egyptian
monuments from the biblical statements were
formerly held by many Egyptologists to be mors
considerable than is now generally the case, after
a more thorough and extensive investigation of
the existing sources. Neteler has made an
attempt, in several respects untenable and preci-
pitate, to reconcile the divergences on both sides
in the parts of his Commentary on Chronicles
that refer to chronology (pp. 195 ff., 224 ff., 263 tt'.),
in which he brings down the reigns of the
Israelitish and Jewish kings from the division of
the kingdom (which he dates at 933 instead of
975 B.C.) to Zedekiah by several decennia (from
Josiah at least by several years), and accordingly
makes Jehu reign 846-819, Uzziah 786-735,
Ahaz 720-705, Hezekiah 706-678 (from 692 with
his son Manasseh as co-regent), Josiah 637-607.
That this attempt, as well on the biblical side-
here chiefly by arbitrary assuming of various co-
regencies, as of Amaziah with his father Joash,
of Uzziah with Amaziah, of Hezekiah with Ahaz,
and of Manasseh with Hezekiah — as on the
Assyriologic, rests on several untenable presup-
positions (in the latter respect, for example, on
the long-since refuted opinion of the identity of
Sargon with Shalmaneser), needs no further de-
monstration. Comp. Schrader's critical counter
remark in his review of Neteler's commentary in
the Literarischen Centralblatt of the year 1872.
As little can we certainly regard the onesided
chronology of Schrader, founded on the Assyrian
documents, as absolutely satisfactory, especially
as it involves not a few uncertainties, and often
rests on documents not yet fully interpreted.3
o. Manasseh and Amon. — Ch. xxxiii.
a. Manasseh: vers. 1-20.
Ch. xxxhi. 1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned
2 fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the
eyes of the Lord, like the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had
3 cast out before the sons of Israel. And he built again the high places which
Hezekiah his father had pulled down, and reared up altars for Baalim, and
4 made asheroth, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. And
he built altars in the house of the Lord, although the Lord had said, In
5 Jerusalem shall my name be for ever. And he built altars to all the host of
1 Comp. the juxtaposition of some of the biblical with the corresponding Assyrian dates, as they are presented by
Schrader, p. 299 •—
Bible.
918-896 (reign of Ahab)
Assyrian Monuments.
Ahab, .
854 (battle at Karkar)
Jehu, .
842 (payment of tribute)
Uzziah,
745-739 (at war with Tiglath-plleser)
Menahem, .
738 (payment of tribute)
Pekah,
734 (conquered by Tiglath-pileser)
Hosea,
728 (last year in which AuB'ih paid tribute t
Tiglath-pileser)
Fall of Samaria,
722
Hezekiah, .
701 (expedition of Sennacherib)
Manasseh, .
681-673 (payment of tribute)
88-1-857 ( „ Jehu)
809-759 ( ,
Uzziah)
771-761 ( ,
Menahem)
758-738 ( ,
Pekah)
729-723 ( ,
Hosca)
722 (fall of Samaria)
714 (expedition of Sennacherib)
696-642 (reign of Manasseh).
After differing at first about forty or fifty years, then about twenty or thirty, the Assyrian chronology merges into
the biblical in Hosea; in the fall of Samaria the two reckonings coincide j and so mainly in the reign of Manasseh; but
with regard to the expedition of Sennacherib, a deviation of full thirteen years again takes place.
8 Coinp. also Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 300 f. : "By this (granted that such an assumption [as the
break of the list of eponyms for lorty-seven years] were admissible) the difference between the Bible and the monuments
would be expunged so far as the times of Ahab and Jehu are concerned : but Jehu would have paid his tribute, which,
according to Oppert's calculation, must have been presented in the j ear 888, four years before his accession to the throne,
884. But in the time of Azarlah and Menahem the omission of the forty-seven years would produce a still greater gap;
at the most, twenty or thirty years would have to be cast off, etc. . . . And besides, . . . this whole notion of a break In
the list of eponyms is untenable, and, Irrespective of its Internal improbability, Is simply wrecked on the parallel lists oi
reigns and the rotation of officers, extending over from the one reign to the other, which is thereby preserved to us.
» Comp., as the most recent attempt at a critical chronology of this period, the treatise of H. Brand: Die Konim
-i von Juda tmd Iirael nach den bibl. Berkluen una den Ktilmschriften, Leipzig 1873.
CHAP. XXXIII. 261
6 heaven m the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he caused his sons
to pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom ; and he practised sorcery,
and divination, and enchantment, and appointed conjurors and soothsayers :
7 he wrought much evil in the eyes of the Lord to provoke Him. And he set
the carving of the image which he had made in the house of God, of which
God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jeru-
salem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name
8 for ever. And I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the soil which I
have appointed for your fathers,1 if only they will hold on to do all that I
have commanded them, in all the law and the statutes and the judgments
9 given by Moses. And Manasseh led astray Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed
10 before the sons of Israel. And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his
people ; but they did not attend.
11 And the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of
Assyria, and they took Manasseh in fetters, and bound him with chains, and
12 carried him to Babel. And when he was in affliction, he besought the grace
of the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his
13 fathers, And prayed unto Him ; and He was entreated of him, and heard
his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom : and
14 Manasseh knew that the Lord He is God. And after this he built the outer
wall of the city of David, to the west of Gihon, in the valley, and at the
entrance of the fish gate, and encompassed Ophel, and made it very high, and
15 put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah. And he took away the
strange gods and the image out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars
that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem,
16 and cast them out of the city. And he built * the altar of the Lord, and
offered on it sacrifices of peace and thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to
17 serve the Lord God of Israel. But the people still sacrificed in the high
places, but only to the Lord their God.
18 And the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and
the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord God of
19 Israel, behold, they are written in the history of the kings of Israel. And his
prayer, and his being heard, and all his sin, and his apostasy, and the places
in which he built high places, and set up asherim and carved images, before
20 he was humbled, behold, they are written in the history of Hozai.3 And
Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house : and
Amon his son reigned in his stead.
3. Amon : vers. 21-25.
21 Amon was twenty and two years old when he became king, and he reigned
22 two years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the
Lord, as Manasseh his father had done ; and Amon sacrificed unto all the
23 carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them. And
he humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father humbled
24 himself; for he, Amon, multiplied trespass. And his servants conspired against
25 him, and slew him in his own house. And the people of the land smote all
the conspirators against King Amon : and the people of the land made Josiah
his son king in his stead.
1 For M'TrillK? tlle Sept., Vulg., Syr., etc., read DHlDK?) which is preferred by many modems Bince Luther
(Berth., Kamph., etc.).
\2*) is the Kethib in most hss. and editions ; Borne mss. and many old editions, however, give p*^ as the Kvthib
Kai ni) as the Keri. At all events, )3'1 appears to be the original reading, for which also the Vulg. (restauravit) and
*yr. testify.
* For 'ftp the Sept. read D'Hil (" words of the seers," as in ver. 18) ; comp. Intmd. 5 5, ii.
262
II. CHRONICLES.
EXEGETICAL.
The idolatrous proceedings in the beginning of
Manasseh's reign are depicted by our author, vers.
1-10, mostly in verbal agreement with 2 Kings
xxi. 1-10. Instead of the summary report thefe
following (vers. 11-16) of the threatening words
of the prophets addressed to him, he appends the
narrative of Manasseh's removal to Babel, his
repentance and conversion, vers. 11-17, for which
the book of Kings has no parallel. The closing
notices of Manasseh's reign (vers. 18-20), and
that which relates to Amon (vers. 21-25), are
again in close agreement with 2 Kings xxi. 1 ff. ,
19 ff.
1. Idolatrous Proceedings at the Beginning of
Manasseh's Reign : vers. 1-10 ; comp. Bahr on
the parallel. — Manasseh was twelve years old.
For the occurrence of this king's name (in the
form of Minasi) on the Assyr an inscriptions, see
Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 2. — And
he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem, 696-641
B.C. (according to the usual chronology, which
can scarcely be disputed). Against the length of
the reign of Manasseh, as our report states it in
harmony with 2 Kings, Scheuchzer (Phul und
Nabonassar, Zurich 1850) and v. Gumpach (Die
Zeitrechnung der Assyrer und Babylonier, 1852,
p. 98 ff. ) have raised objections, and attempted to
reduce it to thirty-five years. Bertheau (Kom-
ment. p. 406) concurs with them in this ; and
Neteler endeavours to confine at least the inde-
pendent reign of Manasseh approximately to the
same narrow measure, as he makes him reign
fourteen years (say 692-678) in common with
Hezekiah, and then forty or forty-one years
(678-638) alone. On the contrary, Schrader
(pp. 225 ff., 238 ff.) shows that no reduction
whatever of the fifty-five years is requisite, as
the Assyrian monuments bear no testimony
against a reign of more than half a century for
this king. — Ver. 3. And reared up altars for
Baalim. In 2 Kings stands the sing. : "for
Baal"; as also in the following words: "made
an asherah. " The phrase of the Chronist appears
here to be rhetorically generalizing and climactic;
comp., moreover, xiv. 2, xxviii. 2, xxxi. 1. —
Ver. 6. And he caused his sons to pass through
the fire. According to 2 Kings, this happened
only to one son (ij3 for VJ3)i precisely the
same difference as above in Ahaz (xxviii. 3 ;
comp. 2 Kings xvi. 3) ; see on xxviii. 3. The
Chronist alone states that this horrid human
sacrifice took place in the valley of Ben-hiunom ;
in 2 Kings this note is wanting. — And he prac-
tised sorcery and divination, etc., "bewitched
with an evil eye (pty connected with pjj), and
divined (tJ>n2, properly, watched serpents), and
muttered " (ft^a, whispered charms ; comp.
Deut. xviii. 10). The third of these phrases is
wanting in 2 Kings ; whereas the following
words: "appointed conjurors and soothsayers"
(literally, "made a conjuror and a wizard"),
agree again verbally with that text. — Ver. 7.
And he set lite carving of the image . . . in the
house of Ood. In 2 Kings, "the carving (">D3,
as here, 'carved image,' as distinguished from
rDDD) 'molten image,' xxviii. 2; comp. xxxi v.
3) of the asherah." The term tap, "idol,
image," arising perhaps from Deut. iv. 16,
appears here and ver. 15, as in Ezek. viii. 3, to
be a contemptuous and abhorrent designation of
the asherah. — Will I put my name for ever;
Di^JJ^ only here for cbtyh-— Ver- 8- Which J
have appointed for your fathers, "fixed," as in
xxx. 5. Instead of "your," perhaps "their "is
the original reading; see Crit. Note. — Ver. 10.
A nd the Lord spake to Manasseh, by the mouth
of His prophets, whose speech in the parallel text,
2 Kings xxi. 11-16, is also given in a summary
form ; whereas our author omits these words
(words of the seer, ver. 18), though not without
adding a reference to them (see niftier ver. 18), as
contained in the "history of the kings of Israel."
2. Manasseh's Captivity and Conversion : vers
11-17. — The Lord brought upon them. Accord-
ing to the Assyrian monuments, this took place
about 647, under King Assurbanipal, the Sarda-
napalus of the Greek historians. — Took Manasseh
in fetters, scarcely in nets or hooks (nin syno-
nymous with nn, 2 Kings xix. 28 ; Ezek. xix.
4 ; comp. also Job xl. 26), as if Manasseh were
to be represented as an untamed wild beast, Ps.
xxxii. 9 (Keil). Rather is QT\h to be taken
simply as a synonym of the following D^nETU,
"brass fetters, double fetters" (comp. Judg. xvi.
21 ; 2 Sam. iii. 34 ; and also 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6),
as it is taken in this sense by the Sept. (Sir/ui,-),
Vulg. (catenis), and several Rabbins. There is as
little reason to think of a place, Hohim, where he
was taken captive (Then.), as of a thorn hedge,
into which (comp. 1 Sam. xiii. 6) he had rushed
through fear (Starke and other ancients), or even
of a tropical meaning of the phrase, according to
which Dhnh3 should be: "with deceit, not in
open conflict" (Cellarius, Disput. de Caplivitate
Babylonica, and others). For the question of
the credibility of a carrying away of Manasseh in
chains, and that to Babel, comp. the Evangelical
and Ethical Reflections, No. 3. — Ver. 12. And
when he was in affliction (comp. xxviii. 22) he
besought the grace of the Lord, literally, "stroked
or smoothed " the face of the Lord ; comp. Ex.
xxxii. 11 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 11 ; 1 Kings xiii. 6 ; Dan.
ix. 13. The contents of this penitent prayer o(
the captive king were handed down to the Chronist
by those old sources which he quotes ver. 18 f.,
namely, the "history of the kings of Israel," and
the "history (words) of Hozai." The "prayer of
Manasses " in the Old Testament Apocrypha is
scarcely identical with this older record, which
lay before our author ; it appears to have been
composed originally in Greek, is wanting in many
older manuscripts of the Sept. , and is first com-
municated from the Constit. Apostolical, ii. 22
(2d or 3d century), on which account the Council
of Trent excluded it from the canon of the Romish
Church. Yet recently, Jul. Fiirst (Oeschichte der
bibl. Literatur, ii. 399 ff.) has defended the docu-
ment as genuine (after the ancients ; see J. A.
Fabrieius, Bibliotheca Graica, ed. Harles, iii.
732 ft'.). — Ver. 13. And He was entreated of him.
The Apocryphal accounts in the Targ. on our
passage, in the Const. Ap. p. 9, in Johannes
Damascen. 'Ufi. ■xnpaw. ii. 15, in Anaatasius on
CHAP. XXXIII. 14-25.
263
Ps. vi. , etc., contain all kinds of wonders con-
cerning the way in which God delivered the peni-
tent Manasseh (by sudden melting or sudden
breaking of his chains, etc.). Comp. 0. F.
Fritzsche, in the Kurzgefassten exegetischen
Handbuc.he zu den Apokryphen des Alten Bundes,
i. p. 158, and Ew. Oeschkhte, iii. 1, p. 378. —
Ver. 14. And after this he built the outer wail,
perhaps that on which Hezekiah had already
built (xxxii. 5) ; H33 stands, therefore, as often,
for finishing a building (elevating). The absence
of the article from HDin, however, cannot con-
strain us at once (with P.erth. and otheTs) to
translate "an outer wall,'' as, on the other hand,
the emendation proposed by Arnold (Art. " Zion, "
in Herzog's Jtealencycl. xviii. 634), nDinn
njiSTiri) is scarcely necessary. — Of the
of
David (literally, "to the city") to the west of
Oihon in the valley, that is, in that valley
between the city of David (Zion) and the lower
city (Akra), which in its south-eastern outlet
was afterwards (in Josephus, etc.) the cheese-
makers' valley, or the valley Tyropajon. These
words first assign the direction of the wall towards
the west, and the following words : "at the
entrance of the fish gate," denote, again, the direc-
tion towards the east ; for the fish gate lay, ac-
cording to Neh. iii. 3, near the north-east coiner
of the lower city and the tower Hananeel. — And
encompassed Ophel, with that outer wall which
he carried from the fish gate and the north-east
comer on to the south, and then round Ophel
(see xxvii. 3). So, no doubt correctly, Berth,
and Kamph. ; for against the assumption of
Arnold (in p. 9) and Keil, that a special wall is
here intended, distinct from the former, to enclose
Ophel, is the following statement : "|{<o niTaJPl,
"and made it very high," which clearly refers to
the former wall. — And put captains of war;
comp. xvii. 2, xxxii. 6. — Ver. 15. Took away
the strange gods; comp. vers. 3-7. On the
closing words : "and cast them out of the city,"
xxix. 16 and xxx. 14 are to be compared. More-
over, according to 2 Kings xxiii. 6, 12, this re-
moval of the idols, and their altars, appears not
to have been complete ; for, according to these
verses, much of this sort still remained for Josiah
to remove (comp. also ver. 17), which constrains
us to assign either an incomplete, or at least a
transitory and by no means permanent character
to the reform of worship by Manasseh. — Ver. 16.
And he built the altar of the Lord, the altar of
burnt-offering, of which, moreover, it is not to be
assumed from this remark that Manasseh had
before removed it from the temple court (as Ew.
Geschichte, iii. 1. 367, holds). The building, at
all events, is to be regarded as a repairing (comp
xxiv. 4 ff. ; 1 Kings v. 32) ; even if psi were the
original reading (see Crit. Note), the same sense of
repairing would result.
3. Manasseh's End ; Amon: vers. 18-25. — For
vers. 18, 19, see above on vers. 10, 13 ; and with
regard to the history (words) of Hozai, Introd.
§ 5, ii. p. 20 (also Crit. Note on this passage). —
Ver. 20. And they buried him in his own house;
more exactly, 2 Kings xxi. 18: "in the gexlen
of his house, in the garden of Uzza. " This
garden of Uzza the Englishman Lewin believes
he has found in the so-called Sakra, on the east
side of the Haram. He affirms that there also
the Maccabean King Alexander Was buried, on
which account the burying - place in question
occurs in Josephus, de B. Jud. , under the name
of the grave of King Alexander (comp. Athenceum,
1871, March, pp. 278, 309).— Ver. 21 ff. ; comp.
2 Kings xxi. 19-26, and Bahr on this passage.
The concise report of our passage says nothing of
Amon's mother (as also, ver. 1, the mention of
Manasseh's mother is wanting), and at the close
contains nothing of the burial of the king nor of
the sources employed, but, on the contrary, appears
enlarged by a parallel drawn between him and
Manasseh, according to which he did not humble
himself as his father had done (ver. 23).
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL EEFLECTIONS, HOMt-
LEXICAL AND APOLOGETIC REMARKS, ON CH.
xxxiii.
1. The evangelical import of the captivity and
conversion of Manasseh consists mainly in this,
that it is a pregnant type of the conversion of the
ungodly by means of divine chastisement, — a sig-
nificant confirmation and impressive exhibition of
that truth, preached by all the prophets and men
of God of the Old Testament, that God the Lord
is found only of those who seek Him, that His
call to repentance comes to no sinner too late (the
nusquam conversio sera of Jerome, Comm. in
Ezech. xviii. 21; Up. 16 ad Damasum, c. 1; Ep.
39 ad Paulam, 1; Ep. 42, 107, 147, etc.), that
He "killeth and maketh alive, bringeth down to
Sheol and bringeth up " (1 Sam. ii. 6; comp. Ps.
xxx. 4, Ixxxvi. 13, cxvi. 3), that always again
His comforting "return " sounds anew in the ear
of the penitent sinner (comp. Joel ii. 12 ; Ezek.
xxxiii. 11). As a deeply impressive illustration
and verification of the text : ' ' Call upon me in
the day of trouble ; I will deliver thee, and thou
shalt glorify me," Ps. 1. 15, from the history of
the Old Testament, the event forms at the same
time a very significant parallel to the New Testa-
ment parable of the prodigal son (Luke xv. ), as
well as to those similar exemplifications of the
evangelical process in the appropriation of salvation
(as the woman that was a sinner, Zacchffius, the
robber, etc. ), of which that evangelist, who stands
in the same relation, as supplementer to the other
evangelists, as the Chronist to the older historians
of the Old Testament, possesses an exceedingly
precious treasure.
2. To this general evangelical importance of our
history is to be added its special prefigurative rela-
tion to the judgment of the Babylonish captivity,
which took place half a century after it. What was
announced once in the reign of Hezekiah by the
fearfully earnest warning of the destruction of the
northern kingdom, and then also by the direct
message of Isaiah addressed to the king, as the
final doom of the Jewish people persisting in the
way of unfaithfulness to God (Isa. xxxvi. 6 f . ; 2
Kings xx. 17 f.), this appears to be here realiz»d
by the transportation of Manasseh to Babel already
in literal truth and full extent. Through tint
grace of the Lord, moved by the entreaty of the
penitent Manasseh, the worst and most terrible
calamity — a long exile, with its dissolving and
unsettling consequences for the whole state — is at
once averted ; and as once to Hezekiah, for his
personal life and reign during fifteen years, so
264
II. CHRONICLES.
now to his son is granted a prolongation of nearly
fifty years for the existence of the whole king-
dom. Manasseh's lot thus stands intermediate
between that which Hezekiah and that which
the last kings — Jelioiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zede-
kiah — experience, as the reform of the religious life
attempted by him after his return from Babel,
but unsatisfactory and by no means permanent,
falls in the middle between the reforms of Heze-
kiah and Josiah, with whose thorough energy and
decision it certainly cannot be remotely com-
pared.
3. From the absence of a parallel to our report
in 2 Kings xxi. , the hypercriticism of our century
has sought to refer to the region of unhistorical
legend either the whole history of Manasseh (de
Wette, Gramberg, Graf, Nbldecke ; comp. Introd.
§ 6, p. 22, and § 7, p. 29), or at least that of his
conversion and the reform of worship consequent
upon it; comp. what is asserted in the latter
respect by Movers (Chron. p. 328 ff.), Ewald
(Gesch. iii. 1. 366 ff.), Berth. (Chron. p. 408),
and Hitzig (Gesch. p. 230 f.). The mythifying
of the whole history, and therefore of the account
of the capture and deportation of Manasseh to
Babel, appears in the present state of historical
investigation to be a glaring anachronism. This
has been also perceived by Hitzig, who, after he
had declared (Begriff der Kritik, etc. p. 180 f.)
the captivity of Manasseh to be an invention
derived from the prophecy of Isa. xxxix. 6, has
recently (Gesch. as quoted) acknowledged the
historical validity of this fact ; whereas Graf has
in his last work (Die geschichtlichen Bilcher des
Alten Test. 1866, p. 174) adhered to his former
(Studien und Krit. 1859, iii.) absolutely sceptical
treatment of the whole narrative. In the face of
the most recent Assyriologic investigations of
Rawlinson, Oppert, Sehrader, etc., a further per-
sistence in such a position could only he regarded
as an inveterate unscientific obstinacy. The
assumption, indeed, which was at first thought
to be confirmed by the Assyrian monuments,
namely, that it was Esarhaddon who, on the
occasion of his campaign against Phoenicia, about
677, took Manasseh captive and carried him to
Babel (an assumption with which the report of
Abydenus in Eusehius, Chron. i. p. 54, concern-
ing a conquest of ' ' Lower Syria " by Axerdis, that
is, Esarhaddon, may very well combine), would
scarcely be reconcilable with the most recent
state of these investigations. The capture and
Babylonish exile of Manasseh caunot be trans-
ferred to so early a time as the third or fourth
year of Esarhaddon, who, according to Ptolemy
and the inscriptions, reigned 681-668. For even
if an inscription of this Assyrian king, in a list
enumerating twenty - two names of tributary
Syrian ("Chattite," Hittite) kings, distinctly
mentions a Minasi sar Tahudi, and thus, at all
events, testifies that Manasseh belonged to the
vassal-princes of that great king (comp. Sehrader,
pp. 227, 238), yet the same evidence reverts to a
considerably younger inscription, wherein Asur-
banipal (Sardanapalus), Esarhaddon's successor,
in a list of tributary Syro-Phcenician princes,
along with the kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, Gaza,
Ascalon, Ekron, Gebal, Arvad, enumerates also
between Tyre and Edom a sar Yahudi, ' ' king of
Judah, " who again, as is clear from the names of
his contemporary neighbouring princes, can be no
other than Manasseh. Accordingly his deporta-
tion, together with the attempt at revolt which
no doubt occasioned it, may very well have taken
place under this later sovereign ; and that it did
so is rendered highly probable by several circum-
stances, particularly this, that so long as Esar-
haddon reigns we hear nothing, but under his
successor Asnrbanipal very much, of the disquiet
and revolt of the vassals in Hither Asia against
the Assyrian power. Hence the deportation of
Manasseh by the Assyrian troops to Babel, and
his short stay in captivity there, are to be placed
under Asurbanipal about the year 648, when the
Babylonish viceroy, Sammughes or Samul-sumulcin,
headed the western vassal-princes in an insurrec-
tion against the sovereign residing at Nineveh,
and thereby occasioned a victorious expedition of
the Assyrian army against them. The combina-
tion, keeping in view that point of time at the
beginning of Esarhaddon's reign, which has been
adopted by Bertheau, Keil, and Neteler, after J.
Cappellus, Ussher, desVignoles, Prideaux, Galmet,
Rambach, J. H. and J. D. Michaelis, and recently
Ewald, Duncker (Gesch. des Alterthums, i. 697
if., ii. 592, 3d ed.), P..einke (Beitrdge zur Erkld-
rung des A. T. viii. p. 127 f.), Hitzig (Gesch. as
quoted), Thenius (on 2 Kings xxi.), must accord-
ingly be corrected ; see the searching and cogent
proof by Sehrader in the often quoted work (p.
238 ff.), with which also the not essentially
different combination of J. Fiirst (Gesch. der bibl.
Literatur, ii. pp. 340, 372 f.) is to be compared,
although the king Sarak there named as captor of
Manasseh, as Sehrader has proved, p. 233, is a
later sovereign, different from Asurbanipal, the
Asur - idil - iii of the inscriptions.1 And with
regard to Babylon as the place of deportation,
and to the mode of removal with chains and
iron fetters, Sehrader has produced the most
satisfactory explanations and confirmatory paral-
lels from the Assyrian monuments ; since, with
regard to the latter point, he shows from an
inscription of Asurbanipal that even King Necho
I. (Ni-ik-ku-u) suffered a "binding of the hands
and feet with iron bands and chains when he was
carried captive to Nineveh about this time," 2 and
referring to this fact justly remarks: "But what
might thus befall the king of Egypt might
certainly as well he inflicted on a Jewish prince "
(p. 243). The final judgment of this distinguished
Assyriologist concerning our fact runs thus :
" There is nothing to cast suspicion on the notice
of the Chronist, and his report is sufficiently in-
telligible from the state of things about 647
B.C."
4. But even with respect to the history of Ma-
nasseh's conversion and his subsequent reforms,
the report of our author in vers. 13-17 contains
nothing to justify the suspicion of the above-
named critics (with whom also Sehrader in the
*> With respect also to the date (645 or a subsequent year),
as well as some other circumstances, the combination of Fiirst
deviates from that of Sehrader: among other things in this,
that Fiirst endeavours to prove historically a league of
Manasseh, after his return from Babylon, with Psammeti-
chus of Egypt (?), and so forth
2 The words of the inscription which are remarkable as
parallel to ver. 11 of this chapter, run thus: "The Savludari
(and) Necho they seized, then bound with iron bands and
iron ctmns the hands and feet." There also mention is
made of a subsequent kindness to the captive Egyptian
king in Nineveh and his return in company with royal
"officers and governors" to Egypt. It was thus by no
means an unheard of or extraordinary thing that befell
Manasseh at this time ; only in the manner of the divine
decree and the restoration lies the difference.
CHAP. XXXIV.
265
main accords, so far as he assumes the legendary
as well as the historical in the report). For — 1.
In close connection with this history is communi-
cated, ver. 14, a notice of the buildings and forti-
fications of Manasseh that resembles anything but
a mere invention or fable, and the separation of
which from the surrounding accounts, as if it
only were historical and they were fabulous em-
bellishment, is impossible (as the highly unfor-
tunate attempt of Graf, as quoted, p. 174, proves).
2. The report also, ver. 16, of the restoration of
the altar of the Lord by Manasseh, is much too
historically definite and concrete to be fairly
taken for the product of a biassed imagination or a
fabulous rumour. 3. The removal, noticed ver. 15,
of the strange gods, of the idol, that is, the figure
of the asherah (2 Kings xxi. 7) and of the idol-
altar, must by no means be thought necessarily
connected with the complete annihilation of these
monuments of idolatry, as if there were here a
contradiction of 2 Kings xxiii. 6, 12 ; rather the
complete destroying, crushing, and reducing to
powder there mentioned, which Josiah thought it
necessary to inflict on these monuments, directly
suggest the thought that Manasseh neglected
that which was important, and proceeded with
too much mildness and forbearance (towards the
priests of this idolatrous worship). Even the
phraseology employed is against the assumption
that the Chronist reports anything contradictory
of those passages of the second book of Kings
for our author knows very well how to distinguish
between T>Dn, " remove " (or even Tppty'n, "cast
out," ver. 15), and ]-P3. p-jfl, "12B", andsimilar
words, denoting the annihilation of the images or
altars, according to such passages as xv. 16, xxxi
1, xxxiv. 4 (cornp. Keil, p. 365). 4. To th<
assumption that neither Manasseh's reform of
worship was truly thorough and radical, nor his
conversion solid and permanent, there is not the
least objection ; on the contrary, ver. 17 speaks
expressly against the conception that he had
swept away the monuments of idolatry as
thoroughly as his father Hezekiah had done, or
his grandson Josiah afterwards did ; and the
remainder of his reign and life, after his return
from Babel (647-642 or 641), amounting perhaps
to five years, left him quite time enough to
relapse a second time partially or wholly into the
idolatrous and immoral course of his earlier days.
5. If, accordingly, as is not merely possible, but
probable, his return to the worship of the Lord
was not a permanent change, but merely an
episode in the long seiies of acts and events in
his reign, it will be the less surprising if, in the
judgment as well of the men of his day as of
posterity regarding this sovereign, a division arose,
so that only here and there express mention is
made of the temporary repentance and better
theocratic disposition wrought in him by the
calamity of his exile ; while he was otherwise,
and perhaps usually, without any reference to this
circumstance, reckoned among the sovereigns who
were to be rejected from the theocratic stand-
point. That accounts have been preserved to us
in the canon by representatives of both of these
views —that besides the present report, relatively
favourable to Manasseh, the decidedly unfavour-
able account of the book of Kings, that uses the
phrase "sins of Manasseh " several times (2 Kings
xxiv. 3, xxiii. 26 ; comp. Jer. xv. 4) almost as a
proverb, has come down to us, — this can by no
means be called more wonderful than, for example,
the existence of two relations, a more idealizing
and a more realistic (duly emphasizing the dark
along with the light), concerning the transactions
in the reign of a David, a Solomon, a Jehosha-
phat, or than the very dimly coloured picture of
the religious and moral conduct of the northern
kingdom, as the indications of our author,
obviously betraying a certain aversion and rooted
antipathy, exhibit it, compared with the far
more favourable delineations of the books of
Kings, In abatement of that which the oppon-
ents have specially to allege from the last-quoted
passages against the credibility of the account of
Manasseh's reforms, comp. also especially Keil,
p. 366. If this be the case with the conversion
of Manasseh, the passages 2 Kings xxiv. 3, xxiii.
26, Jer. xv. 4, where it is said that the Lord
removed Judah out of His sight on account of
the sins of Manasseh, lose all significance foi the
opposite view. Manasseh is here presented as
the man who by his ungodliness rendered the
doom of Judah and Jerusalem inevitable, because
he so corrupted Judah by his sins that he could
no longer turn truly to the Lord, but fell back
ever more into the sins of Manasseh. In like
manner it is said, 2 Kings xvii. 21, 22, of the ten
tribes, that the Lord cast them off because they
walked in all the sins of Jeroboam, and departe
not from them.
p. Josiah : the Prophetess Huldah. — Ch. xxxiv., xxxv.
«. JosiaVs Beginnings ; the Extirpation of Idolatry : ch. xxxiv. 1-7.
Ch. xxxrv. 1. Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned
2 thirty-one years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the eyes
of the Lokd, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined not to
3 the right hand nor to the left. And in the eighth year of his reign, while he
was yet a youth, he began to seek after the God of David his father ; and in
the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places,
4 and the asherim, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they
pulled down before him the altars of Baalim ; and the sun-statues which were
above them he hewed down ; and the asherim, and the carved images,
and the molten images, he broke and pounded, and strewed upon the
5 graves of them that had sacrificed to them. And the bones of the priests he
6 burned upon their altars,1 and he purged Judah and Jerusalem. And in the
266 II. CHKONICLES.
cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, in their
7 ruins2 around. And he pulled down the altars and the asherim, and he cut
down the carved images to pound them, and hewed down all the sun-statues
in all the land of Israel ; and he returned to Jerusalem.
0. The Purging of the Temple and the Recovery of the Book of the Law: vers. 8-21.
8 And in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he purged the land and the
house, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the
city, and Joah son of Joahaz the chancellor, to repair the house of the Lord
9 his God. And they came to Hilkiah the high priest, and delivered the money
that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the
thresholds had gathered from the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and from
all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah and Benjamin, and the inhabit-
10 ants3 of Jerusalem. And they put it into the hand of the work-masters who
were appointed over the house of the Lord ; and the work-masters who
worked in the house of the Lord gave it to restore and repair the house.
11 And they gave it to the carpenters and masons, to buy hewn stones and
timber for girders and for joists of the houses, which the kings of Judah had
12 destroyed. And the men wrought faithfully at the work, and over them
were appointed Jahath and Obadiah the Levites of the sons of Merari, and
Zechariah and Meshullam of the sons of the Kohathites, to oversee ; and the
13 Levites, all that had skill in instruments of song. And over the carriers, and
14 overseeing all that were doing the work in any manner of service. And
when they took out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord,
15 Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord by Moses. And
Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of
the law in the house of the Lord : and Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan.
16 And Shaphan brought the book to the king, and returned to the king a
17 report, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do. And they
have poured out the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and
18 given it into the hands of the overseers and of the workmen. And Shaphan
the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book :
19 and Shaphan read in it before the king. And when the king heard the
20 words of the law, then he rent his clothes. And the king commanded Hil-
kiah, and Ahikam son of Shaphan, and Abdon4 son of Micah, and Shaphan
21 the scribe, and Asaiah the servant of the king, saying : Go, inquire of the
Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the
words of the book that is found ; for great is the wrath of the Lord that
is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the
Lord, to do after all that is written in this book.
y. Consultation of Huldah the Prophetess, and Solemn Reading of the Law in the Tempte
vers. 22-33.
22 And Hilkiah and those who were appointed5 by the king went to Huldah
the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tokehath, son of Hasrah, keeper
of the wardrobe ; and she dwelt in Jerusalem in the second (quarter) ; and
23 they spake to her to this effect. And she said to them, Thus saith the Lord
24 God of Israel, Say ye to the man who sent you to me, Thus saith the Lord,
Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon its inhabitants, all the
curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of
25 Judah : Because they have forsaken me, and have made burnings0 to other
gods, to provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands ; and my
26 wrath is poured out on this place, and will not be quenched. And to the
king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall ye say :
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel of the words which thou hast heard.
27 Because thy heart was tender, and thou didst bow down before God, when
thou heardest His words against this place and its inhabitants, and thou didst
bow down before me and didst rend thy garments and weep before me, so
CHAP. XXXV. 267
28 have I also heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold, I will gather thee to thy
fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, and thine eyea
shall not see all the evil that I will bring upon this place and upon its inha-
29 bitants : and they brought the king word again. And the king sent and
30 gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up into
the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jeru-
salem, and the priests and the Levites, and all the people, great and small ; and
one read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found
31 in the house of the Lord. And the king stood in his place, and made the
covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep His command-
ments and testimonies and statutes with all his heart and with all his soul,
32 to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book. And
he caused all that were found in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it ; and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God
33 of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the
countries of the sons of Israel, and bound all that were found in Israel to
serve the Lord their God : all his days they departed not from the Lord God
of their fathers.
8. The Passover: ch. xxxv. 1-19.
Ch. XXXV. 1. And Josiah kept a passover unto the Lord in Jerusalem ; and they
2 killed the passover on the fourteenth of the first month. And he set the
priests in their charges, and strengthened them for the service of the Lord.
3 And he said unto the Levites, who taught all Israel,7 who were consecrated
to the Lord, Put the holy ark into the house which Solomon son of David,
the king of Israel, built ; it shall not be a burden on your shoulders : now
4 serve ye the Lord your God, and His people Israel. And make you ready 8
in your father-houses by your courses, after the writing of David king of
5 Israel, and after the description of Solomon his son. And stand ye in the
sanctuary after the divisions of the father-houses of your brethren, the sons
6 of the people, and a part of a father-house of the Levites [for each]. And kill
the passover, and sanctify you, and prepare your brethren, to do according to
7 the word of the Lord by Moses. And Josiah dealt to the sons of the people
sheep, lambs, and kids, all for paschal offerings, for all that were found, to the
number of thirty thousand, and three thousand bullocks : these were of the
8 property of the king. And his princes presented a free gift to the people, to
the priests, and to the Levites : Hilkiah, and Zechariah, and Jehiel, rulers of
the house of God, gave unto the priests for the passover-offerings two thousand
9 and six hundred [,-heep], and three hundred oxen. And Conaniah, and Shemaiah,
and Nethaneel, his brethren, and Hashabiah, and Jeiel, and Jozabad, chiefs of
the Levites, presented to the Levites for passover-offerings five thousand [sheer],
10 and oxen five hundred. And the service was prepared, and the priests stood
in their place, and the Levites in their courses, at the command of the king.
11 And they killed the passover, and the priests sprinkled [the wood] from their
12 hand, and the Levites flayed. And they removed the burnt-offering to give
them to the divisions of the father-houses of the sons of the people, to offer
unto the Lord, as it is written in the book of Moses ; and so with the oxen.
13 And they roasted the passover with fire, according to the ordinance ; and the
holy things they sod in pots and kettles and pans, and brought them quickly
1 4 to all the sons of the people. And afterwards they made ready for themselves
and for the priests : because the priests the sons of Aaron were engaged in
offering the burnt-offering and the fat until night ; and the Levites prepared
15 for themselves and for the priests the sons of Aaron. And the singers
the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the command of
David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer ; and the porters
were at every gate : it was not necessary for them to depart from their service,
16 for their brethren the Levites prepared for them. And all the service of the
LORD was prepared that day, to keep the passover, and to offer burnt-offerings
I68 II, CHRONICLES.
17 on the altar of the Lord, at the command of King Josiah. And the sons of
Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the least of
18 unleavened bread seven days. And there was no passover like that kept in
Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet j nor did all the kings of Israe
keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites and all
19 Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In
the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept.
i. Josiah'* Battle with Neclw of Egypt, and End: vers. 20-27.
20 After all this, when Josiah had prepared the house, Necho king of Egypt
came up to fight at Carchemish, on the Euphrates ; and Josiah went out against
21 him. And he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee,
0 king of Judah 1 I am not against thee this day, but against the house of
my war ;9 and God hath commanded me to make haste : withdraw thee from
22 God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not. And Josiah turned not his
face from him, but disguised himself,10 to fight with him, and hearkened not
unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and he came to fight in the
23 valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at King Josiah : and the king said
24 to his servants, Remove me, for I am sorely wounded. And his servants
removed him from the chariot, and put him on his second chariot; and
brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in the sepulchres of
25 his fathers : and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah
lamented for Josiah ; and all the songsters and songstresses spake of Josiah
in their laments unto this day, and they made them an ordinance for Israel :
and, behold, they are written in the Lamentations.
26 And the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his kindness, as it is written in the
27 law of the Lord, And his deeds, first and last, behold, they are written in the
book of the kings of Israel and Judah.
f
q. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah : Close. — Ch. xxxvi.
«. Jehoahaz: vers. 1-4.
Cb~ xxxvi. 1. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and
2 made him king instead of his father in Jerusalem. Jehoahaz was twenty and
three years old when he became king ; and he reigned three months in
3 Jerusalem. And the king of Egypt put him down n in Jerusalem, and fined
4 the land a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. And the king of
Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned
his name to Jehoiakim : and Necho took Jehoahaz his brother and carried
him to Egypt.
/3. Jehoiakim: vers. 5—8.
5 Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he became king ; and he
reigned eleven years in Jerusalem ; and he did that which was evil in the
6 eyes of the Lord God. Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel,
7 and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babel.12 And Nebuchadnezzar
brought of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babel, and put them in
8 his palace at Babel. And the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abomina-
tions which he did, and that which was found against him, behold, they are
written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah : and Jehoiachin his son
reigned in his stead.
y. Jehoiachin: vers. 9, 10.
9 Jehoiachin was eight years la old when he became king ; and he reigned
three months and ten days in Jerusalem : and he did that which was evil in
10 the eyes of the Lord. And at the turn of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar
sent and brought him to Babel, with the goodly vessels of the house of the
Lord ; and he made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.
CHAP. XXXVI. 269
J. Zedekiah: vers. 11-21.
1 1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and ho reigned
12 eleven years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of
the Lord his God ; he humbled himself not before Jeremiah the prophet, from
13 the mouth of the Lord. And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar,
who made him swear by God : and he stiffened his neck, and hardened his
14 heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. Also all the chiefs of the
priests and the people transgressed very much, after all the abominations cf
the heathen ; and polluted the house of the Lord, which He had hallowed in
1 5 Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by His messengers,
rising early, and sending ; because He had compassion on His people and His
16 dwelling-place. And they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His
words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against
17 His people, till there was no healing. And He brought up against them the
king of the Chaldees, and slew their young men with the sword in the house
of their sanctuary, and He spared neither young man nor maiden, the old nor
18 the grey headed ; the whole He gave into his hand. And all the vessels of
the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord,
and the treasures of the king and his princes ; the whole he brought to Babel.
19 And they burned the house of God, and pulled down the wall of Jerusalem,
and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its goodly vessels.
20 And he carried away those that remained from the sword to Babel ; and they
became servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia :
21 To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had
enjoyed her sabbaths : all the days of the desolation she rested to fulfil seventy
years.
t. Close: the Return from Captivity under Cyrus: vers. 22, 23.
22 And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord,
by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit
of Cyrus king of Persia, and he made proclamation in all his kingdom, and
23 also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms
of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me ; and He hath charged
me to build Him a house at Jerusalem : whoso is among you of all His
people 1 The Lord14 his God be with him, and let him go up.
1 OTIirQTD is probably an error of transcription for D!"lin3TD
* Instead of the Keri DiTTlDina, that appears formed after Ezek. xxvi. 9, or Neh. iv. 7, but yields no suitable
, we should point DnTOina, in minis eorum (comp. Ps. cix. 10). The Kethib; DITTO 1113, " he chose (ex-
v : t : v ■■ t ■ t
amined, searched) their houses," is scarcely warranted by the usage of speech,
* The Kethib ,3«J,,|1 is undoubtedly to be preferred to the Keri UB^I, " and tn8y returned."
' For jfa^JJ the Syr. presents "I133JJ, which seems to be the original reading according to 2 Kings Mil. 12.
•For TJPtSn "IE>N is to be read, according to the Sept.: 'en "1BX 'V!\> " and whom the king had commanded.
" Kethib Vlt2p»1, "have burned offerings"; Piel, as 2 Kings xxli. 17: "have horned incense."
» Kethib QlJUOn, perhaps only a slip of the pen for D^SSf! (Keri), "the teaching, instructing"; some vu.
give this directly as the Kethib; some have D'J'ODn, which is perhaps only another way of mlswriting the original
' The Kethib yfon (imp. Niph. "make you ready") is undoubtedly to be preferred to the Keri V3n, "prepare
ye " (comp. ver. 6).
* The difficult phrase TUDH^D JV3_5>N is not translated by the Sept.; the Vulg. gives the very free rendering:
Hi contra aliam pugno domum. The original text is perhaps still to be discovered from 3 Esdras 1. 25 : \x) ykp rev Eifpirce
i wixiuis uo& i«r«, namely, IMD^D mS^N (comp. also Josephns, Antiq. x. 8. 1). So at least 0. F. Fritzsche (on
• : -l • t; v
t Eidras), Berth, and Kamph.
270
II. CHRONICLES.
10 Instead of b'Snrin, "disfigured, unrobed himself," the Sept. read (izpccTxtuBv) p^njin (comp. xxv. 11); th«
Vulg. (prseparavit) and 3 Esdras lirrix'.ipu) appear only to have run into the indefinite.
" Instead of in")'1 D,l, "and removed, put him down," the Sept. read (.i&mr) imDN'li agreeing with 2 King*
xxiii. 33. But the Vulg., Syr., and 3 Esdras confirm the Masoretic reading. The last (3 Esdras i. 33) seems to have read
:]Pt3K3 !im',D'"li with a supplement which Berth., Kamp., and others pronounce necessary before D7KTI,1
12 The Sept., Vulg., and 3 Esdras change ISvirv into the past !|rDv1sl ; comp. Exeg Expl.
13 r"Dbtf>, though the Sept. and Vulg. give the number 8, is certainly an error of the pen for mb'J? HJDti'; coraf
2 Kings xxiv. 8, also some Hebr. manuscripts, the Syr. and Arab, in our passage.
u For nin*1 the parallels Ezra i. 3 and 3 Esdras ii. 5 present ^HV which is perhaps the original form.
EXEGETICAL.
Preliminary Remakk. — Whereas in 2 Kings
xxii. and xxiii. the several moments of the reform-
ing action of Josiah are so combined that they
appear all conditioned and determined by the re-
pair of the temple, and the discovery in it of the
book of the law, the Chronist separates the several
acts or steps of his reforming activity more exactly,
and indeed chronologically, as he makes the work
of the king begin with the eighth year of his reign,
the commencement of his more energetic proceed-
ings to fall in the twelfth, and its end in the
eighteenth (comp. on xxxiv. 3). In other respects
the two accounts agree substantially, though the
Chronist has related the cleansing of Judah and
Jerusalem from idolatry (xxxiv. 3-7) with great
brevity, and, on the contrary, the great passover
(xxxv. 1-19) so much the more fully ; whereas
the author of 2 Kings, in accordance with his less
careful attention to the history of the Levitical
worship, has reversed this method, and treated of
the passover quite briefly. Both historians relate
the closing catastrophe of the history of Josiah at
nearly the same length and in much the same
manner, though the Chronist gives vent to the
pragmatic reflective connection of this tragic end
with the previous transactions of his reign (2 Kings
xxiii. 25 f.). He proceeds, lastly, quite in the form
of an epitome in his statements concerning the
four last reigns, in ch. xxxvi., to which the author
of the books of Kings devotes a great deal of
space.
1. Josiah's Beginnings ; the Eradication of
Idolatry : ch. xxxiv. 1-7. — Vers. 1, 2 agree with
2 Kings xxii. 1, 2, especially with regard to the
eulogy applied to Josiah (alone of all kings), that
he "declined not to the right hand nor to the
left " ; only the mention of his mother (Jedidah,
daughter of Adaiah) is wanting in our passage. —
Ver. 3. And in tlie eighth year of his reign, when
he was sixteen years old. The " seeking after
God," as xxii. 19 and elsewhere. On the relation
of the present chronological statements, especially
that referring to the twelfth year of Josiah's reign
as the date of the beginning of the abolition of
idolatry, in 2 Kings xxii. 3 ff. and ver. 33 of our
chapter, see Bahr's full discussion (Bibelw. vii.
453 if. ). This agrees with the conclusion of almost
all recent expositors in this, that neither the
Chronist nor the author of 2 Kings proceeds ex-
actly in chronological order, in so far as the latter
compresses the whole measures of the purification
of worship and extirpation of idolatry into the
eighteenth year of his reign ; but the former (ac-
cording to vers. 4-7, which are to be taken partly
us probptic) attaches to that which was put in
operation in the twelfth year part of that which
was only carried into effect in the eighteenth year,
as he himself indicates at the close of the chapter
(ver. 33). — Ver. 4. And. they pulled doiim before
him the altars of Baalim, and the sun-statues . . .
he hewed down ; comp. xxxiii. 3, xxxi. 1 ; and
for the sun- statues especially, xiv. 4 ; and for that
which follows, xv. 16. — And strewed (the dust of
the ground iinagesi upon the graves of them that
had sacrificed to them, literally, "upon the graves
that sacrificed to them." In 2 Kings xxiii. 6,
perhaps more exactly the ashes of the great asherim
merely are designated as strewn upon the graves
of the idolaters. — Ver. 5. And the bones of tlie
priests he burned • for the particulars, see 2
Kings xxiii. 13, 14 16-20. —Ver. 6. And in the
cities of Manasseh and Ephraim, and Simeon,
and unto Naphtali, that is, in all the land, from
the most southern to the most northern part of
the tribes. That fie regions belonging to the
northern kingdom (among which here, as in xv. 9,
Simeon also is named as a tribe addicted to
idolatry) were at that time wasted by the invasion
of Shalmaneser and Sargon, is indicated by the
addition: " in their ruins around. " For the exclu-
sive admissibility of this reading (QriV"lh"in3),
see Crit. Koto Moreover, the present account
(with the parallel statement in 2 Kings xxiii. 1 9 f. ),
according to which the kingdom of Josiah included
again in some measure all the twelve tribes, is
certainly to be estimated in the same way as the
statement in xxx. 18, according to which, even in
the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, before the
northern kingdom had fallen, a partial annexation
of its inhabitants to the southern kingdom in
respect of worship had taken place. Here also it
is only the introduction of the remnant of the in-
habitants of the north into the work of the purifi-
cation of worship that is spoken of, not the
exercise of a formal sovereignty over their coun-
try. What Neteler says, p. 261, of a supposed
" reunion of the country of Tsrael with the king-
dom of Judah " under Manasseh, and of an in-
heritance of this collective Israelitish kingdom,
restored to its original compass, on the part of
Josiah son of Manasseh, is devoid of all definite
hold in the text as well of the books of Kings as
of Chronicles.— Ver. 7. Pulled down the altars;
here first is the chief sentence to the (in the form
of an absolute sentence, ver. 6) premised deter-
mination of the scene of the king^ action. — And
the asherim ; pini' is a perfect-like (retaining the
vowel of the perfect) infinitive with ^>, on which
see Ewald, § 238, d.— And he returned to Jeru-
«alem, from his campaign against the idols, whicli
had carried him into the former region of Ephraim
CHAP. XXXIV. 8-27.
271
and Simeon. Id 2 Kings xxiii. 20 also is this
notice found, but there certainly in reference to
the eighteenth year of Josiah. A chronological
contradiction of the two accounts, however, can
scarcely be found in this circumstance ; comp.
Bahr on the passage.
2. The Purging of the Temple and Recovery of
the Book of the Law: vers. 8-21. Comp. 2 Kings
xxii. 3-13, and Bahr on the passage. — In the
' eighteenth year . . . when he purged, "\i\u7 is
neither "after the purging, after he had purged "
(Luther, de Wette, etc.), nor " in order to purge"
(Berth., Kamph. ), but a note of time and circum-
stance "in the purging" (Keil, Net.); comp.
Jer. xlvi. 13. In the naming of Shaphan, his
designation as scribe or royal secretary (2 Kings
xxii. 3) has perhaps fallen out of the text of our
account by a mere oversight, for the two other
officers named by the Chronist (reporting more
exactly than 2 Kings) are introduced by the
addition of their titles. For "repair (literally,
'strengthen') the house of the Lord," see on
xxiv. 5, and also on ver. 9 of the present report
concerning the repair of the temple under Joash
(xxiv. 11-13) ; see, moreover, the Crit. Note on
ver. 9. — Ver. 10. Put it into the hand of the work-
masters, etc. UH'l is a resuming of the same
verb in the foregoing verse, but connected with
*!*"?y> "into the hand," by which the sense of
" handing " is reached. For the plur. nfety
ri3X7l3n (for 'n tyfy), comp. 1 Chron. xxiii. 24.
— The worh-masters . . . gave it, etc. ; so accord-
ing to the received text ; but if, as 2 Kings xxii. 5
aeems to show, a p has fallen out before i't»>]?, it
should be rendered: "they gave it to the work-
masters " (or labourers). The latter reading ap-
pears the more suitable, though it cannot be
affirmed that it is the original one. — Ver. 11. And
timber for girders and for joists of the houses,
literally, "to joist the houses"; comp. Neh. iii.
3, 6. This means, naturally, not any houses of
the city, but the buildings of the temple. — Which
the Icings ofJudah had destroyed, let go to ruin ;
a like exaggeration of phrase as in the case of
Athaliah, xxiv. 7. — Ver. 12. And the men wrought
faithfully at the work, literally, " were working."
For HJ1DS3) "truly, conscientiously," see on
xxxi. 12. — To oversee the building ; comp. nS3?
in essentially the same meaning, Ezra iii. 8. —
And the Levites, all that had skill in instruments
of song ; comp. 1 Chron. xv. 16, xxv. 7; Dan. i
17. These closing words of ver. 12 are to be con-
nected with ver. 13a, so that the repeated 1 is =
"as well as." This is simpler and less violent
than the proposal of Bertheau, accepted by
Kamph., to erase the first 1 of ver. 13, and annex
the words " over the carriers " to ver. 12. On
ver. 14, comp. 2 Kings xxii. 8. — Tlve book of the
law of the Lord by Moses, that is, the Mosaic law
(comp. for the phrase, xxxiii. 8). The whole
Torah at all events is meant, not merely Deuter-
onomy, as the modern critical school (last of all,
Hitzig, Gesch. p. 236) think ; and not merely the
groups of laws contained in the three middle
books of the Pentateuch (according to Bertheau's
hypothesis, Beitrdge zur israelit, Gesch. p. 375).
Decisive grounds against these modern hypotheses,
especially so far as they endeavour to connect the
assertion cf an origin from Manasseh or even
Josiah with our passage, see in Kleinert, Das
Deuteronomium und der Deuteronomiker, 1871,
and in Klostermann, "Das Lied Mosis und das
Deuteronomium," Theol. Stud, und Krit. 1871,
ii. ; 1872, ii. and iii. Comp. also Stahelin, Mvfeit.
ins A. T. (1862) p. 242 ft'.; J. Fiirst, Gesch. der
bibl. Literal, i. 351 ff. ; and Bahr on 2 Kings
xxii. 7. — Ver. 16. And Shaphan brought the book
to the king. Somewhat different in the parallel
2 Kings xxii. 9, where at first it is only related:
" and Shaphan the scribe came to the king," and
where, therefore, no "lij?, "yet," stands in the fol-
lowing : "and brought the king word." The
structure of the words in the Chronist appears in
every respect the younger, although none of its
deviations is of any essential importance ; comp.
Keil on this passage. — Ver. 17. Given it into the
hands ; comp. on ver. 10 at the beginning. — Ver.
20. And Ahikam son of Shaphan, the father of
Gedaliah and protector of Jeremiah ; see Jer.
xxvi. 24, xl. 5. For the probable originality of
the reading " Achbor" for " Abdon," see the Crit.
Note. The Achbor of this passage appears the
same who is so named Jer. xxvi. 22, xxxvi. 12.
— Ver 21. And for them that are left in Israel,
literally, "for that which is left"; a significant
phrase, like the parallel 2 Kings xxii. 13: "for
the people and for all Judah." The expression
"that is poured out" (rofij) stands for the
essentially synonymous "that is kindled" (nnS3)
of the parallel.
3. Consultation of Huldah, and Solemn Read-
ing of the Law in the Temple : vers. 22-33.
Comp. 2 Kings xxii. 1 4-20, xxiii. 1-3, and Bahr
on this passage. — Went to Huldah . . . the wife
of Shallum. The forefathers of this husband of
Huldah are called in 2 Kings, not Tokehath and
Hasrah, but Tikvah and Harhas. ' Which of
these (nowhere else occurring) names are original
cannot now be decided. For " the second "
quarter or district of the lower city, see Bahr. —
And they spake to her to this effect, namely, as
Josiah had said to them ; this J1NT3, which re-
minds us of xxxii. 15, is wanting in 2 Kings. —
Ver. 24. All the curses, etc. ; in 2 Kings less
strong: " all the words. " — Ver. 25. And my wrath
is poured out on this place. As in ver. 21, here
again stands the verb ■qfi3 instead of JTO> the one
usual in the parallel (2 Kings xxii. 17), which
latter, moreover, the Sept. expresses also in our
passage, perhaps because it appears to suit better
the following words: "and will not be quenched."
— Ver. 27. Because thy heart was tender . . . when
thou heardest his words. In the original text the
construction is somewhat different, namely, ' ' the
words which thou hast heard " (ver. 26 for ex-
ample), "because thereby thy heart was made
tender, and thou didst bow down before God,
when thou heardest," etc. The words □'"inn
jnj?DE> IB'K. absolutely prefixed, can scarcely be
translated. In 2 Kings xxii. 19, moreover, tha
words "against this place" are rendered still
i Not Harham, as Luther and after him also Bahr (chug
tag the D into O) write-
272
II. CHRONICLES.
more distinct by the addition wanting here : "that
they should become a desolation and a curse." —
Ver. 28. And they brought, the king word again ;
comp. ver. 16. — Ver. 32. Caused all . , . to stand
to it, namely, to the covenant. In 2 Kings xxiii.
3, instead of "|DJ?»1 stands rather the Kal IbjJ'li
joined with rTH33, "and all the people stood to
the covenant." — Ver. 33. And Josiah took away
all the abominations. For the relation of this
statement, that reverts to vers. 3-7 in the way of
recapitulation, to 2 Kings xxiii. 4-20, see above,
Preliminary Remark, and on ver. 3. By " all the
countries of the sons of Israel " are here meant
the territories of the former kingdom of the ten
tribes, as distinguished from Jerusalem and Ben-
jamin, ver. 32 (that is, Jerusalem, Judah, and
Benjamin). Comp. above, ver. 6, also 2 Kings
xxiii. 15, 19, where in particular Bethel and the
cities of Samaria are mentioned as places of the
former Israel that were subjected to the great
purging process of Josiah. — And bound all . . . to
serve (12]lb "13y5l)i "caused to serve," bound
to the service of the Lord. — All his days they
departed not from the Lord. This theocratic
behaviour of the people during the whole reign of
Josiah can, at all events, have only been external,
without true conversion of heart, and therefore
without real constancy ; see Evangelical and
Ethical Reflections, No. 1.
4. The Passover : ch. xxxv. 1-19. Comp. 2
Kings xxiii. 21, 23 ; as also the tolerably close
Greek version of our section in 3 Esdras i.
1-21 (in Tischendorf's edit, of the Sept. the first
book of Esdras). — And they killed the passover
on. the fourteenth day of the first month; thus,
though Hitzig (Gesch. p. 235) doubts it without
any ground, at the time prescribed by law,
otherwise than in the passover of Hezekiah, xxx.
2 ff. The year of this solemnity is (ver. 9 ; see
on this verse) the eighteenth of Josiah's reign,
and therefore 623 (or 622) B.C.— Ver. 2. And he
set the priests in their charges (watches ; comp.
vii. 6, viii. 14), in their functions; comp. 1
Chron. xxiii. 32. — And strengthened them for the
service of the Lord, by comforting, encouraging
exhortation, as also by instructions in their legal
functions ; comp. Neh. ii. 18, where p^n stands
in the same sense, and xxix. 5. — Ver. 3. Who
taught all Israel. Comp. J'^n in Neh. viii. 7, 9,
also the synonymous 10? above, xvii. 8, 9. For
the following designation of the Levites as "con-
secrated to the Lord," that is, alone entitled to
enter His sanctuary and conduct His holy service,
comp. xxiii. 6. — Put the holy ark into the hotme.
These words are somewhat surprising, and admit
ot various interpretations, as a parallel yielding a
more definite explanation is wanting. But al-
though not iQievi, "bring back," but yfl,
"give place," is the verb used, yet the assump-
tion of a previous removal of the ark from its
place in the holy of holies appears to present
itself with constraining necessity, even if we
think (with many ancients, as well as Berth, and
Kamph.) of Manasseh or Amon as the author of
this temporary transference of the ark ; in which
case, however, it would be very surprising that
nothing should be expressly stated in the reign
of these godless kings concerning so profane a
violation ; or if (with Starke and others) we con-
sider Josiah's repair of the temple to be the
occasion of the temporary removal of the ark
from its place, which is undoubtedly the simplest
and best supposition. Quite arbitrary is the hypo-
thesis of some ancients, that the ark was, in the
days of the idolatrous kings, sometimes carried
round the country as a means of strengthening
the faith of the people, and Josiah now forbids
this custom in the present words (see v. Mosheirn
in Calmet's Bibl. Ontersuchungen, vi. 226 ff.) ;
and equally so the Rabbinical conceit, that Josiah
here gives orders to remove the ark from its
place in the holy of holies to a subterranean
chamber, to place it in safety from the impending
destruction of the temple. But even the render-
ing : " Leave the holy ark in the house, leave it
in the temple, to which it properly belongs"
(Keil, after the ancients), is arbitrary ; and so is
Neteler's attempted emendation, which, against
the grammar, would change the imperat. yj^
into the perf. ^p\ (from pn = JDJ, "gi?e"), and
translate accordingly : ' ' And he said to the
Levites, Those who taught all Israel, who were
consecrated to the Lord, have put the ark of the
sanctuary into the house," etc. Were such an
explanation of the passage possible, how surpris-
ing that it is first discovered in the 19th century !
— It shall not be a burden on your shoulders ;
comp. Num. iv. 15, vii. 9. The sense of these
words can only be : ye have to minister to the
ark of the Lord not as a moveable sanctuary, to be
carried laboriously on the shoulders, through the
wilderness or from city to city, but as the throne
of God standing in the centre of the temple ; the
times of the toilsome and perilous (comp. 1 Chron.
xiii. 9) transport of the ark are over ; an easier
ministry before this sanctuary, but not the less
conscientiously to be discharged, now lies upon
you. If we take the words thus (with Keil,
Kamph., etc.), there seems to be no necessity for
Bertheau's assumption that the Levites at the pass-
over had carried round the ark on their shoulders
in an inconsiderate way, and Josiah therefore in-
structed them that this function of carrying was
no longer binding on them with regard to the ark
of the covenant. — Ver. 4. And make you ready
(see Crit. Note) . . . after the writing of Daviil,
properly, " in the writing, " etc. (3, as in xxix.
25). There were then writings or notes OrDD,
as in xxxvi. 22, 1 Chron. xxviii. 19) of David
and Solomon, in which these kings had estab-
lished as law their prescriptions for the ministry
of priests and Levites in the sanctuary, from
which also our author had directly or indirectly
drawn his former communications on this subject
(1 Chron. xxiii. -xxvi ) ; comp. Introd. § 5, for
example, and the preliminary remark in explana-
tion of 1 Chron. xxiii. -xxvi. — Ver. 5. And a
part of a father-house of the Levites (for each) ;
so that to every division (nj^S, as Ezra vi. 18) of
the non-Levitical father-houses may correspond a
part of a Levitical father-house (comp. 1 Chron.
xxiv. 6). In this way it is not necessary to erase
1 before nppn in the sense of " and indeed, " or
"namely" (against Berth.). — Ver. 6. Kill the
passover and sanctify you, namely, by .washing,
before ye hand to the priests the blood to sprinklf
CHAP. XXXV. 7-20.
273
on the altar ; comp. xxx. 16 f. — Vers. 7-9. The
King and his Princes bestow Victims. — And Josiah
dealt to the sons of tJie people ; D'Hit, bestow as
a heave-offering, as in xxx. 24, Ezra viii. 25. —
To the number of 30,000 head of small cattle,
and 3000 bullocks, — the latter, as appears from
ver. 13, for slaying and consuming as peace-
offerings. All this was from the king s domains ;
comp. xxxi. 3, xxxii. 29. — Ver. 8. And his
princes presented a free gift; so is i"Q13? *° ^e
taken here (comp. the corresponding Q^riDB? f°r
passover-offerings in the verse before), not as an
adverb, "willingly," as Berth, thinks. How
many the princes gave as free gifts is not here
mentioned (it is otherwise in xxx. 24) ; for the
three "rulers of the house of God " named in ft
as in ver. 9, and six chiefs of the Levites, are
certainly as different from "the princes of the
king " as the spiritual office-bearers in any king-
dom are from the temporal. Moreover, of the
three princes of the house of God, Zechariah,
named next after the high priest Hilkiah, ap-
pears to be his nearest subordinate or deputy
(iUtPb inb, 2 Kings xxv. 18) ; but the third,
Jehiel, seems to be the head of the line of
Ithamar (comp. Ezra viii. 2, and Berth, on this
passage). Of the six chiefs of the Levites named
in ver. 9, three — Conaniah, Shemaiah, and Joza-
bad — have the same names with those named in
xxxi. 12-15 on the occasion of the reform of
Hezekiah, but are scarcely the same persons. —
Ver. 10 ff. depicts the preparation of the passover
and the sacrificial feast connected with it. — And
the service was prepared (or arranged, Luther),
comp. ver. 16, xxix. 35 ; for the following, also
xxx. 16 f.— Ver. 12. And iheyremoved the burnt-
offering ; TDH is here to separate the parts of the
victim that were to be burned on the altar ;
comp. Lev. iii. 9 f ., iv. 81. These parts are here
called nMjjn, because, as the law of the peace-
offering/ Lev. iii. 6-16 (especially vers. 11 and
16), directs, they were wholly burned as the burnt-
offering, and, moreover, on the flesh of the even-
ing sacrifice. A special burnt-offering is not to
be thought of, because such were not prescribed
on the evening of the 14th Nisan for the pass-
over ; the only offerings to be presented thereon
were the paschal lambs. — To give them to the
divisions; " them," namely, the separated pieces,
to be burned as burnt-offerings. — And so with
the oxen; they also (those special gifts in oxen
mentioned vers. 7-9, 3800 head in all) were pre-
sented not as burnt-offerings or holocausts to be
wholly burned, but as peace-offerings, to be eaten
as a joyful festival in part, that is, after taking
away the fat that was to be burned.— Ver. 13.
And they roasted the passover with fire, accord-
ing to the ordinance; see Ex. xii. 8, 9. The
"holy things " (Qi^npin) are the slain oxen (see
xxix. 33). If it is further said of these, that
their flesh, after being sodden in pots, etc., is to
be brought " quickly " to the sons of the people,
that is, the non-Levitieal partakers in the feast, it
does not follow that this was done on the first
evening of the feast, the 14th Nisan, and thus
that all that was provided, passover lambs and
peace-offerings, was consumed on the very first
evening (as Berth, and apparently also Kamph.
think). On the contrary, Keil justly remarks:
" Such a junction or rather mingling of the feast
prepared of the roasted lambs with the eating of
the boiled beef would have been so rude an
offence against the legal prescriptions concerning
the passover, that we shall not ascribe it either to
King Josiah and the priests, or even to the author
of Chronicles, as the latter expressly remarks that
they proceeded in the festival according to the
prescription of the law of Moses, and according
to the ordinance." Accordingly, that which is
here and in the two following verses recorded
concerning the preparation of the offering and
the feast refers not merely to the opening evening,
but to the whole seven days of unleavened bread.
— Ver. 14. And afterwards, when the laity were
provided for. — Because the priests . . . (were en-
gaged) in offering the burnt-offering and the fat
until night, and thus could not cook and prepare
for themselves, the Levites must do this for
them. Burnt-offering and fat appear to denote
one and the same thing, and so to form a hendia-
dyoin ; or also the conjunctive i between the two
phrases appears to be explicative (Keil). — Ver. 15.
And the singers . . . were in their place (comp.
1 Chron. xxiii. 28, xxv. 1, 6). What is here re-
corded concerning the co-operation of the singers
and the porters in the solemnity clearly refers, as
the comprehensive character of the scene shows,
not merely to one, but to all the seven days of the
feast. The phrase " that day," at the beginning
of ver. 16, does not oppose this view, but reverts
to the 14th Nisan as the fundamental day of the
festival ; comp. the sing. Q\i in Gen. ii. 4 and in
ver. 17, which shows most directly and clearly the
correctness of our interpretation. — Ver. 18. And
there was no passover like that kept . . . from the
days of Samuel. This does not contradict xxx. 26,
for there the point of comparison is the magnifi-
cence and numerous participation in the solemnity ;
here, on the contrary, its theocratic purity and
legitimacy. Comp. above on that passage, as well
as Bahr on the parallel 2 Kings xxiii. 22.^ On
"all Judah and Israel that were present," that
is, so far as they were present, comp. xxxiv.
33. — Ver. 19. In the eighteenth year of the reign
of Josiah was this passover kept; thus in the
same year in which, according to xxxiv. 8, the
full execution and conclusion of Josiah's reform
of worship took place (comp. on ver. 1). There
is no proper chronological difficulty in this date,
which is also found in 2 Kings xxiii. 23 ; for the
18th year which is here spoken of is a reign and
calendar year (Bahr), and if dated from the
autumn, from that time till the legal term of the
paschal feast, about the middle of Nisan (in the
spring of the following calendar year), all that is
related in xxxiv. 8-33 may take place. And all
the more because not a little that referred to the
cleansing and repair of the temple might have
been already prepared in the previous years of
Josiah's reign (from the 12th, xxxiv. 3).
5. Josiah's Battle with Necho of Egypt, and
End : vers. 20-27. Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 25-30.
—After all this . . . Necho, king of Egypt, came
up; not the Necho I. (Ni-ik-ku-u sar Mi'-im-piu
S'a-ai, "king of Memphis and Sais," on an in-
scription of Asurbanipal) mentioned xxxiii. 11,
who had reigned before 664, but the successor oi
S
274
II. CHRONICLES.
Psammetichus, Necho II., who reigned till about
605. The Assyrian (or rather Babylonian) king
■who is attacked by Necho in the present cam-
paign is probably Asur-idil-ili, the Sarak of
Abydenus and Syncellns (see Schrader, p. 231 ff.),
or even, if Nineveh was already fallen, Nabo-
polassar (see Then., Berth., Bahr, etc.), but by no
means Sardanapalus (v. Gumpach, Zeitrechnnng
der Babyl. und Assyr. p. 146), who was much
earlier. For Carchemish = Circesium, on the
Euphrates, comp. the expositors on Isa. X. 9 ;
Jer. xlvi. 2.1 — Ver. 21. What have I to do with
thee? properly, "what is there to me and thee?"
comp. Judg. xi. 12; 2 Sam. x. 9; John ii. i.—J
am not against thee this day, "I am come up"
(Tl^J?)' my att;ack i3 not on thee; after ippjj
the suffix of the second pers. is rendered emphatic
by an added nns, which would be expressed in
English by "even thee." — But against the house
of my war. These words must, if original, be
interpreted like the phrase: "man of wars of
Tou," 1 Chron. xviii. 10, or the similar form in
2 Sam. viii. 10, and would thus denote the
hereditary foe of the Egyptian king. But it
seems more natural to amend, as in 3 Esdras i.,
according to the Crit. Note. — And God hath com-
manded me to make haste. By this God, to
whose command he was obedient, Necho means
not any Egyptian deity, as the Targ. as well as
some recent expositors (appealing to Herodotus,
ii. 158) think, but, according to ver. 22, the true
supreme God, the acknowledgment of whom in
the mouth of Necho cannot surprise us more than
xxxvi. 23 in the edict of Cyrus. The older ex-
positors assume a special divine command (siveper
somnium, sive per prophetam aliquem ad ipsum
a Judaea missum) without sufficient necessity;
what Necho had recognised as agreeable to the will
of his Egyptian deity, that he transfers at once
to a supposed indication of the will of Jehovah.
— Ver. 22. But disguised himself to fight with
him; he gave up his true character, the part of
the peaceful, which he was bound to play, and
engaged against the will of God in combat with
Necho. Perhaps, however (with Berth. , Kamph. ),
the reading of the Sept.: "but made himself
strong for battle " (comp. xxv. 11), is to be pre-
ferred. A literal disguise, such as that of Ahab,
xviii. 29, should in no case be thought of (against
Starke and other ancients, also Neteler). For
the well-founded opinion of our author, that the
battle of Josiah with Necho was a contravention
of the divine will, see Evangelical and EthLal
Reflections, No. 1. For the valley of Megiddo,
see on 2 Kings xxiii. 29 f. — Ver. 24. And his
servants . . . put him in his second chariot, per-
haps a more commodious one, which he had with
nim besides the war chariot. Not so exact 2
Kings xxiii. 30. — Ver. 25. And Jeremiah lamented
for Josiah. This lamentation of Jeremiah was
certainly included in the collection of lamenta-
tions (]"|iyp) on Jcsiah mentioned immediately
after at the end of the verse, but is no longer
found in the present Lamentations of Jeremiah,
which must be regarded as a later collection than
1 Recently G. Maspero (De CarcKanis oppidi situ et hittoria
antiquitsima, Lut. Par. 1872) lias attempted to identify
Carchemish with the town IMabug = Bot/x0Cxii or Hiera-
polis, north-east of Aleppo, following the lead of Ephraem
•a 2 Kings xxiii. 30.
that here named. Perhaps the passages m Jer.
xxii. 10, 18, and Zech. xii. 11 contain allusions
to the older laments in memory of Josiah that are
here intended; comp. Nagelsbach on Jeremiah,
and KShler on Zechariah. — Ver. 26. And his
kindness; Q'lDn, as in xxxii. 32 of Hezekiah,
but more exactly defined in cur passage by the
addition: "as it is written in tne law of the
Lord," corresponding to the chai actenstic peculi
arity of Josiah, as a prince living and reigning in
the strictest sense according to law.
6. Jehoahaz : ch. xxxvi. 1-4. Comp. 2 Kings
xxiii. 30-35.— And the people of Out land took
Jehoahaz; the same mode of elevation to the
throne as in Josiah, xxxiii. 25, and Uzziah, xxvi. 1.
In the present case, the will of the people took
effect in a usurping way, as the younger brother
(Jehoahaz, or properly Shallum; see 1 Chion. lii.
15, and comp. remarks on this passage) was pre-
ferred to the older Jehoiakim, perhaps because
they had learned to fear the latter on account of
the tyrannical spirit early manifested by him
(comp. on ver. 8). — Ver. 3. Put him down. For
the here probably necessary supplement of -psa
after tfTWl, 3ee Crit- Note- 0n the terms 10°
talents of silver and a talent of gold, which are
also found in 2 Kings xxiii., see Bahr on this
7. "Jehoiakim : vers. 5-8. Comp. 2 Kings
xxiii. 36-xxiv. 7. — Jehoiakim was twenty and
five years old when he became king, and so two
years older than his brother Shallum-Jehoahaz. —
Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar ; according
to the Assyrio-Babylonian monuments, Nabiuv-
kudurriusur (comp. the Hebrew form "liVKT]3U3,
Jer. xlix. 28 and Ezra ii. 1, Keihib; likewise
N«|3!><c.>Sp«<r»p« in Alex. Polyhistor, Megasthenes,
and Abydenus). The name (according to Schrader,
p. 235) is compounded of the idol name Nabiuv
or Nabu, the subst. Kudur, "crown" (xiixfii),
and the imperat. usur or nasar, "protect," and
means: "Nebo, guard the crown" (not Nebo
guards the crown, as Keil states our passage and
at Dan. i. 1).— And bound him in fetters, as
befell Manasseh, and as the Assyrio-Babylonish
sovereigns were wont to do to all captive princes ;
comp. on xxxiii. 11. — To carry him to Babel.
That this carrying to Babel was only intended,
not executed, almost all recent expositors justly
assume ; eomp. besides Movers {Chron. p. 333),
Bertheau, Keil, Neteler on our passage, also
Bahr on 2 Kings xxiv. 1 ff., Nagelsbach on Jer.
xxii. 17 ff., as well as my remarks on Dan. i. 2.
If the Sept., which presents a text often deviating
from the Masoretic text, and amplified with many
additions, makes out of "to carry him" (iSvifl?)
an actual "and carried him " (*ai imyayi* nWi
lis ftz/iiikwvx), and also 3 Esdras and the Vulg.
translate accordingly (et vinctum catenis duxit
Babylonem), this has its ground in the erroneous
assumption derived mainly from a onesided view
of Dan. i. 2, as if already the misfortune of being
carried to Babel had befallen Jehoiakim, which,
according to the sequel, first overtook his son
Jehoiachin, whereas he himself, according to the
express statement of ver. 5, reigned eleven years
at Jerusalem (the last of these eleven years, natur-
CHAP. XXXVI. 8-17.
276
ally, as the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar). On the
date of this first invasion of Nebuchadnezzar,
according to Dan. i. 1 "in the third year of
.Tehoiakim, " about 606 or 605 B.C., coinp. our
remarks in the Introd. to the book of Daniel,
§ 8 (Bibelw. xvii. 28, 30 ff.). On ver. 7, comp.
Dan. i. 2 ; Ezra i. 7. — Ver. 8. And his abomina-
tions which lie did; not certainly a mere designa-
tion of the idolatry of Jehoiakim (as Berth, thinks,
who understands nnjJin ilW of the making of
idols), but also of his other evil deeds — for example,
his shedding of innocent blood, 2 Kings xxiv. 4.
The next phrase: "and that which was found
against him, " is a still more general and compre-
hensive expression for these evil deeds ; comp.
xix. 3.
8. Jehoiachin : vers. 9, 10. Comp. the fuller
account, 2 Kings xxiv. 8-17. — Jehoiachin was
eight years old. That the number eight here is,
at all events, a miswriting for eighteen, see in
Crit. Note. Not merely in 2 Kings xxiv. 8 is
Jehoiachin designated as a youth of eighteen
years at his accession, but Ezek. xix. 5-9 makes
him appear at least as old, since he is depicted as a
young lion, who practised man-stealing, oppressed
widows, and laid waste cities, abominations which
a boy of eight years could not have committed.
Against Bertheau's opinion, that it follows from
2 Kings xxiv. 12, 15, Jer. xxii. 26, where Jehoia-
chin's mother is mentioned along with hiin, that
he was still in his minority, and thus the present
statement of the Chronist that he is only eight
years old is correct, is the joint mention of the
queen-mother in the account of the accession of
a new king which is usual in the books of Kings,
and occurs, for example, also in Jehoahaz (2 Kings
xxiii. 31), Jehoiakim (xxiii. 36), and Zedekiah
(xxiv. 18). For the name Jehoiachin, and its
relation to the kindred form Jechoniah or Coniah,
comp. on 1 Chron. iii. 16. — Ver. 10. And at the
turn of the year, in the spring, when men are
wont to open the campaign (comp. 2 Sam. xi. 1 ;
1 Kings xx. 22). — And brought him to Babel
("caused him to come") with the goodly vessels,
etc. In the mention of these "goodly vessels"
(as in xxxii. 27) there is an advance in com-
parison with "some of the vessels," as in ver. 7.
The spoliation under Jechoniah (598 B.C.) was
more thorough than under Jehoiakim. — And he
made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and
Jerusalem. That this designation of Zedekiah,
the last king before the exile, as the brother of
Jehoiachin is inexact, and, according to 2 Kings
xxiv. 17, to be explained by father's brother
(uncle, *lfa), or even directly changed into this
term, is shown by the full list of Josiah's four
sons already communicated by the Chronist, 1
Chron. iii. 15 f. Comp. on this passage, especi-
ally on 1 Chron. iii. 16, where also mention is
made of Mattaniah, the name borne by Zedekiah
before he ascended the throne.
9. Zedekiah : vers. 11-21. Comp. 2 Kings
xxiv. 18-xxv. 21, also Jer. Hi. and 3 Esdras i.
44-55. — Zedekiah was twenty-one years old. The
younger Zedekiah, brother of Jehoiachin, and
nephew of Mattaniah Zedekiah (see 1 Chron.
iii. 16), could not have been so old at the time
when Jehoiachin, being eighteen years old, was
deposed. The eleven years of Zedekiah's reign
extend from 598 to 587. —Ver. 12. Humbled
Umself not before Jeremiah the prophet from the
mouth of the Lord, who spoke from the mouth of
God ; comp. xxxv. 22 ; Jer. xxiii. 16. Of these
prophetic warnings and threatenings addressed by
Jeremiah to Zedekiah, Jer. xxi. 4 ff. especially
comes into account ; comp. also Jer. xxxvii. 2 ff.
— Ver. 13. And lie also rebelled against kkig
Nebuchadnezzar. This revolt is also censured by
the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. xvii. 13 ff.) as a griev-
ous transgression. — And he stiffened his neck
(showed himself stiff-necked ; comp. 2 Kings
xvii. 14 ; Jer. xix. 15, etc.) and liardened his
heart, "made his heart firm." Comp. Deut. ii.
30, where God is said to harden and make s^iff-
necked ; which does not, however, warrant the
conclusion that he must also here be the subject of
tj'psi, as Bertheau thinks; comp., on the contrary,
Deut. xv. 7. — Ver. 14. Also all the Mefs of the
priests and the people transgressed very much;
comp. Ezek. viii. 6ff., where priests and people
are described as sunk in base idolatry under the
last kings, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah,
while prominence is expressly given to the ' ' elders
of the people" (ver. 11) and the priests (ver. 16)
as the chief participators in these abominations.
Neither there nor here would a reference of the
accusation concerning idolatrous abominations to
an earlier time than that of the last kings, namely,
to that of Manasseh and Amon, be justified (against
Berth.). From the circumstance that in the pro-
phetic discourses of Jeremiah such complaints of
idolatry are less vehement under Zedekiah, no
inference can be drawn against this view. The
phrase: " chiefs of the priests," denotes here, as
in Ezra x. 5, the presidents of the twenty-four
classes, together with the high priests, and there-
fore the same whom Ezekiel has in view in the
twenty-five men in the temple ; comp. Hitzig,
Oesch. p. 238. — "Ver. 15. Sent to them by his mes-
sengers, rising early and sending, constantly and
earnestly ; ni^K'l D3t2>n, as in Jer. xxvi. 5, xxix.
19, xxxv. 14f. — Because He had compassion on
His people, exercised forbearance toward them,
did not wish to deliver them over instantly tc
condign punishment. —Ver. 16. And they mocked,
literally, " were mocking." D^J^D (also occur
ring in Syriac in the sense of subsannantes) is «t.
xty., of like import with D^jte, *xx- 10. Also
the following D^nimD (Hithp. of yjjri), "ape,
befool," occurs oniy here; the equivalent pilel,
see in Gen. xxvii. 12. On the contents of the
present accusation, comp. especially Ezek. xxxin
22. If, then, at first only Ezekiel, the prophet of
the exiles, is named as mocked by the people, yet
it cannot be doubted that mocking and reproach
were often cast upon the other prophets, especially
Jeremiah, whose bold exhortations to repentance
had to encounter so much opposition on the part
of the ungodly population under the last kings
before the exile. There is, therefore, in the plural
" messengers of God " and " prophets " no exag-
geration, though there may be some rhetorical
generalization m the expression.— Till there was
no healing, till the threatening judgment could no
longer be averted. Comp. on the phrase, xxi. 18,
xxx. 20; Prov. vi. 15.— Ver. 17. And stew their
young mew with the sword. To :h[Pl, "slew,
or " caused to slay," also is God the subject, as w
276
II. CHRONICLES.
the foregoing and following verbs. To bring in
Nebuchadnezzar here as the subject is to import
an unnecessary harshness of construction (against
Keil, Neteler). The temple, where the young
men were slain, is designated the " house of the
sanctuary," because they had profaned it by their
idolatry ; comp. ver. 144. The Sept. (mZ iyiia-
Ilxto; hItov) unnecessarily changes DtJ'npD JV3
into SynpO '2 (™- 20). — The whole He gave into
his hand; comp. Jer. xxvii. 6, xxxii. 3, 4. The
neutral ^gn, notwithstanding that persons only
are previously named, is used, in view of the
vessels and treasures about to be mentioned in
the following verse ; yet it may be rendered
"them all." — Ver. 19. And they burned ; comp.
Jer. xxxix. 8 ; 2 Kings xxv. 9. — And destroyed
all its goodly vessels (comp. Isa. lxiv. 10, also
ver. 10), literally, "to destroy"; comp. HTIK'n?
in xii. 12. — -Ver. 20. And he carried away those
that remained from the sword, literally, " the
remnant from the sword." The following words:
" and they became servants to him and his sons,"
coincide with the prophecy, Jer. xxvii. 7. — Vtr.
21. To fulfil ; riK^D^ as in 1 Chron. xxix. 5 ;
Dan. ix. 2. The oracle here quoted stands in Jer.
xxv. 11 f. (comp. Jer. xxix. 10), where, however,
only the seventy years' duration of the Babylonish
bondage is predicted ; but nothing is said of a
representation of these seventy years as an expia-
tion or requital for the neglect of the sabbath
years. This symbolizing of the seventy years'
duration of the exile predicted by Jeremiah, con-
tained in the words: "until the land enjoyed her
sabbaths," is taken from the passage Lev. xxvi.
34, where such an expiation of neglected sabbath-
year solemnities by an equally long time of desola-
tion was announced to the people ; and the added
remark : ' ' all the days of the desolation she rested "
(kept a sabbath), is taken word for word from this
passage of Leviticus. That there were exactly
seventy neglected sabbath-years, and therefore a
period of 490 years on account of which the seventy
years of exile (with the beginning of the Persian
monarchy as terminus ad quern, see ver. 20) were
decreed, our author scarcely assumes. The ter-
minus a quo of his reckoning of the neglected
sabbath-years need not be sought exactly 490 years
before the beginning of the exile (606 or 605), in
the time of the last judges, Eli and Samuel ; and
we ;an scarcely suppose the whole period of the
kingdom down to the exile to have been marked
by the neglect of the sabbath-years, since under
such theocratic sovereigns as David, Solomon, and
Hezekiah, the observation of the precept in ques-
tion was scarcely omitted. The whole statement
13 only approximate (like that in xxxv. 18 regard-
ing the passover of Josiah, and its relation to the
preceding one); it is in no way fitted to be the
basis of any 3alculations, whether of the number
of sabbath -years neglected till the exile, or of the
point from which these acts of neglect date.
10. Close; The Return from the Captivity under
Cyrus : vers. 22, 23. Comp. Ezra i. 1-3 (also
3 Esdras ii. 1-5); and on the coincidence of the
beginning of Ezra with the close of Chronicles,
lutrod. §§ 2 and 3. — And in the first year of Cyrus,
in the first year of his sovereignty over the former
Babylonian-Assyrian monarchy, immediately after
the taking of Babylon. For the name Cyras
(Eni3, rer3- Quurus), see the expositions on Ezra
i. 1 and Isa. xliv. 28. — That the word of the Lord
. . . might be fulfilled; nfeb (from nb. perfici,
xxix. 34) thus = nitf^ of the verse before, as
the same prediction of Jeremiah is spoken of there
as here. — And he made proclamation, literally,
" let go a cry " ; comp. xxx. 5. — Ver. 23. All the
kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven
given me. In the same way as Necho, xxxv. 21,
Cyrus knows and confesses himself the instrument
or the " anointed " (Isa. xlv. 1) of the most high,
living, and only true God, but designates Him not
by the common name "God, "like the former, but
at once as Jehovah, the name of the God of the
Jews, whose existence and identity with his own
supreme god he at once acknowledges, and there-
fore as the "God of heaven," by the title which
his supreme god, Ahuramazda, was wont to receive
at the heads of all the royal edicts of the Persian
sovereign. Comp. Evangelical and Ethical Re-
flections, No. 3. — Whoso is among you all of his
people, the Lord his God (be) with him. That
here probably »,-|i is to be read instead of niiT1,
see in Crit. Note. On the abrupt termination of
the narrative after these words of the royal edict,
see Introd. as quoted above.
EVANGELICAL AND ETHICAL REFLECTIONS AND
HOMILETIC HINTS ON CH. XXXIV.-XX.XVI.
1. The last mighty outburst of the theocratic
spirit under Josiah, which brought in at the same
time the last flourishing epoch of the Jewish
kingdom and people, is depicted by our author
with comparative fulness in one respect, namely,
as regards the great passover after the purging of
the temple, which accords with his Levitical
leanings, with much greater fulness than by the
author of the books of Kings. If he not only
celebrates the theocratic purity, exactitude, and
legitimacy of this festival, as one the like of
which had not been held during the whole period
of the kings (from the days of Samuel the pro-
phet, xxxv. 18), but praises the pious deeds of
Josiah as it is written in the law of the Lord,
xxxv. 26, designates the single case in which he
renounced his character as a prince of peace,
walking strictly according to law, as a disguising
of himself, as being untrue to himself (xxxv. 22),
and in the very opening of his description gives
him a commendation which was given to no
other king, namely, that he walked in the ways of
David his father, and declined not to the right
hand nor to the left (xxxiv. 2), nothing of all this
appears to be exaggerated ; on the contrary, the
whole extremely favourable picture of the prince
is correctly conceived and faithfully rendered from
the standpoint of our author. In the second
book of Kings, while no specially Levitical lean-
iug affects the pragmatism of the narrator, the
praise of his walking in the footsteps of David,
without declining to the right or left, is set forth
with equal prominence ; and a special aspect of
his theocratic disposition and demeanour, his
zeal in the extirpation of idolatry, is there de-
scribed still more minutely and commended with
more fulness (2 Kings xxiii. 4-20) than in the
account before us, which compresses that which
CHAP. XXXIV.-XXXVI.
277
is here referred to, as already sufficiently known,
into a brief sketch of a few verses. But as there,
go here, it is manifest, amid the glory of his theo-
cratic success, that his strenuous efforts were un-
satisfactory, and insufficient to effect a permanent
recovery, a true regeneration of the people of God.
That, notwithstanding the sincerity of his con-
version, "the Lord turned not from the great
hotness of His anger which was kindled against
Judah because of the provocations of Manasseh,"
but rather the divine sentence of extirpation
against the kingdom of Judah remained un-
revoked (2 Kings xxiii. 26 f.),— this our author
certainly does not say in the express words of the
older parallel text ; indeed he appears, according
to xxxiv. 33, to add to the testimony for the
sincerity of the king's conversion the assurance of
the reality of the conversion of the people, when
he writes : " All his days they departed not from
the Lord God of their fathers." But even this
"all his days " contains a fatal limitation of the
praise here bestowed on the endeavours of Josiah;
and the lamentable state of idolatrous degeneracy
which betrayed itself immediately under his sons
(xxxvi. 5 ff. ), and which was the fault no less of
the maladministration of these last kings than of
the apostasy of the chiefs of the priests and the
people (xxxvi. 14), sufficiently shows that the
adherence of Judah to the law of the Lord during
the period from the reform of Josiah to his death
was by no means sincere or truly genuine, but
rather the complaints uttered in the last days of
the kingdom by Jeremiah, of the unfaithfulness,
the inner apostasy, and immorality, uncleanness,
corruption indeed, of the people (Jer. xi., xiii.,
Xxv., etc.), were fully justified. The insufficiency
of mere reforms of the theocratic worship, heal-
ing only the surface, not the deep seat of the
wound, and accordingly, as all that could serve
the king as the standard for his reforming action
lay in the ordinances of worship, the inadequacy of
the law to the production of true life, that lcima.Tii
tiu vip.m (Rom. viii. 3), that impotence of the
law to secure true freedom, true righteousness,
and assured hope of the heavenly inheritance
(Gal. iii. 4; Rom. vii.), — all this came out with
astonishing clearness in the history of the reform
of Josiah, which was pursued with so much zeal
and sudden success, and yet yielded so transient a
result. The king hears the words of the law dis-
covered in the temple ; the curses which it pro-
nounces on the infidelity of the apostates pierce
through his heart ; he rends his garments, weeps,
and bows down in deep, sincere sorrow before
God. He succeeds also in inspiring the rulers of
the people, if not with the same spirit of sincere
repentance, yet with the fiery zeal that turns to
the monuments and instruments of idolatry, and
repeats the deeds of an Elijah. And what does
he effect by all this ? The stern message of
Huldah announces this to him : for himself, and
for the duration of his reign, he shall enjoy the
blessings of walking with God ; in peace he shall
be gathered to his fathers' sepulchres ; his eyes
shall not see all the misfortune which the Lord is
determined to bring upon his kingdom and city ;
for His wrath is now once for all poured out on
this place, and nothing is now able to quench it
(xxxiv. 23-28). It is impossible more thoroughly
and powerfully to exemplify and exhibit what is
the curse which the law works (Gal. iii. 13) than
by these words of Huldah, of which it can
scarcely be said whether they are more an ex-
hortation to repentance or a promise of mercy
(comp. the in many ways similar address of
Azariah ben Oded to King Asa, xv. 1-7). And
not even the salvation and blessing which they
promise the king on account of his personal piety
— that he shall depart in peace to his fathers —
is fulfilled in a perfectly satisfactory way. Josiah
departs before he has seen all the misfortune that
the Lord has threatened to send, but as a brand
plucked from the fire ! Not in a painless way
is he brought home to his fathers, but through
conflict, war, and bloodshed, as he himself had
willed. The only infidelity of which he made
himself guilty in an otherwise irreproachable
walk is avenged by a certainly only temporal
(slaying only the body, not the soul), but yet
terribly sharp and severe punishment ; and even
thereby is the series of judgments which bring
on the end of the Jewish state and kingdom
immediately introduced.
2. Josiah's defeat and tragic decease is the be-
ginning of the end. As a fair but rapidly-over-
spreading evening glow after a dull, rainy day
indicates the approaching nightfall, so his reform
of worship, as the last powerful movement of the
theocratic spirit, almost immediately precedes the
sinking of the people of God into the murky
night of political annihilation and protracted
subjugation. It goes rapidly down, after its
better administration of the people and the king-
dom had once risen to a certain height ; and, like
that better emperor of the house of Palseologus
shortly before the fall of the Byzantine Empire,
or like the reign of Louis xvi. as the fore-
runner of the terror of the French Revolution,
had delayed for a short time the execution of the
sentence of extirpation, already ripened into an
inevitable decree under the last preceding kings.
The Chronist indicates this rapid riding of the
dead that came on after the decease of Josiah,
this entrance of the galloping consumption into
the long since internally rotten and putrid state
of Judah, by the extreme brevity with which he
despatches the last four reigns. In a way more
summary still than the author of the books
of Kings, who likewise does not dwell very long
on them, he depicts the ungodly practice of the
first three successors of Josiah, to none of whom
he devotes more than four verses, and for none of
whom he has any word of praise or acknowledg-
ment:— not even for Jehoahaz, with respect to whom
he does not indeed employ the formula used of
the following two, in harmony with 2 Kings,,
' ' and he did that which was evil before the Lord "
(comp., on the contrary, 2 Kings xxiii. 32), but
simply on account of his epitomizing habit, as he
hastens to the end, not because he cherished any
better opinion of him. On Zedekiah he dwells
somewhat longer; but not to report more fully the
public acts of this unfortunate last of the Davidie
kings, nor to depict the terrible catastrophe of
wasting and destruction forming the close of his
reign with the same fulness as in 2 Kings xxv. or
Jer. Iii., but only to exhibit the ungodliness and
perversity, carried out to the end, of the course of
both king and people, in a pragmatic, reflective
way, as the cause of the inevitable judgment (see
vers. 13-16), and to display the contrast between
this course and the incessant but always ineffectual
cries of admonition and warning coming from the
prophet Jeremiah (vers. 12, 21). His report of
278
II. CHRONICLES.
the fall of Jerusalem and the beginning of the
Babylonish captivity (vers. 17-20) is, compared
>vith. the fuller accounts of the parallels, in fact,
is compendious as possible, but by its very con-
ciseness and brevity produces only the deeper and
more powerful impression.
3. The conclusion of his historical account,
xxxvi. 22, 23, is also characteristic for the stand-
point and method of our author. While the
author of the books of Kings (2 Kings xxv. 27-
30) closes with a notice of the release of the cap-
tive king Jehoiaehin in the middle of the exile,
by the grace of the Babylonian king Evilmero-
daeh, and thus, in correspondence with his para-
mount interest in the personal fate of the king,
reports a mere prelude of the final release of
Judah from the exile, and not the very release
itself, our work closes with a notice, though
brief, of the cessation of servitude in a foreign
land by the gracious edict of Cyrus. In this
characteristic trait is exhibited the historian who
bears on his priestly heart the fortune of the whole
people, not merely of the royal house. As he had
set forth immediately before the divinely decreed
and prophetically attested necessity of a servitude
of seventy years, to compensate for the past
neglect of seventy sabbath - years, so he cannot
but point, at the close of his work, to the final
fulfilment of this prediction. The internal organic
connection of this closing notice, by which the
fair perspective opens into a new and more fruit-
ful beginning of the history of the covenant
people after the exile, with that which was re-
corded immediately before concerning the last
kings before the exile and their downfall, is as
clear as day, aud precludes any such opinion as
that the contents of vers. 22, 23 stood originally
>nly at the beginning of Ezra, and was afterwards
tdded at the close of our work by a later hand
;comp. Introd. § 3, p. 7). But these closing
verses betray their originality and integral con-
nection with the whole preceding work not only
by the manifest reference to predictions of Jere-
miah and Moses quoted in ver. 21, but also by
this, that they add to that earlier testimony from
the mouth of Necho to the fate of Israel-Judah
as divinely decreed and carried on (xxxv. 21) by
the counsels of the supreme living God, the God
of heaven (xxxvi. 22), a second such testimony on
the part of a holder of the heathen world-power;
as if it were intended to prove to superfluity that
tiod's judicially strict but also gracious rule over
His deeply guilty and corrupt people might be
known in its reality, and according to its salutary
effect on the people, even on the part of the
heathen executors of His judgments. Necho and
Cyrus appearing as witnesses of the divine truth,
as involuntary and more or less unconscious
heathen prophetic announcers of the severity and
the goodness of God in reference to the destiny of
His people, as prophetic dispensers of blessing to
Israel, — as Balaam formerly,— the one as a foe,
but the other as a friend and protector, yea, as the
type of its future Messiah (comp. Isa. xlv. 1) ; —
in this light the close of our history presents the
relations of the heathen world-powers to the
people of God when entering the period of its
development after the exile. His representation
in this respect corresponds with the mode of
thought of the prophets before the exile, especi-
ally Jeremiah, to whom the world-power external
to Israel had ceased to appear as something abso-
lutely opposed to God, so that they frequently
warn their people against foolish opposition to it,
and inculcate willing submission to its authority
(comp. Bibelw. xv. p. x. ff., and especially E.
Vilmar, " Der Prophet Jeremia," in the monthly
journal Bew. des Glaubens, Bd. v. 1869, p. 19 ff.);
and on the other hand, with the view of the world
taken by the prophetic men of God of and after
the exile, as Daniel, Zechariah, etc., in accord-
ance with which the dependence of the destiny
of Israel on such of the world -powers as were
occasional executors of the judicial aud beneficent
providence of God is presupposed as a thing
understood of itself, a certain mission - call of
Israel in reference to the heathen nations around
is preached, and the continuance of this state to
the entrance of the Messianic era is announced
(comp. Bibelw. Bd. xvii. pp. 3 f., 37 f., 41; also
Hengstenb. Gesch. des Seiches Goltes, ii. 2, p. 277
ff. ). It is of no small consequence that the Old
Testament Chronicles, the most comprehensive
historical work of sacred literature, closes with
such universalistic views of Israel's call of salva-
tion to all nations, and of the future union of all
in faith in Jehovah as the one and only true God.
Its end thus turns to its beginning. Setting out
from the first Adam, the author concludes his
work with the consoling expectation of the
future and not far distant, but rather, in the re-
construction of the theocracy promoted by the
edict of Cyrus, already guaranteed and neces-
sarily involved restitution of the blessed king-
dom of the second Adam, the Redeemer of the
world.
THE EN"D.
THE BOOK
OP
EZRA
THEOLOGICALLY AND HOMILETICALLY EXPOUNDED,
BY
FR. W. SOHULTZ,
PROFESSOR IN ORDINARY OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BRESLAU. PRUSSIA.
TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED
REV. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, B.D.,
PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,
NEW YORK.
NEW YOKE:
CHARLES SCEIBNER'S SONS,
743-745 BROADWAY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
SCRIBNEE, ARMSTRONG & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
THE
BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEIIAH.
INTRODUCTION.
\ 1. THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, CHARACTER AND CONTENTS.
1. Their Significance. — It might readily seem as if the development of Israel subsequent
to the exile had been backwards, and it had had but a negative significance with reference to
the history of redemption ; that is, as if it was merely through the deficiencies of the present,
that the desire for a better future had been awakened and pointed forward to it. If, how-
ever, it was the final destiny of Israel to overcome the empires of the world, and set up the
kingdom of God, not through political, but religious forces; not as a nation in battle with
the nations of the world, but as leaven cast in among them ; not from without, but from
within, and without political independence or power — in other words : if the kingdom of
God, the preparation for which is here considered, was to be a higher spiritual kingdom,
then even the circumstances of the exile, still more those subsequent to the exile, were pecu-
liarly appropriate to prepare Israel for its work in a positive way, likewise ; yea, they con-
strained this people at once from the very beginning to become a community which was not
so much political as religious, which, in distinction from the previous royal kingdom, we
may call a priestly kingdom. (Coinp. J. P. Lange, Introd. to the Scriptures in the vol. of
the Comm. on Matt, p. 4.) In all their public undertakings, even after the close of the
exile, although so dependent upon their heathen rulers and overseers that they could not even
build their temple, not to speak of the walls of Jerusalem, without permission, they yet had
the important task of showing that in spite of the loss of their national independence, they
were in a position to maintain victoriously their internal religious peculiarities, and that
they had in them a treasure through which, if they faithfully cherished the inheritance
entrusted to them from above, they might be enabled to rise above all external oppressions
— yea, through which they might arise in the most powerful and glorious manner even from
their apparent defeats. It is true that they still for a long time could not entirely dispense
with externalities. It was necessary that their God should ever have a temple, in which to
dwell among His people, though apart from them ; their hearts were not yet sufficiently won
and purified to become Hia dwelling and temple. And so Israel itself still needed a city in
which they might be near the temple, in which more than any where else they might live
as a religious community, and they must still secure it with walls and gate3. But in view
of their higher and proper aims, they were no longer called to reconquer their political inde-
pendence and re-establish a worldly kingdom. The efforts of the Maccabees, so far as they
tended to this result, and their consequences, were in a false and round-about way.
The development of the people of God, as such, at that time necessarily required that
the external vessel, which indeed was entirely appropriate to its times and even indispensa-
ble, should gradually more and more completely fall away and disappear, as the chrysalis,
out of which the butterfly, attired in the most beautiful colors, soared upward to the bright
1
2 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
sky; bo that that which was spiritual and belonged to eternity might attain its pure repre-
sentation as spiritual and eternal, and that the words whose depth and fullness we still to-
day so insufficiently appreciate : " My kingdom is not of this world," might be more and
more understood.
Now the more Israel was referred to their religion and religious customs, the more
weight would they be likely to give to those things which still seemed to give their religion
its greatest stability ; the more decidedly they found their calling in being a holy people,
the more might it seem that they were commanded to clothe with religious consecration
those things which were externally as well as those which were ethically holy, e. g. the sanc-
tuary, especially the temple and the institutions of worship, the ancient writings also which
guided to the religion, the people which had its existence through the religion and the law
over against the heathen world ; yea, the city itself, in which alone they were able to pre-
serve all these holy things. Yes, they were in great danger of regarding reverence and care
for these sacred thing3 as the highest and most important of all things, and thus of external-
izing religion in a worse way than before the exile, when it was through the undue estima-
tion of other things. In short both tendencies were possible. The times following the exile
might just as well prepare the way for the new, real and internal organization of the king-
dom of God, commencing with Christ and the apostles, as be the beginning of that entirely
opposite extreme of Pharisaism through the cultivation of externals and of antichristian
Judaism. And both possibilities have been realized. It is the great significance of the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah that they historically describe that effort, yea, likewise power
and might of Israel in rising up again and maintaining the field, even without political
independence, as a purely religious community, thus of struggling for the New Testament
and spiritual mode of existence, so likewise it at least lets us, through the entire character
of the persons with whom they have to do, yea even through the condition of the entire con-
gregation, forebode the danger pointed out of a new external religion putting itself in place
of the old. The book of Esther also shares in this characteristic, as on the one side it brings
into view the faithfulness of Israel to the law of their fathers in the midst of the severest
temptations and trials ; whilst on the other it does not extol this faithfulness as being as
pure and exalted as we could wish. Thus these three books were given for instruction, edi-
fication, consolation and warning, especially for those times when the congregation is again
in the condition of doing away with their previous unreliable and frail props, of becoming
poorer in apparent blessings and of being obliged to return to the real and substantial bless-
ings. They bear witness to the congregation in the plainest and most unmistakable marner
that it can show itself as internally, really rich even in external poverty, and can rise
above all difficulties, trials and oppressions in spite of external weakness, yea, they prophesy
to it, that whilst not of this world, it will abide ever anew as indestructible and eternal.
But they likewise warn, in such times of mortification and trouble, not to be careless of self,
or to find true piety, which can only consist in sincere devotion to God, ia the estimation
and cultivation of those things which are really the products of piety itself.
2. Their Character. — It might be questionable whether the period subsequent to the exile
afforded the appropriate material for a sacred history. Sacred history had previously had espe-
cially to do with the government of God as it was more or less revealed in Israel. If now there
were no longer any such manifestations of God as had previously been described, no more such
preservation, deliverance, revival and advancement of the people ; if the people continued to
exist merely as a religious community, and accordingly lead merely a quiet, so to say a hid-
den life, without rejoicing in new revelations — then at least it is not quite clear why the his-
tory should still maintain a sacred character. But on the other hand the history might, yea,
must exhibit, on the one side, the new beginning at all events, so far as the people had such
a beginning in Jerusalem as a religious commurity, and thus the return of a portion of the
exiles and the restoration as well of the temple as of the city with its walls, as a secure place
of the community ; but especially likewise the re-establishment of the community itself as a
people separating themselves decidedly from the heathen, and living in accordance with the
divine law in communion with God.
? 1. THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, CHARACTER AND CONTENTS.
This beginning had been expressly set in prospect by the prophets as God's own act,
and so could not come to pass without the especial co-operation of God, that is, unless He
had made the heathen world-powers subservient to His purpose, and inclined a portion of
the exiles to return to their devastated land. Moreover, on the other side, the preservation
of the portion remaining in the lands of the exile might at all events take such a form that
it would not be an entirely inappropriate theme of sacred history. That is, if a danger
should arise for this Judaism in the Diaspora too great to be overcome through human power
and sagacity without a higher divine providence; if it should especially threaten Judaism
as such, that is, on account of the law and their lawful reverence of God so that it became
doubtful whether obedience to the divine law could be maintained in spite of the human
claims to obedience — then there could, yea, must be such a preservation. That portion of
Judaism remaining in heathen lands had by no means been dismissed as such from commu-
nion with Jehovah ; it had a not unimportant part to play for the kingdom of God, as is
manifest in the apostolic times, where it constituted with its synagogues the best starting-
point for the preaching of the gospel; and their remaining behind in exile was in some
measure approved by the word of God itself, inasmuch as the prophets had placed the proper
return in connection with the appearance of the Messiah.
The new beginning we find described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and a pre-
servation of the character above pointed out in the book of Esther. The books of Ezra and
Nehemiah by no means intend to narrate the history of the entire period which they embrace
from Zerubbabel to Nehemiah ; but they would in reality merely treat of that which was
essential to the new beginning. This is clear not only from what they narrate, but also
from that which they omit. And with respect to the book of Esther, the principal thing is
not so much the person of Esther or Mordecai and their exaltation, as the deliverance of
Israel, for which all else is as the means to the end. As it was to be expected, however, the
history of this new period has a new method and a different tone. Whilst the representation
of the times before the exile regarded the external affairs, that is, the people and their pos-
session of the land, as the bearers of the internal; and the lower, that is, the political fortune
as the outflow of the highest; and thus had ever occupied itself with the proper soul of that
which occurred, with the thoughts and plans of God, especially with the holy and glorious
acts of God : the historian of the times subsequent to the exile naturally took the external it-
self at once as an internal thing, so that he stopped with the lower, earthly and human. Whilst
the history of the times previous to the exile, as a faithful copy of the great conflict, which
the Lord had then conducted for the existence of His truth, against all heathenish influences
within and without Israel, had on its part most earnestly taken part in the struggle, and
become especially great and strong through its simple, constantly-repeated, but at the bottom
the only valid criticism of the heathenish influence, the apostacy from Jehovah, the carnal im-
pulses and errors — the history of the times subsequent to the exile contented itself with a simple
account of that which transpired, and purposed merely to excite a grateful remembrance of
that which God had done, or of the services of the prominent men and families. Whilst the
history of the pre-exile times had a genuine prophetic character, in that it had immediately
taken part in real life, as it then wa3 also conducted by prophets ; that of the post-exile times
assumed a priestly Levitical character without doubt likewise proceeding from priests and
Levies. This new method of conception and treatment had likewise its propriety. The
view which supported this method was that ultimately all depends upon the divine service,
and that which is connected therewith, that hence the temple and the capital deserve the
most attention as the places of the divine service. This was sufliciently sustained by that
advance in development, which marked the post-exile time and the new arrangement of
affairs, and is entirely correct. And if now the singers and musicians appeared alongside
of the priests, this is all the more established, as alongside of and after the offerings the wor-
ship must more and more gain through the word a higher and more spiritual value. We
must find sufliciently good reasons for this, and recognize it with thankfulness that a histo-
rian subsequent to the exile in the books of Chronicles treated the entire history previous
to the exile from the same point of view and according to the same principles.
4 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZKA AND NEHEMIAH.
But we must also bring into consideration a difference in the method of using the sources,
■which, if it is more of a formal character is yet not unimportant. Whilst in the pre-exile
history the use of the sources was the subordinate and secondary thing, and the independent
representation in accordance with practical aims was the principal thing ; in the post-exile
history, as it appears in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the chief thing appears to be the
use of the sources. The author lets his own representation remain in the back-ground, at
least so far as that he merely gives a sufficient introduction to the sources or original docu-
ments respecting the subject in hand, so far as he can use them, and seeks to put them in
proper connection with one another, and even in the Chronicles he does not revise, but com-
piles. Hence he heaps up the original documents, especially in the book of Ezra, official
letters, which naturally seem too detailed, and in addition registers of names, which strike
us as too long-winded. But when we ask what induced him to make these so prominent, we
might bring into consideration in general and above all that which was involved in the
entire development of the times, the above-mentioned estimate of ancient pieces of composi-
tion as holy treasures ; but the chief reason for the adoption of such epistolary documents,
as we find especially in the book of Ezra, was certainly in the circumstance that the whole
existence of the community subsequent to the exile, politically so dependent, was based
upon them, so that they really had an inestimable worth ; with respect to the register of
names, we are likewise to consider, that in a time when the existence of the community
gathered about the temple was no longer given by the simple mention of their membership
in the tribe or people, but was dependent on the free resolution of the individuals who would
return from Babylon, and as a matter of fact limited itself to individual households of the
ancient families and tribes, that it was no longer sufficient to speak in general of Judah or
Benjamin, but was natural to mention the individual families and households, yea, here and
there likewise of individual persons, and to hold them as worthy of a thankful remembrance.
These registers of names cannot but remind us from this point of view of the fact that the
farther the congregation developed itself in accordance with this idea, the more the personality
of the individual gained in importance and came into estimation.
3. Their Contents. — The chief topics of consideration after the exile were, on the one side,
the temple as the dwelling-place of God ; on the other side the city with its walls as the place of
the congregation, and besides the congregation itself. Thu3 in the book of Ezra the temple
stands decidedly in the foreground, in the book of Nehemiah the city with its walls, whilst both
books, in their second parts, take up the congregation itself, that is the organization of their life
in accordance with the law. The book of Nehemiah, moreover, embraces the city walls and
the life of the congregation in accordance with the law once more in a brief closing section.
More closely considered there are only a few principal topics treated of with reference to
these subjects. The book of Ezra begins with the year in which Cyrus gave the Jews per-
mission to return (536), and extends at least to the seventh year of Artaxerxes (458), embra-
cing accordingly a space of about eighty years. The book of Nehemiah alludes to the twen-
tieth year of Artaxerxes, and touches besides upon what happened after his thirty-second
year, thus after 433. Limiting itself, however, to the beginnings, the book of Ezra occupies
itself merely with the fundamental permission of Cyrus, the building of the temple under
Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and finally merely with the negative consolidation of the life of the
congregation under the law, which still so readily mixed itself with heathenism, namely,
with the exclusion of heathen women by Ezra; it thus, after narrating the building of the
temple, leaps over the entire period between the seventh year of Darius Hystaspis and the
seventh year of Artaxerxes, a period of fifty-six years. The book of Nehemiah discourses
merely respecting the restoration of the city-walls and the positive strengthening of the life
under the law through the renewal of the covenant between God and the new congregation,
with an emphasis of the conditions then particularly important. How much the author is
inclined to make use of the documents and sources respecting the re-establishment of the
congregation, or rather give them after a short introduction, is manifest enough from the
beginnirg. After referring to Jeremiah's words with reference to the end of the exile and
re establishment of Jerusalem, by which the subsequent history is put in the light of an act
\ 1. THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, CHARACTER AND CONTENTS. 5
of God in fulfilment thereof, the edict of Cyrus follows, that called upon the Jews to return
to Jerusalem and build the temple, and moreover called upon those who remained to assist
the departing. The restoration of the vessels of the temple, once carried away from Jerusa-
lem by Nebuchadnezzar to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, is likewise mentioned (chap. L).
This is, however, in a certain sense, merely the introduction to chap. ii. Without going fur-
ther into a description of the return, yea, without even simply mentioning it in so many
words, the author at once gives the register of those who returned with Zembbabel and
Jeshua, whilst he adds at the close their number and the number of their servants, maid-
servants, horses, etc., at the same time, moreover, the sum which the heads of fathers among
them offered for the building of the temple (chap. ii.). In chap. iii. he again continues his
narrative. The returned people again assembled from the different cities in which they had
settled, towards the seventh month, and in order to be able to celebrate the feast of taberna-
cles, restored at first merely the ancient altar, then, moreover, directly prepared also for the
building of the temple. Already in the second year and indeed in the second month occurred
the laying of the foundation of the temple, when shouts of joy and cries of lamentation
touchingly mingled. But sad to say (chap, iv ) the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin, the
Samaritans, interfered, who would have gladly assisted, but were necessarily excluded from
the work, and in consequence of thi3 had the permission to build revoked at the Persian
royal court, who still even in the time of Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes raised obstacles by
their calumniations. The author narrates this to us in order now directly to insert in Chal-
dee the letter of complaint of the Samaritans which they addressed to Artaxerxes, and the
answer of the king to it, documents without doubt preserved in Jerusalem. In chaps, v.
and vi. he continues the history of the building of the temple in the time of Darius Hystas-
pis, but so that first of all he gives the report that the Persian officers sent to their king and
his answer thereto. He concludes this section in ch. vi. 19-22 with a short account of the
celebration of the first passover after the completion of the temple and the re-establishment
of the worship.
A new section begins with chap. vii. as it passes over from the seventh year of Darius
Hystaspis, from Zerubbabel and Jeshua to Ezra. It narrates chap. vii. 1-10 summarily, that
the priest Ezra, whose high-priestly origin is shown, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes had
departed from Babylon for Jerusalem, and had arrived in the fifth month, in order to set up
and teach the law of the Lord in Israel. But this is again only for an introduction to docu-
ments, which he has to communicate and directly subjoins. First a letter in the Chaldee
language follows, which Artaxerxes gave Ezra to take along with him, in order to secure
him the support of the ofiicers for the complete establishment of the worship in Jerusalem,
in order also to give him ample authority for the improvement of the administration of judg-
ment, for the appointment of judges and officers of justice (chap, vii. 25) ; then comes the
conclusion in the Hebrew language added by Ezra himself, in which he praises God for this
decree of the king (chap. vii. 11-28). Next we have a list prepared by Ezra of the families
who went up with him to Jerusalem (chap viii. 1-14) ; furthermore a somewhat more ex-
tended narrative of Ezra's, respecting the equipment of his company, respecting his journey
to Jerusalem, and respecting the delivery of the treasures and vessels that he brought with
him for the temple (chap. viii. 15-36) ; finally in chap. ix. respecting his action against the
intermarriage with heathen women or men, especially respecting his prayer that he made
with reference to this matter. Chap. ix. introduces Ezra's activity in Jerusalem. It is true
it seems to treat only of a particular part of his activity ; but this is yet in truth the founda-
tion of all the rest, yea, it already involves the rest to a certain extent: it is the strengthening
of the life of the congregation in the law ; only it is merely the negative side, which alone
could be undertaken at once, namely, the separation of the congregation from heathenism
and from the life of the heathen. The author himself, as it seems, again takes the word in
chap. x. in order to append what success Ezra had at first with the heads, but then also, when
they had called all the Jews together to Jerusalem, with the great congregation, how he ob-
tained the solemn promise of all, to dismiss the heathen women and its fulfilment. But even
here there follows again a list, which he doubtless had come upon in some way, namely, an
0 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
enumeration of all those who had married heathen women, and now dismissed them. The
whole is divided into two parts, the first part again into three sections, and the second part
into two sections; each of these sections, however, amounts to a principal document.
Part I. The Temple as the place of the Lord (times before Ezra). Chaps, i.-vi.
Section 1. The most important foundations. Chaps, i. and ii.
Chap. i. The permission to build, and thos" who returned for this purpose.
Chap. ii. The document respecting the nances of the returning.
Section 2. The first effort. Chaps, iii. and iv.
Chap. iii. Ke-establishment of the altar and the preparation for building the temple.
Chap. iv. The interruption and a document respecting the machinations of the enemies.
Section 3. The renewal and completion of the work. Chaps, v. and vi.
Chap. v. The renewal of the work and the report of the officers to Darius.
Chap. vi. Darius' answer, with the completion of the temple. The Passover feaat.
Part II. The congregation as the people of the Lord. Negative strengthening of their life in
the law (Ezra's activity). Chaps, vii.-x.
Section 1. Ezra's emigration to Jerusalem. Chaps, vii.-viii.
Chap. vii. Ezra's journey and purpose, and Artaxerxes' letter of authority.
Chap. viii. Ezra's own documentary report (his companions, their completion and journey).
Section 2. The chief fault of that time, and its removal. Chap, ix.-x.
Chap. ix. Chief fault of that period, and Ezra's penitential prayer on that account.
Chap. x. The removal of that fault, and documentary list of those who purified them-
selves from it.
In the book of Nehemiah the entire first part, chaps, i. to vii., is devoted to the rebuild-
ing of the walls of the city by Nehemiah, in spite of many hinderances and disappointments,
but throughout taken from a documentary written source, namely, from Nehemiah's own
memorial. The second part then occupies itself wi h the congregation, in order now to give
an account of the further activity of Ezra with reference to it, or rather its results, the posi-
tive strengthening of the congregation in the life in the law, which led to the renewal of the
covenant relation between the people and God; since, however, he adduces the names of the
families belonging to it, he runs out into traditional lists. The third part describes the
dedication of the city walls and the removal of various evils in that period ; the latter is again
accompanied with the documentary words of Nehemiah himself. The three chief parts may
be again divided each into two sections, so that the following summary results :
Part I. The city as the place of the congregation. Re-establishment of the city walls and list
of the first emigrants. Chaps, i.— vii.
Section 1. How the re-establishment of the city walls came about. Chaps, i.-iii.
Chap. i. Nehemiah hears of the sad condition of Judah and Jerusalem, and prays to the
Lord for help.
Chap. ii. He asks permission of Artaxerxes, and journeys with authority from him to
Jerusalem. There he brings about the resolution to re-establish the walls, in spite of the
adversaries of the Jews.
Chap. iii. Each family of the congregation undertakes a certain portion of the work.
Section 2. How Nehemiah overcame all difficulties. Chaps, iv.-vii.
Chap. iv. The difficulties from without: Sanballat, Tobia, etc., threaten to fall upon the
Jews with force of arms ; Nehemiah organizes against them a troop of warriors, and also
arms the laborers themselves.
Chap. v. The difficulties from within; the poor complain of oppression on the part of
the rich ; Nehemiah does away with usury, and works through the example of his own un-
selfishness.
{! 2. SOURCES, COMPOSITION, AND AUTHENTICITY.
Chap. vi. The difficulties that arise from the co-operation of external and internal factors.
Sanballat frightens the Jews, as if Nehemiah stood in the odor of a rebel. The prophet
Shemaiah attempted in the pay of Sanballat to deprive Nehemiah himself of courage, as if a
real danger threatened him ; the companions of Tobia carry on tale-bearing. But all these
efforts fail on account of Nehemiah's foresight.
Chap. vii. Nehemiah completes the building of the walls, and gives a review of the first
emigrants after the exile.
Part II. The congregation as inhabitants of the city of God. Positive strengthening of their
life in the law by the renewal of the covenant between them and Ood, and list of the mem-
bers of the congregation. Chaps, viii.-xii. 26.
Sect. 1. The history of the renewal of the covenant. Chaps, viii.-x.
Chap. viii. The reading of the law under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah leads at
first to a feast of tabernacles according to thejaw, and then
Chap, ix., to a prayer for grace and redemption from the afflictions that were still present ;
finally,
Chap, x., to a renewal of the covenant under conditions then particularly important, and
indeed for many heads of families, who are especially adduced.
Sect. 2. The constituent parts of the entire congregation at that time. Chaps, xi.-xii. 26.
Chap. xi. The inhabitants of Jerusalem, and at the same time of the other cities of
Judah.
Chap. xii. The priests and Levites, at first the earlier families who had already come up
with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, vers. 1-11, and then also the later ones, vers. 12-26.
Part IIL The city and the congregation. Dedication of the city walls. Removal of various
evils in the life of the congregation. Chaps, xii. 27-xiii. 31.
Sect. 1. Dedication of the city walls. Chap. xii. 27-43.
Sect. 2. Removal of various evils in the life of the congregation. Chaps, xii. 44-xiiL 31.
? 2. SOTJRCES, COMPOSITION AND AUTHENTICITY.
1. Sources. — There can be no doubt but that the author really had original documents and
sources before him, and introduced them unchanged in his narrative, to a great extent. That
the list of names in Ezra ii. is such an original document is the less to be disputed that already
Nehemiah came upon it as an ancient piece of writing and used it in chap. vii. 6-73. It
must have been composed already in the earliest times of the re-establishment of the congre-
gation. The same is true with reference to the letters that are given in chaps, iv.-vi., and that
constitute the principal contents of the statements there made. Many interpreters even regard
it as very probable that the few verses of a historical character that introduce the letters in
chaps, iv.-vi., or unite them with one another, were taken from other sources, namely, a Cbal-
dee history of the building of the temple. Yet the reasons given therefor are not very tena-
ble, whilst those that are adduced against this view, are well worthy of attention. They
appeal to the Chaldee language of these verses, which our author would have had no occasion
to use himself. But perhaps he found some of these verses as an introductory superscription
already on the letters themselves; the others, however, which he himself added and inserted
between Chaldee passages, would have made the narrative too much mixed, if he had wished
to write in Hebrew. They also appeal to the fact that the first person is used in chap. v. 4,
" then we spake to them " (the Persian officers), whereby the writing shows itself to be a work
composed long before, by a man who participated in the building of the temple in the time
of Darius Hystaspis, whilst the work as a whole could have originated oily at a far later pe-
riod. But the correctness of this first person is very doubtful, as we w;ll see in the exegesis of
chap. v. 4. Still further they appeal to the fact that there occur here statements respecting
names, close accounts of transactions and individuals, which, as Bertheau says, must have
been derived altogether from written documents. Nevertheless there is nothing further in this
respect than what is suggested by the letters. On the other hand, already in chap. vi. 14,
8 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH
Artaxerxes is mentioned alongside of Cyrus and Darius, as one of the Persian kings, through
whose favor the Jews had re-established the temple, which shows at least that this piece can-
not have been written already in the time of Darius, but at the earliest in the time of Arta-
xerxes. This name must then have been added at the later revision, at which time also Ar-
taxerxes seemed well worthy of mention. In vers. 16-18 furthermore, in the closing verse of
the Chaldee section, the dedication of the temple, especially in ver. 17, the offering of sacri-
fices, in ver. 18, the arrangement of the priests and Levites, are spoken of in such a manner, and
besides the arrangement of the priests and Levites, in accordance with the law, is so expressly
emphasized, as is peculiar only to our author himself (comp. the parallel passages brought
forward upon the verses in question). Finally, the 24th ver. of chap, iv., which refers back to
ver. 5, has manifestly been added by the same person who in vers. 6-23 has given the letter
of Artaxerxes before. That this, however, was done by our author himself, there can be no
doubt, since it only commended itself thus to his purposes and arrangement.— Again, on the
other hand, that the lists of names, as they are given further in the book of Ezra (chaps, viii.
and x.) especially, however, in the book of Nehemiah, were already met with as ancient pieces
of writing, is not only said by the author himself quite plainly, since he speaks of different
registrations of the Levites at different times (Neh. xii. 23), but is likewise in itself probable,
and is all the more sure, that a part of the register given in Neh. xi. 3-36, occurs also in 1
Chron. ix. 3-33, and indeed with many deviations, which is best explained from the supposi-
tion that the author found the same writing in different places and in different forms.
It is only questionable, whether in Ezra vii. 27 sq. likewise, we may speak of an original
document, or whether the author of that which could be regarded as such, that is, Ezra, speak-
ing of himself in the first person, must be regarded as the author of the rest of the second
part, and accordingly also, as the Eabbinical tradition will have it, the author of the entire
book. This leads us to our second point.
2. Composition. — That Ezra wrote a narrative of his journey to Jerusalem, and what he
accomplished there, is clear from the passages in which the first person is used, without doubt.
Yet it cannot be denied that, against the view still advocated by Keil [Pusey, Rawlinson,
Wordsworth], that Ezra is the proper author of the book named after him, many very
weighty arguments are opposed, which make it more probable that a later author compiled
oSir book, as we now have jt, with the use of Ezra's writing. In general against Ezra as the
author, is the incompleteness, we might say the fragmentary character of the second part ;
Ezra him?elf would, we should suppose, have communicated something more, and something
more systematic respecting his work in Jerusalem We learn from our book only the one
thing, that he opposed the intermarriage with the heathen, whilst yet he wa3 empowered to
undertake a far more comprehensive work. More in detail comes into consideration, espe-
cially the circumstance, that in the genealogy of Ezra (vii. 1-5) his immediate ancestors are
passed over, that at once the high-priest Seraiah, who lived at the beginning of the exile, is
mentioned, since the design without doubt was to make him known above all as a descendant
of the high-priestly family. Ezra himself would rather have been led by filial reverence to
mention his own father before all. Furthermore we are struck by the honorable mention of
Ezra in chap. vii. 6, that he was a VnD 12D, a skilful scribe,* then also the circumstance, that
chap. vii. anticipates chap, viii., so that there is a repetition, which is only natural, if the
author in chap. viii. yet again cites from an original document the same thing that he had
already previously briefly mentioned in chap. vii. ; furthermore the fact, that in chap. vii. 1
sq. the third person is used,f first in chap. vii. 27 sq. the first person, — finally and especially
* [Pusey, p. 339: "It is added merely that he was a ready, fluent expositor of it. He mentions of himself,
what others have observed of him in the books of Chronicles, that the law of his God was the great study of his
life, and that he made progress in it. Perhaps he meant, as one of the Psalmists, whose expression he used,
said before him, that he was a " ready writer " of what he was taught by God, ascribing to himself only that he
was, what he was, the instrument of God." — Ta.]
f [Rawlinson in loco : " But exactly parallel changes o-f person occur in the Book of Daniel (e. g., the third
person from i. to vii. 2, the first from vii. 2-ix. 2T; the third in x. I, and the Erst from x. 2 to the end), which there
is good reason to regard as the work of Daniel himself, and not of a compiler; changes too, not very dissimilar
occur in the nearly contemporary Greek writer Thucydides. Thucydides begins his history in the third person
\ 2. SOURCES, COMPOSITION, AND AUTHENTICITY.
this fact, that the book of Ezra has so many thitgs in common with the Chronicles in the
manner of expression, and at the same time in many matters of fact, as the preference
for the different Levitical officials in the sanctuary, especially for musicians and door-
keepers, besides the interest in genealogies and registers of names. This is shown in the Com.
of Zoeckxer upon the Chronicles, Introduction, \ 2. The view in recent times wide-spread and
discussed in the Introduction to the Chronicles, \\ 2 and 3, by Zoecklee that the author of
Chronicles at the same time brought Ezra, yea also Nehemiah into the present form in which
we have them, has decidedly the most reasons in its favor. If it were really a fact, that the
observed resemblances in Ezra and Nehemiah throughout occurred even in the original docu-
ments and written sources with entire indifference, then they would not have to be regarded
as individual peculiarities of a common author, but be ascribed in general to the later period,
to which the books in question belong, especially if they likewise occurred in other writings
of essentially the same period. But this is true of only a proportionally few of them, as for
example with the expressions brought forward by Keil, i"W3, >3p and ,2J' 'IP?? T? (the last is
not found indeed in other books, but in the written sources, Ezra vii. 28; viii. 18, 22, 31, as
well as in vii. 6-9, and besides Neh. ii. 8). By far the most of them occur, as we must at once
remark, if we review the passages cited by Zoeckleb in the Introduct. to Chronicles, \ 2, not
to speak of Chronicles, on the one side, in Ezra i. and iii., as well also in the other passages
not presenting themselves as original documents or sources, and on the other side in Neh.
viii.-x. Here belong most decidedly these very phenomena of the language, which may be
regarded most properly as idiomatic expressions of the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehe-
miah; thus the expression, DT?#-7jy, 2 Chron. xxx. 16; xxxv. 10; Neh. viii. 7; ix. 3; xiii.
ll,_nnn, 1 Chron. xvi. 27 ; Ezra vi. 16 ; Neh. viii. 10,— "V133 = goblet, 1 Chron. xxviii. 17 ;
Ezra i. 10 ; viii. 27 ; pimioS — ijr, 2 Chron. xxvi. 15 ; Ezra iii. 13 ; nra, of divisions of the Le-
vites, 2 Chron. xxxv. 5 ; Ezra vi. 18 ; so also termini, which emphasize the being in accord-
ance with the law, which in the later period seem so particularly important, especially
D3I0D3, 1 Chron. xxiii. 31 ; 2 Chron. xxxv. 13 ; xxx. 16 ; Ezra iii. 4 ; Neh. viii. 18, for which
in the older writings mi'F13 31X133 occura frequently, furthermore liturgical formula, as
niH'S Hirn n'ln, 1 Chron. xvi. 4 ; xxiii. 30 ; xxv. 3, etc. ; Ezra iii. 11, ^nSl m'Tin1?, and " that
Jehovah is good, and his mercy endure h forever," 1 Chron. xvi. 34, 41 ; 2 Chron. v. 13 ;
Ezra iii. 11, — the standing expressions in connection with descriptions of festivals and the
like : nnp'^3, 1 Chron. xii. 40, etc. ; Ezra iii. 12 ; and Til 'T'^Jb 1 Chron. xxv. 2, 6 ; Ezra iii.
10,— finally, the official names of the musicians and servants in the temple that only occur
in our books, Dnii^p D^nSsn and WTN- But even those phenomena, which seem in general
to belong to the later language on the whole, because they are found here and there in other
books likewise, are found besides in the Chronicles, at least pre-eminently in those very parts
of our books under consideration. To these belong 1), the brief method of subordination of the
relative clauses, together with their collocation after a slat, constr., 1 Chron. xxix. 3 ; 2 Chron.
xxxi. 19 ; Ezra i. 5 ; Neh. viii. 10 ; 2) the case of the infin. with *?, in order to express a poten-
tial mood, 1 Chron. v. 1; ix. 25; xiii. 4, el al.; Ezra iv. 3; x. 12; Neh. viii. 13; 3) the ex-
traordinarily frequent use of the preposition \ partly before the object as nota accusalivi,
partly after an accusative, to continue it, 1 Chron. xxviii. 1, etc. ; Neh. ix. 32, as especially
before Vs. when in enumerations everything is to be included, 1 Chron. xiii. 1; 2 Chron. v.
12; Ezra i. 5 (certainly moreover also vii. 28) ; Neh. xi. 2, after the preposition 1£,, 1 Chron.
xxviii. 7, 20, etc.; Ezra iii. 13; x. 14 (moreover also ix. 4, 6) ; 4) the redundant use of prepo-
sitions in general, e. g., in expressions like Dnf'3, Neh. ix. 19; 5) the use of the article bef.ra
a verb instead of the relative pronoun, 1 Chron. xxvi. 28; xxix. 8, 17, etc. : Ezra viii. 25 ; x.
14,17; Neh. ix. 33.
(i. 1), and changes to the first after a few ehapters (i. 20-22).. Further on, in book iv., he resumes the third
(104-106). In book vr 26 he begins in the third, bat runs on into the first, which he again uses in book vii.
97."— Tk.] 1
10 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OP EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
The manner in which the section Neh. viii 1 sq. is connected with Chronicles and Ezra on
the one bide, and on the other is distinguished from the rest of the book of Nehemiah, is in a criti-
cal point of view very important. In order to carry out the latter point, how it separates itself
from the rest of the book, we might already bring into consideration the subject-matter itself.
This is not only suddenly entirely different from the previous context, since it no longer
treats of the strengthening of the city wall and the like, but treats of religious acts, but it
seems almost as if we might first have expected something else instead of it. Nehemiah in
chap. vii. has given an account of the completion of the building of the walls; it is singular
that there is no reference here to the dedication of the walls, but that this comes only after-
wards in xii. 27 as supplementary. In chap. vii. 4 he has mentioned that the inhabitants of
Jerusalem were too few; it is singular that their increase is first intimated in xi. 1, and indeed
only incidentally. It is very true that the book, as it now is, has a tolerable continuity, since
the author allows himself to make use of the remark respecting the inhabitants of Jerusalem
in vii. 4, as an occasion for going over from the securing the safety of the capital, of which
he had previously written, to the congregation and its organization, in order further on to
mention the increase of the inhabitants and the dedication of the walls, merely as a supple-
ment, and as it were incidentally. Nevertheless this kind of progress of thought compared
with the first part, has something surprising in it. It seems as if here suddenly a point of
view was taken, which for the previous part of the work had origin ..lly not been considered
important. But besides this there are still many other circumstances which render the dif-
ference of subject here very significant. 1. Nehemiah very suddenly ceases to speak of him-
self in the first person. 2. He here in general retires to the background, whilst Ezra, who is
mentioned in the book of Nehemiah elsewhere only at the dedication of the walls incidentally
(xii. 23), is the chief person. Nehemiah occurs only as supplementary, and indeed only twice,
viii. 9; x. 2. 3. He bears here both times the title of " the Tirshatha," whilst ia v. 14, 15,
18, he is called " Pechah." 4. Whilst the chiefs are called ii. 16 ; iv. 8, 13 ; v. 7, 17 ; vi. 17 ;
vii. 5; xii. 40; xiii. 11, D'th and D"JJD, the term fi'lDNri 'tyx"i occurs in viii. 13. 5. The ex-
pressions peculiar and usual to Nehemiah are missing, as "according to God's hand over
me," comp. ii. 8 and 18 ; furthermore, " God gave to me in my heart," comp. ii. 12 and
vii. 5. Even Kleineet (Dorp, theol. Beilr. I., S. 114 sqq.) and HiEVEKNTCK (Einleit.
II. 1, S. 305 sqq.) find it probable that there was another author for vii. 73 b— x. 40; they
suppose that this section was not composed by Nehemiah, but by Ezra as the leader of the
religious transactions here described, and was only appropriated by Nehemiah.* But, 6.
The author speaks also of the times of Ezra and Nehemiah as past, yea, considers likewise the
times subsequent to Nehemiah, Neh. xii. 11, 22, and thereby makes himself known, as he
does likewise in Chronicles as a later writer, as will be still more evident when we consider
the time of its composition. The grounds adduced by Keil for the traditional view that
Neh. viii.-x. comes from the same hand as the rest of the book, namely, from Nehemiah
himself, have little significance. That the previous threads of thought in Neh. viii. have
been allowed so entirely to fall, yea, to be broken off, is to be explained, says he, simply and
artlessly from the succession of the things narrated in time, as if the order in time could not
yield at times to the logical order of facts, yea, in such cases as the present must not yield
What would have hindered the author in such a case, if, for the sake of chronological order,
he would have come to the public reading of the law in viii. sq., from reserving the state-
ment, that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were few, and therefore also the list of the exiles
who first returned, for another place, where he then could have spoken at once of the increase
of the inhabitants? That Nehemiah suddenly steps so decidedly into the back-ground with
respect to Ezra, he says, has its ground in the fact that Nehemiah as civil governor was not
authorized to lead the religious feast here narrated which alone belonged to the priest and
scribe Ezra ( — at first it speaks only of the public reading of the law, which Nehemiah
might have very well occasioned, — ), that he here rather could only co-operate subordinately
* [Rawlinson in loco conjectures here that Zadok (or Zidkijah), Nehemiah's scribe, or secretary, was the au-
thor as an eye-witness of the proceedings. — TV]
? 2. SOURCES, COMPOSITION, AND AUTHENTICITY. 11
as membrum prcecipuum ecclesise Israelilicw. But if it were really so, the question would at
once arise, how is it that Nehemiah narrates here something in which he had so little to do,
since he elsewhere limits himself entirely to that which had been urged and brought about
by himself. Moreover, under all circumstances, the failure of the first person, which is else-
where so consistently retained in the writings of Nehemiah, is not explained. When Keil
refers to xii. 27 sq., where he says not " we," but " they sought the Levites," to prove that
Nehemiah might very well put others in the foreground in connection with facts that did not
originate primarily with himself, this very section suffices with reference to the principal
point for a very decisive counter argument. For notwithstanding Nehemiah does not stand
so much in the foreground as a matter of course as elsewhere, yet he uses the first person in
vers. 3 1 and 38 even in this connection. What Keil says respecting the Ttrshatha and Rashe
haaboth deserves no mention. With the different character of the section, Neh. viii.-x., if
critical probability is worth anything, we are to suppose that here another author has sup-
plemented Nehemiah's writing, whether from another document or from tradition. Who
this was cannot remain in doubt in connection with the similarity of the style that is mani-
fest here, in the book of Ezra and in the Chronicles.
The question whether this author is to be regarded moreover as the editor or the proper
author of our two books, i3 answered from the foregoing of itself. It is possible, that already
Ezra, when he described his journey to Jerusalem, and his principal work there, likewise
collected the original documents respecting the previous times, and placed them, provided
with historical introductions, before his book. Yet we have no right to derive from him in
our present book, any more than chap. vii. 22, 28, and chap. viii. — ix. 15, that is, any more
than the passages, which show clearly by the first person that they were written by him,
which thereby distinguish themselves from all the other passages, especially from chap. vii.
1-10, and chap. x. Whatever is not as chap. ii. 4, 8-23, an original document, or as chap. v.
5, 6, 12, chaps, viii. and ix. sources, whatever serves as introduction to the original document
or sources, as especially chaps, i. and iii. and v. 1-10, bears the stamp of the so-called chroni-
cler, or at least of his time. When Keil, in order to show that the whole, and therefore also
the tenth chap, was composed by Ezra, raises the question, what could have determined the
author to break off the further communication of the memoir of Ezra at the end of chap. ix.
and narrate the end of the transaction in his own words, — criticism would not be required to
answer this question, unless it knew something more of the memoir of Ezra than it can know
at present. Now we may think of various reasons. — With more propriety the book of Ne-
hemiah might be spoken of as merely edited. Since however the last author has inserted
chaps, viii. — x., and indeed for the most part with the help of his own literary activity, he
must be designated here at least as a supplemented Although he already had before him
the book of Ezra, and so also a book of Nehemiah, yet the form of these books, as it lies be-
fore us, originated first with him, and the design which he on his part pursued in his literary
activity. Perhaps he had also transformed, to some extent, the text of the registers and ori-
ginal documents, which he reproduced in his work here and there in accordance with his
method, as it may perhaps be seen, for example in Ezra ii. 68 sq., in comparison with Neh.
vii. 71 sq., and so also Ezra vi. 16-18, if here an authority has been really used.
The question, when this last and real author actually lived, has already been answered
by Zoeckler (in his introduction to the books of Chronicles), who, it is true, with reference
to Ezra and Nehemiah regards him only as an editor. In Neh. xii. 10, 11, 22 and 23, the line
of high-priest is carried down to Jaddua, who, according to Josephus' statement, not to be
doubted here {Antiqu. XI. 10) held his office in the time of Alexander the Great. Keil's
supposition that the author had known Jaddua not yet as high-priest, but only as a child,
and had mentioned him merely as grandson of the last high-priest of his own time, Joiada,
is already in itself improbable, and besides has against it the fact that the same person is
mentioned with the others as one in whose days the Levites were recorded. It seems that
the meaning of ver. 22 is that under the four high-priests Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan and Jad-
dua, four registrations of Levites had been made. Keil understands, it is true, that only one
occurred, namely, under Eliashib and Joiada, and the others are mentioned merely because
12 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
they then already lived. But this supposition is too clearly a mere evasion of the difficulty.
If immediately afterwards only the one record of priests, which was made in the time of Da-
rius, is mentioned, this is to be explained from the fact that this one chiefly, yea exclusively,
comes into consideration for the author, since he according to the entire context, would men-
tion only those belonging to the times of the beginning — at all events those living up to the
time of Ezra and Nehemiah— as he then also in chap. xii. 1-11 expressly names only those
of the time of Zerubbabel, and then in ver. 12 sq., only those of the times immediately fol-
lowing Joiakim, and in ver. 26, after mentioning the heads of the Levites, expressly adds
that he thereby had given only those of the time of Joiakim and Nehemiah. — This mark of
a late period of composition that has been adduced, stands, it is true, somewhat apart by
itself, and would not signify much if anything else contradicted it ; we might readily suppose
that the names of the later high-priests (and so also those of the later posterity of Zerubba-
bel in 1 Chron. iii. 19-24) were subsequently added as a supplement by a late hand ; but since
there is nothing of the kind, since on the contrary the times of Ezra and Nehemiah are
spoken of as of a previous period, and of themselves as of persons of the past in Neh. xii. 26,
27, so the probability is, so far as it can be established by criticism, that the author was one
who at the earliest lived in the time of Jaddua * at the end of the Persian or the beginning
of the Greek supremacy. [Eawlinson in loco thinks that Ezra, " who seems to have had only
a temporary commission (vii. 14), returned to the Persian court when' he had carried
through the matter of the marriage, and either a Tttle before or a little after his return wrote
the Book which has come down to us." He thus accounts for the abrupt conclusion of the
book, and gives the date as 457 or 6. With regard to Nehemiah he thinks that it is most
probable that the various sections of the book of Nehemiah " were collected by Nehemiah
himself, who had written, at any rate, two of them (i.-vii. 5 and xii. 27-xiii. 31). The date
of the compilation would be about B. C. 430." — Te.]
3. Authenticity. — Already the style of composition, and also the kind of contents and the
method of stating them, testifies that the author, even if he wrote a hundred or more years
after Nehemiah, in general pursued a, method that was entirely historical. "We have seen
that he supports almost every important event that he narrates, with original documents, or
presents it in the language of the written authorities. There is not the least occasion for
doubt with reference to the historical character of the original documents and written autho-
rities. There is only one point that can be questioned, having no confirmatory document,
unless we should recognize as such the report of the elders in Jerusalem given in the letter to
Darius, chap. v. 16. This is where it is said that the returned exiles already in the first year
of their emigration had re-established the altar, and already in the second year had laid the
foundation of the temple (Ezra iii.). (Comp. Scheadee Tlieol. Stud. undErit., 1867, 8. 460 ff.,
and De Wette Einl., 8 Ausg., I 235). Since in later times Scheadee supposes it has been
presupposed that the returned exiles were pervaded with glowing love for the religion of
their sires, were filled with the greatest joy over their finally successful redemption from Ba-
bylon, and of the most sincere thankfulness towards the God of their fathers, they have quite
gradually it is true, and without having any historical foundation for it, been able to give
way to the idea that the returned exiles, as soon as they arrived in the land of their fathers,
had had nothing more speedily to be done than to think of the restoration of the temple. In
reality, however, the congregation hardly went so far as to put their hands to this work until
the time when they actually carried on the building to its completion, in the second to the
sixth year of Darius. If they had really begun already in the time of Cyrus, we cannot
think that they then would have let it remain idle for fourteen entire years : if they would
not have ventured to undertake it again in the time of Cyrus, yet they might well do so un-
der Cambyses or Smerdis. Yet these assertions gain some likelihood only from the fact that
the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, in the time of Darius, speak not of a fresh undertaking
of the building, but of the building simply, yea, that they speak still of a laying of the foun-
dation of the temple, as if it really had now been proposed for the first time. In that Haggai
* [Pusey and Rawlinson agree in regarding this verse as an interpolation or marginal gloss of a later date,
that has crept into the text. — Tr.]
i 2. SOURCES, COMPOSITION, AND AUTHENTICITY. 13
ii. 18. " Consider now from this day and upward, from the 24th day of the 9th month, as
from the day when the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid consider '' assigns
the laying of the foundation of the temple to the 24th day of the 9th month, that he adds the
phrase lO] "W|? D'VH ]!?/ in apposition and accordingly as of like meaning with the phrase,
" from the 24th day of the 9th month," is just as clear as the interpretation of Keil, according
to which JOT etc., would be in apposition indeed, yet would reach back to the time of Cyrus,
is artificial and untenable. And that Zech. via. 9, " the prophets which were in the day
when the foundation of the house of the Lord of hoits was laid, that the temple might be
built,'' does not mean the prophets after the exile in general (Keil) but those of the better
times (Kohler), which were already bringing the fulfilment, as they, according to the imme-
diately following verse, had not come previously, but for the first now after the failure of the
harvest, that the laying of the temple's foundations accordingly also here is recognized as of
the present, can as little be denied. But with all this the conclusions which Schrader de-
rives from it are by far too hasty. As H33 often means continue the building, or also, re-
build, comp. Ps. Ii. 20; lxix. 36, so ID' also may be used in different senses, since in a nar-
rower sense it refers merely to the laying of the foundation stone, in a broader and fuller
sense to the laying of the foundations in general. Only in the narrow sense had the laying
of the foundation taken place in the time of Cyrus; for without doubt only a small portion
of the congregation had as yet the leisure to occupy themselves therewith. Above all, more-
over, the ruins had to be removed and the necessary new material be procured. In the fuller
sense the laying of the foundations did not really take place until the time of Darius. Now
for the first time was stone laid upon stone, as it was necessary, if the foundations as a whole
were to be carried up. (Comp. Hag. ii. 15).*
That the returned, however, had constantly undertaken, already in the time of Cyrus,
the re-establishment of the temple, yea, regarded it as most necessary and important, is en-
tirely probable, and cannot be conceived of as otherwise. (Comp. E;tald, Geschichte Israels
IV. S. 129 sq.). Not on'y because that the pre-exile prophets, as Jeremiah, by whose utter-
ances the returning exiles allowed themselves to be chiefly led, that Ezekiel also had seen in
the re-establishment and continuance of the temple worship and priestly office the best se-
curity for the continuance of the true religion itself, Jer. xxxiii. 17-26 ; Ezek. xx. 40 ; xxxiv.
26 ; xxxvii. 26 and 28, and especially in chaps, xl.-xlvii. (comp. Ewald IV. S. 43) and that in
Jer. xliv. 28 the re-establishment of the temple under and by Cyrus was set down definitely
as the will of God, comp. also Isa. lx. 7 — against which it might perhaps be said that pass-
ages of contrary purport may be found in Jer. iii. 16 and Isa. lxvi. 1 — but the edict of Cyrus
itself, which constituted the foundation for the existence of the new congregation itself, had
decidedly the same purport that the congregation should above all have the task of building
the temple and restoring the temple worship, as is testified not only by Ezra i., but also by
the original Chaldee document given in chap. vi. 3 sq. Over against this edict they would
have lost the right of their existence in Jerusalem if they had set aside the building of the
temple for the sake of any incident that changed the posture of affairs, or had postponed it
for fully fourteen years. That they, however, did not touch the building for a long time
after they had been interrupted, and did not even in the time of Cambyses attempt to take it
up again, is easily explained from the many sad circumstances, especially also from the ex-
ternal dangers threatening them, under which they had to suffer, as is to be seen from the
book of Ezra, and especially from the book of Nehemiah.
* According to Hag. i. 14, 15, it is true.they had not for the first begun to work upon the house of the Lord
on the 9th month and 24th day, when, according to chap. ii. 18, the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid,
but already in the 6th month. But that they then had merely performed the preparatory labor, removed the
rubbish, and procured materials for building, that the proper work of building really began on the 24th day of
the 9th month, is clear from the simple fact that the prophet makes this later day his great terminus a quo. with
which the bad growth shall come to an end and a better and more fruitful time begin, and of a quid pro quo (Kei\)
there can be thought if we understand it thus.
U INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
\ 3. RELATION OF THE TWO BOOKS TO ONE ANOTHER, TO THE CHRONICLES, AND E8DRAS.
If the composition of the two books was in the manner above described, the question
readily arises whether the last author from the first regarded the Chronicles, Ezra and Nehe-
miah as three particular books, or planned them as one work. That the unity, which has in
recent times been asserted by Zunz (Ootlesdienstl. Vortrage der Juden), Ewald, Berth., etal,
really exists in a certain sense, cannot be ignored. The three books are so cut out that
they unite to form a greater whole, not only in the looser way of the books of Samuel and
Kings, but in a much more internal and firmer manner. Ezra begins with the same edict of
Cyrus with reference to the return of the Jews, with which the Chronicles end. Ezra and
Nehemiah, moreover, on their side are united together in the closest manner by Neb., viii. —
xii. 26. Ezra's activity, the first part of which alone is narrated in the book of Ezra, is here
described as to its continuance and results, the strengthening of the life of the congregation
by this activity, the negative side of which is taken into consideration in the book of Ezra, is
here carried on to its completion by the positive side. The book of Ezra is thus continued in
the book of Nehemiah, and only finished therein. Neh. viii. — x. might have been added to
the book of Ezra ; it is annexed to the book of Nehemiah only because it describes a later
period in which Nehemiah likewise came into consideration along-side of Ezra. Moreover,
there is properly in all three books throughout one and the same subject treated ; the history
of the city of Jerusalem, the worship of God in it, and the most important persons who ren-
dered services to it.
But it is just as easy to see likewise that the division into three particular books cannot
have been made at a subsequent period, still less that it rests upon arbitrary grounds. The
book of Nehemiah begins with a particular title, which designates it as the history of Nehe-
miah, and clearly enough separates it as a particular and independent writing from the book
of Ezra. This title, moreover, cannot have been appended at a later period, but must have
been placed there already by Nehemiah, otherwise the first person that constantly occurs,
could not be explained. Moreover the supposition that the book, in spite of this title, should
be regarded as merely a section of another larger book, would be against all Biblical analo-
gies. And from this results also the independence of the book of Ezra. That which has
been said in favor of the separation of Nehemiah, is also in favor of that of Ezra. To make
Nehemiah independent, and append Ezra to the Chronicles (Movers) would be very inconsis-
tent at any rate, and all the more so, indeed, that the book of Ezra treats of an entirely new
period, which was separated by a great and gloomy chasm, from all that preceded it. Be-
sides, if the author had written Chronicles and Ezra as a single book, he would have men-
tioned the edict of Cyrus but once, certainly, and he who separated Ezra would have caused
the Chronicles to end before the introduction of this fact ; in general, before the mention of
Cyrus at all. That edict would have its proper place only at the beginning of the book of
Ezra, where it formed the foundation for the subsequent history, and where it was therefore
indispensable. To put it at the end of the Chronicles, moreover, would have been too re-
fined for a mere arranger; this rather would come only into the mind of the author himself,
who thereby would certainly merely satisfy the need of indicating by a brief word the resto-
ration also after the exile and the destruction, which could not here be entirely absent.
In favor of the view that at least Fzra and Nehemiah originally constituted a single
book, the circumstance is cited that both books from the most ancient times, namely, in the
Talmud, yea, even in Joseph, and in the Alexandrine version, and accordingly also in Mi-
letus of Sardis and Origen, in EtTSEBlus' Church Hist. II. 25, have been counted as one.
But at the basis of this enumeration there is hardly more than the true recognition of the
relationship that has been shown, and on the other side, the wish to have no more than just
so many books in the Canon of the Old Test, as there are letters of the Alphabet. For the
same reason the books of Judges and Ruth were connected together. For already Joseph.
(c. Ap. I 8) enumerates, although he does not expressly give the reason, exactly twenty-two
books, and Jerome says in the prologus gal., expressly that the Hebrews had twenty-two ca-
? 3. RELATION OF THE TWO BOOKS TO ONE ANOTHER, ETC. 15
nonical books, according to the number of the letters of their alphabet, which ho, namely,
mentions, and then adds that some, because the rabbins distinguish Sin and Shin, and for the
sake of the sign of Jehovah, would set up a double yod in the alphabet, suppose that there
are twenty-four, since they separate Ruth and Lamentations. That Ezra and Nehemiah are
properly two books, can be the less denied, as they without doubt recognize two authors; for
the book of Ezra, the priest of that name, of whom it is expressly said in the Talm. (Bab. balr.
Fol. 14) : "Esra scripsit librum suum et genealogias Hbrorum chron. usque ad sua tempora," and
for the book of Neh. with as much certainty the governor Nehemiah also makes himself known
unmistakably as the author by the use of the first person. As for the Alex, version the connection
of the two books is found indeed in Cod. Alex, and Cod. Frid.-Aug., but not in the Cod. Vatic*
Now in the Alexandrine version there is found a translation at first of our book of Ezra,
enlarged by additions, and only afterward a translation that conforms closely to our text, and
the question arises what weight the former has with its deviations, as well critical 2.1 exege-
tical. The former is in the Alex, in the ancient Latin and in the Syriac versions (comp.
libri vet. tent, apocryphi syriace e recogn. de Lagarde) "EaSpa; 71-purof, the second "Eo-tSpar debro-
poc, the book of Nehemiah "Eo-<Jpar rpirof, or also (probably from the time of Jerome) Nehe-
mias ; in the Vulgate, on the other hand, the book of Ezra in its present unenlarged form, is
called I. Esra, the book of Nehemiah, II. Esra, as then likewise already Origen (in Eusebius'
Church Hist. IV. 25), then the council Laodicoz can. 80, and other lists, distinguish our books
of Ezra and Nehemiah as ""KaSpac nparoc and tihrepog, — the enlarged translation however is
called III. Ezra, and the apocalyptic pseudepigraphic book of Ezra finally the IV. Ezra. — The
enlargement of the translation was brought about on the one side by placing before the pro-
per beginning the closing part of the Chronicles (chaps, xxxv. and xxxvi), namely the de-
scription of the brilliant passover feast under Josiah, and at the same time the last history
of Jerusalem before the exile, and by adding as a conclusion the beginning of the second part
of Nehemiah, Neh. vii. 73 — viii. 13, namely, the public reading of the law by Ezra before the
door of the restored temple. We see that as in the original book, so also in this enlargement
nothing is so much regarded as the history of the temple worship, and indeed especially its
indestructibleness. The translator would first of all recall the evening sky in which he
rejoiced shortly before the exile, for this reason, because it was to him to a certain extent a
prophecy of the morning and the resurrection, which might be expected after the temporary
ruin in exile, through the power and grace of God. He then lets the contents of our book
of Ezra follow, and adds Neh. vii. 73 — viii. 13, because here the fulfilment of that prophecy
is narrated. For the public reading of the law before the door of the temple, Neh. vii. 73 sq.,
came into consideration for him without doubt as a kind of temple worship, yea, was regarded
by him perhaps in accordance with the ideas subsequently formed, as the most suitable and
important worship of God alongside of the sacrificial worship. He needed not to go further
than Neh. viii. 13, however ; it was already sufficiently established by the history preceding,
up to this time, that the restoration had been completed, and especially in the last verse does
it still stand forth, what seems to have come into consideration for the author therewith that
the people by their worship of God had again been exalted to prosperity and joy. — On the
other side, however, the author has taken into his book likewise a passage entirely foreign to
the canonical Old Test., which gives an account of a banquet which the Persian king Darius
prepared in the second year of his reign, where Zerubbabel found opportunity to gain the
king's favor for himself and his people, so that he permitted the building of the temple, con-
tributed to the restoration of the worship in Jerusalem and influenced many Jewish heads of
* [Davidson's summary is as follows : " Intro. II., p. 148. The extended work of the Chronist embraced a post-
exile as well as a pre-exile part; but the former was afterwards separated from the latter, and received a distinct
name, the book of Ezra, including what is now Nehemiah. In this post-exile portion the Chronicle writer copied
his sources more extensively than in the preceding part. In Ezra ii. 1-69 he gave an old list; in iv. 8 — vi. 18 a
fragment of an Aramean narrative which he had got. In vii. 12 — ix. 15 he inserted a piece of Ezra's memoirs, and
In x. 18-33, he put a list or register which had come into his hands. Thus more than two-thirds of the book ot
Ezra was transcribed from the sources at his disposal. With respect to the book of Nehemiah, which was merely
intended as an appendix to the whole, he filled up gaps in Nehemiah's memoirs with vii. 73 6 — ix.; xii. 1 — xiii. 3,
and with minor interpretations besides. We have then left for the authorship of Ezra vii. 12 — ix. 15 ; for Nehe-
miah i. 1— yii. 73 o, i. at first ; xi. a— xiii. 4-31."— Te.]
16 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
families to return. This is the section, chaps, iii. — v. 6, which may he compared with the
" passages in Esther." It is quite probable that the author here had reproduced a popular
tradition (Fritzsche, EM. zu. III. Esra <S 5) ; but without doubt, in the formation of the
story the design had already co-operated of giving moral truth a historical dress (Ztjnz, Got-
tesdiensll. Vort., S. 106 and 123). Zerubbabel and two other young men were at that ban-
quet, body-guards of the king ; they agreed, when the latter had gone to sleep, to lay down
their opinions before him with reference to what was the mightiest on earth, and see to which
he would give his recognition. The one wrote •' wine/' the second "the king," the third (Ze-
rubbabel) wrote " women are mightiest ;" the latter added, however, " but truth gains the
victory over every thing," and this he explained afterwards so that every other thing, even
the king, had fallen into unrighteousness, and hence likewise become perishable. Only truth
lasts. The author might by this sentence of Zerubbabel, so to say, have indicated the spirit
of his presentation of history; not the king, that is worldly power and glory, can do every-
thing. Their victory over the Lord is only apparent. The worship of Jehovah and the ex-
istence of Jerusalem can only be interrupted by them for a time. The king is not the might-
iest, because on the one side even wine, and on the other women, rule over him; in other
words, because he belongs to the world and its lusts, that is, to vanities ; but it is the truth,
the divine truth, which guarantees the eternal duration of the worship of God, because it is
one with it ; it proceeds from the eternal, and must therefore endure forever.
Now with respect to the critical value of this enlargement, it is by no means in the con-
dition to make probable to us the already rejected view of an original external unity of Chro-
nicles, Ezra, and Neheniiah, notwithstanding the reasons for the opposite opinion ; the in-
ternal connection is sufficient to explain why the author, if h;s object was the temple wor-
ship, went to work to collect material at the same time from the three fields. No more are
we to suppose that he had found a basis in the original for the section, chaps, iii. — v. 6, that
he inserted. " The language (of this passage) betrays itself throughout as originally Hellen-
istic (Fritzsche, I. c). It seems to Fritzsche that only the conclusion, chap. v. 1-6, can be
an exception. At any rate III. Ezra might come into consideration with reference to textual
criticism. The translation is indeed frequently free, yet is as a whole in close conformity
to the Hebrew text, in comparatively good Greek, and " is therefore an important evidence
of the condition of our present Hebrew text at the time of this author" (Berth., S. 15).
However, the author could not have lived earlier than the first century before Christ, and the
changes in the text that he recommends to us, are only to be admitted with great caution.
Exegetically and historically the III. Ezra might almost make it questionable for us whe-
ther we interpret the i ames of the Persian kings aright when we understand by the Darius
mentioned after Cyrus, Darius Hystaspis, and by Artasasta, Artaxerxes. After having in-
formed us of the edict of Cyrus in chap. ii. 1-14 and other matters contained in the canoni-
cal book of Ezra, III. Ezra lets the two original documents of Ezra iv. directly follow in vers.
15-25, the letter of the officer to Artaxerxes and its answer, and in addition the transition
yerse, by which it is carried back to Darius, " then the work on the house of the Lord was
discontinued until the twentieth year of Darius." It also gains the appearance as if it had
held the Artaxerxe3, to whom the Samaritans turned themselves through the Persian offices,
as one of the kings previous to Darius, perhaps Cambyses. Since then in chaps, iii.— v. 6, in
his apocryphal addition, in that Zerubbabel still under Darius, and indeed still as a young
man, stayed at the Persian court, he excites the appearance as if already before or even along-
side of Cyrus, Darius had been favorable to the Jews, and had given them permission to
return. The skein of difficulties, moreover, is entangled, as soon as it is supposed that the
author in his statement, so to say, has made two beginnings, and indeed the second time in
chap. v. 7, however little, there is here to be observed by the reader a larger pause. The
announcement of the exiles who returned under Darius, which we read herein ver. 4 "these
are the names of the men who went up," etc., is only to be referred to the names that follow
in vers. 5 and 6, that is to the priests, the sons of Pbineas, to Jeshua the high-priest, and
Joakim, the son of Zerubbabel, not at the same time to those following from ver. 7 onward.
In ver. 7 a new announcement, corresponding to that of Ezra i. 2, introduces the names of
\ i. LITERATURE.
those who returned already in the time of Cyrus, or as it is expressly said with Zerubbabel
and Jeshua. The matter would be clearer if the fifth chapter did not begin until ver. 7. It
seems as if the author, before he passed over to the statement of the history proper, as it lies
before us in Ezra iii., would anticipate all that which subsequently would have too much in-
terrupted the connection of the history of the temple at Jerusalem, and which was yet of im-
portance with reference to the course that affairs took ; at first the edict of Cyrus, which con-
stituted the foundation for all that followed, but then also the letter of the adversaries to Ar-
taxerxes, with reference to the building of the city and its walls, and his unfavorable answer
to the Jews, which original documents at the very beginning would throw a strong light upon
the adversaries who were active at the time of the building of the temple likewise, and which
already, because they are brought out in so much detail in our canonical Ezra, must be men-
tioned somewhere — finally the apocryphal section respecting the events at the banquet of Da-
rius, which explains the sentiments of this king as so favorable and so decided for the build-
ing of the temple. The letter to Artaxerxes and the reply, he probably placed before
the apocryphal history from the time of Darius, because it would have interrupted the nar-
rative if placed after it, that is, would have too much separated similar things, — the names
of those who returned under Darius on the one side, and the list of those who returned under
Cyrus on the other side. Perhaps it likewise comes into consideration, that the closing verse
after the reply of Artaxerxes, " then the building of the sanctuary at Jerusalem ceased until
the second day of the reign of Darius" (chap. ii. 25), which here really has no sense at all,
provided that under Artasasta we are to understand Artaxerxes, and under Darius the Da-
rius Hystaspis, who had already reigned previously, — was well calculated to form the transi-
tion to the section respecting Darius. If it should be thought that the author thought of
Cambyses as Artasasta, and therefore had placed the letter in question before, objections are
excited by the close of the 5th chap., where he says, changing our Ezra freely, " they, namely,
the Samaritans, hindered, that the building was not completed the entire period of the life
of king Cyrus, and they were restrained from building two years, to the reign of Darius,"
which sounds as if, according to his view, Darius had followed immediately after Cyrus, and
indeed already two years after the interruption of the building of the temple. — That the au-
thor makes Zerubbabel still live in the time of Darius, and indeed s ill as a young man at
the Persian court, although he yet, according to him, was already active in Jerusalem under
Cyrus, rests perhaps on a corruption of the text ; perhaps the young man who influenced
Darius so favorably in chap. iii. was not Zerubbabel, as, it is true, it is expressly said in chap,
iv. 13, but the son of Zerubbabel, Joiakim, who in chap. v. 5 is mentioned as one who re-
turned under Darius, and at the same time, also, expressly as the one who spake wise words
under Darius, the king of Persia. To be sure, however, the difficulty still remains that as the
high-priest, not Jeshua's son, but Jeshua himself, stands alongside of him. It is possible
that rather the name Joiakim in chap. v. 5, rests on an alteration, by which a copyist would
assist the author, and the appearance of Zerubbabel as a young man at the court of Darius
is to be explained from the fact that the author himself thought of Darius, who already so
soon after the interruption of the building of the temple attained the sovereignty, as the im-
mediate successor of Cyrus ; at any rate it must properly be supposed that Zerubbabel, after
the interruption of the temple building, returned again to Babylon.
\ 4. LITERATURE.
As in the books of Chronicles, so here we have to complain of the small amount of exe-
getical and critical literature. Of Jewish interpreters, besides the well-known E. S. Jarchi
and Aben Ezra, who wrote commentaries upon almost the entire Old Test., which are
printed in the Rabbin. Bible of Buxtorf, we may mention E. Simeon ben Joiakim, whose
Commentary on Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles, according to Bartolocci, (bibl. rabb. IV.,
p. 412) appeared at Venice from Bomberg, — furthermore Joseph, bar Aben Jechijja, of
whom a Commentary on the 5 Megilhth and the rest of the Hagiographa is mentioned, and
Isaak ben E. Solomon Jabez, whose Thorath chesed likewise embraces the Megilhth and
the rest of the Hagiographa.
18 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
Of the Fathers of the Church only Beda. Ven. comes into consideration, who composed
two books of allegorical interpretation upon Ezra and Nehemiah {pp. i. TV., p. 462 sq.) ; he
would show by both books how those who have fallen into ruin by carelessness or error, must
turn to repentance, how great God's grace is, etc. Of the Reformers, only John Beenz wrote
a Commentar. in Esdrarn, and provided the first three chapters of Nehemiah with annota-
tions. Vict. Steigel's scholia in libr. Esrse appeared at Leipsic, 1571; his scholia in libr.
Nehemke, Leipsic, 1575 ; Erasmi Sarcerii scholia in, Nehemiam and Cyriaci Spangenbergii tabulse
(Basel, 1503) are barely worthy of mention. The expository writings of the 16th and 17th
Centuries are embraced, so far as they deserve mention, in the great collection "Critici sacri,"
London, 1660, 9 vol. fol., and in the selections therefrom of Matth. Polus, Synopsis Critico-
rum s., London, 1669.
On the part of the Roman Catholics are to be mentioned : Thomas de Vio, Rome, 1553 ;
Dionys. Caethusianus, Cologne, 1534 ; Caspar Sanctius, Lyons, 1627, and Nicolatjs
Lombaedus (Commentarius literalis, moralis, et attegoricus in Nehemiam et Esram. Paris,
1643).
Of the Reformed Church are : LrjDOV. LavAteeus (38 Homilies upon Ezra, and 58
upon Nehemiah), Zurich, 15S3 ; Johann Wolff, Nehemias de instaurata ECierosolyma seu
commentarius in librum Nehemise, Zurich, 1570 ; Christiantjs Schotanus, bibliotheca hist,
sacr. V. T. T. II., p. 1154 sq.; Guilelm Pembelius, explicatio locorum obseurorum ex Eirse,
etc., libra. Lond., 1658 ; H. Geotius, Annotatt. in Vet. Test., Paris, 1644, ed. Vogel el Doe-
derlein, Halle, 1775-6.; Franc. BnEMAtwns, a Belgian Commentary upon the books of
Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra, Amsterdam, 1694.
Of the 18th Century are only the works embracing the entire Old Test., or at least a
greater part of it, by Aug. Calmet, Oommentaire literal, Paris, 1707 sq. ; by Jo. Clebictjs,
Commentarius (3 vols, in Sagiographi), Amsterdam, 1731 ; by Joh. Heine. Michaelis, ad-
notationes uberiores in hagiographos veteris testamenli libros, Halle, 1720 (the book of Ezra, by
J. H. Michaelis himself, the book of Nehemiah, by J. J. Bambach, both in the third vol.) ;
by H. B. Staek Notse selectm in Pent., etc., Leipsic, 1714, — by Joach. Lange, Mosaisches, '
Prophelisches u. s. w. Licht und Recht, Halle, 1729 — 38, by Che. Staeke the Synopsis IH. ;
by J. D. Michaelis, Die Uebersetzung des Alten Testaments mit Anmerkungen fiir Ungelehrle.
Theil 12, 1785. Of the 19ih Century we have, by J. B. D. Matjeee, Comment, gramm. cril. in
V- T., vol. I., Leipsic, 1835 ; E. Bektheau, Die Bucher Esra, Nehemia, and Esther (17 Lie-
ferung des kurzgefassten exegetischen Handbuches zum A. Testament), Leipsic, 1862 ; Bunsen,
Bibelwerh (Thl. L, Abth. 3, by Ad. Kamphatjsen), Leipsic, 1865; C. P. Keil, Bibl. Kom-
mentar itber die nachexil. Ceschichtsbiicher ; Chronih, Esra, Nehemia und Esther (Thl. 5 des
bill. Kommentars of Keil and Delitzsch, Leipsic, 1870 — [Trans, in Claek's For. Theol. Li-
brary] ; Schiemer, observatt. exeg-.t. crit. in 1 Esdrse, Breslau, 1820. There are the following
introductory critical treatises on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah; Kleinert, uber die
Entstehung, die Besiandtheile und das Alter der Bucher Ezra und Nehemia, in the Beitr. zu
den theol. Wissenschaftcn by the Professors of Theology at Dorpat, Hamburg, 1832, first vol-
ume ; Keil, iibcr die Integritdt des Bucher Ezra in his Apol. Versuch uber die Chronih, S. 93
sq.; F. W. Schtjltz, " Cyrus der Grosse " in the Stud. u. Krit , 1853, S. 624 sqq. ; BAIHINGER,
" zur Aufhellung der nachexil. Geschichte Israels " Stud. u. Krit., 1857, S. 87 sqq.; E. Scheader,
" die Dauer des zweiten Tempelbaus," Stud. u. Krit., 1867, S. 460 sqq. E. ScheAdee's book,
" die Keilinschriflen und das Alte Testament," Giessen, 1872, contains contributions worthy
of consideration with reference to the book of Ezra, fewer with reference to Nehemiah.
[To these we may add the few works upon Ezra and Nehemiah in English. The Holy
Bible, with notes of the older Matthew Heney and Scott, and the more recent Holy
Biole, with Notes of Woedswoeth, vol. II., new ed., London, 1873; the Bible or Speaker's
Comm,, vol. III., London, 1874, by Rawlinson, to which frequent reference is made by the
translator. See also Davidson's Introduction to the Old Test.. II., 121-132, Edin., 1862 ; Pusey
on Daniel, p. 331 sq., 3d ed., London, 1869 ; also in Kitto's Cyclopaedia, 3d edit., 1865, and
Smite's Biblical Dictionary — especially the American edition. — Tr.]
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
PART FIRST.
The Temple as the Place of the Lord. (Period previous to Ezra.)
Chaps. I.— VI.
FIRST SECTION.
The Most Important Fundamental Facts.
Chapters I. II.
A.— THE DECREE OP CYRUS— THE DEPARTURE FROM BABYLON— THE RESTITUTION
OF THE SACRED VESSELS.
Chap. I. 1-11.
I. The Decree of Cyrus. Vers. 1-4.
1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the
mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king
of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also
2 in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath
given me all the kingdoms of the earth ; and he hath charged me to build him a
3 house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people ?
his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and
build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.
4 And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his
place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides
the free-will offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
II. The Departure from Babylon. Vers. 5, 6.
5 Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests,
and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the
6 house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them
strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with
beasts, and with precious things, besides all that was willingly offered.
III. The Restitution of the Vessels of the Temple. Vers. 7-11.
7 Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the Lord, which
Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the
8 house of his gods ; Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand
of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of
9 Judah. And this is the number of them : thirty chargers of gold, a thousand
19
20
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
10 chargers of silver, nine and twenty knives, Thirty basins of gold, silver basins of a
11 second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a thousand. All the vessels
of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Shesh-
bazzar bring up with them of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon
unto Jerusalem.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vera. 1-4. The decree of Cyrus placed here at
the beginning constituted the basis of all that
followed, first of all, of the re-eBtablishment of
the temple and the renewal of the congregation.
And although this decree was issued by a hea-
then prince, it yet involved a great act of fulfill-
ment on the part of the Lord. It is manifest
from the first verse that the Lord was there
present and acting to fulfil His word.
Ver. 1. And in the first year of Cyrus
king of Persia. — The 1 (and), which under
other circumstances might be deemed unimpor-
tant, here, in view of 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, con-
nects the subsequent re-establishment with the
previous destruction. The first year of Cyrus
naturally refers to that first year, in which he
began to come into consideration as ruler with
reference to the Jews, that is, over Babylon,
and indeed not mediately, as the sovereign of
Darius the Mede, in view of Dan. vi. 1, but im-
mediately. It was the year 536 B. C. — [Raw-
linson contends that " by the first year of Cyrus
is to be understood his first year at Babylon,
which was the first year of his sovereignty over
the Jews. This was B. C. 638."— Tr.] — Bhi3
corresponds with the old Persian kurus, the
Greek Kvpoc, and is perhaps connected with
kurus the name of prince iu ancient India [and
the kuru race, according to Rawlinson, who also
thinks that the Masoretic pointing is incorrect
for BH13.— Tr.].— Vid. Delitzsch, Com., Isaiah
xliv. 28. D^3 (in the best editions with pathah
under resh, for which we have qametz in strong
pause, as with silluq, ch. iv. 3) is in the cunei-
form inscriptions Parana, in the native dialect
Parca, vid. Schrader, Keilmschriften, S. 244 [Raw-
linson, Appendix to Com. on Persian words in
Ezra. — Tr.]. — That the word of the Lord
by the mouth of Jeremiah might be ful-
filled.— Hwpp would generally be rendered :
in order that it might be completed. The sub-
ject would then be properly regarded as the
period of seventy years which the divine word
had determined (so Berth, and Keil) ; yet as
this is not the subject, but rather the word of
the Lord itself, we are compelled to render : in
order that it might be fulfilled. n~>3 means
. TT
properly to be ready, and thence, on the one
side, to be finished, e. g. Ex. xxxix. 32, especially
of buildings, as of the temple, 1 Kings vi. 38,
but likewise of predicted events, Dan. xii. 7 ;
in the Piel, to finish, 1 Kings vii. 1 sq. ; in Pual,
to be completed, Gen. ii. 1 ; on the other side,
to pass away. Taking it thus, fil7p7 is essen-
tially the same as nifcOD/j which is used as its
synonym, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21 (Vulg. ui complere-
tur)y although this term rests on a different idea.
The word of God is not as with ftfN7D to be
regarded as a measure to be filled full, but as
the vital beginning of that which is to be car-
ried out. — That our author, as well as the author
of Dan. ix. 1, brings into consideration above
all the prophecy of Jeremiah, xxv. 11 sq. and
xxix. 10, not that of Is. xli. 2-4, 25 ; xliv. 24-28;
xlv. 1-6, 13; xlvi. 11; xlviii. 13-15, is to be
explained from the fact that he is concerned, as
we see from 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21, not merely with
the deliverance after the exile, but likewise with
the time of that deliverance, that is, with its
beginning, after the expiration of the seventy
years of the exile, which is foretold in Jeremiah
alone. Bepides the prophecies of Jeremiah were
the more popular as they were older and more
fundamental.* The seventy years of the exile,
to the first year of Cyrus, can only be made out
by going back to the first beginning of all the
Chaldean wars, conquests and captivities of Israel
— that is, to the victory of Nebuchadnezzar over
Pharaoh-Necho at Carchemish in fie fourth year
of Jehoiakim, 600 B. C. [Rawlinson and Smith
both make the date 605 B. C. The former con-
tends that seventy is a round number sufficiently
fulfilled by sixty-eight years, which he makes
between 605 and 538. — Tr.], when Jeremiah
first uttered the prophecy under consideration
(comp. ch. xxv. 1 sq. and xlvi. 1). We are fully
justified in doing this, as is now again generally
recognized. That already in the fourth year
of Jehoiakim there was really a conquest of
Jerusalem and a carrying into captivity of Jews
of the principal families, is shown not only by
the fact that this year had to Jeremiah the sig-
nificance of an important crisis, comp. ch. xxv.,
not only, moreover, from the statement, 2 Kings
xxiv. 1, that Nebuchadnezzar made a first expe-
dition against Jehoiakim, and then reduced him
to submission for a long time, but likewise from
the combination oi very definite historical state-
ments. Here belongs especially the remark of
Jer. xlvi. 2, that Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pha-
raoh Necho in the fourth year of Jehoiakim at
Carchemish, and in connection therewith the
account of Berosus, that he pursued the Egypt-
ians in conquest into their own land, and then
when the account of the death of his father
recalled him, had carried away captive the Jews
among other nations. Besides, 2 Chron. xxxvi.
6 may be adduced as an evidence of this faot
(with Bertheau), since the account there mani-
festly taken from ancient sources, that Nebu-
chadnezzar had ordered Jehoiakim to be bound
with an iron chain, in order to bring him to
Babylon, cannot be referred to the last campaign
* [The author adopts the view of Ewald, Hitzig, et at.,
that the second part of Isaiah was written by " the great
unknown in the latter part of the exile." This view iB
to be rejected, and the unity of Isaiah maintained with
most evangelical critics. Hence the author's state-
ment of the priority of Jeremiah falls.— Ta.]
CHAP. I. 1-11.
21
against Jehoiakim, in which he perished in his
native land, but only to a previous expedition.
The fact that Jeremiah makes no mention of a
capture of Jerusalem in the fourth year of Je-
hoiakim cannot count tor the contrary opinion ;
for Jeremiah touches upon the history of Jeru-
salem only in so far as it determined his own
history; and there is no more importance to be
given to the fact that Jeremiah, ch. xxxvi. 9 sq.,
caused to be read in the fifth year of Jehoiakim
and the ninth month a prophecy that Nebuchad-
nezzar would come and destroy the land. Je-
hoiakim was ever thinking of rebellion, and the
people were of like spirit, and would not believe
that ruin actually threatened them from the
Chaldeans. They were therefore still in espe-
cial need of such a threatening, even if the mis-
fortune had already begun. It might also under
these very circumstances be as unwelcome to
them as it appears from ch. xxxvi. 11 sq. In
contrast with their hopes and efforts it was cer-
tainly the most undesirable (against B'ahr on
2 Kings xxiv. 1). At that time they held a fast,
and that they thereby would lament a misfortune
already suffered, and not merely avert one that
was to be feared, is in conneclion with the false
security so natural to them, and their effort to
suppress those gloomy thoughts that were any-
where about to have vent, is at least highly pro-
bable.— The Lord stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus. — This does not mean that Cyrus was
influenced in the same way as were the prophets,
upon whom, with their greater susceptibility,
the Spirit of the Lord came; but yet an influ-
ence in consequence of which Cyrus made the
will of God his own will, and executed it in the
things under consideration. God gave him the
resolution and the desire to execute His inten-
tion, comp. 1 Chron. v. 26; 2 Chron. xxi. 16;
Hag. i. 14 sq. That the Lord at this time chose
a heathen, and indeed the ruler of a heathen
empire, as His instrument, was in accordance
with the new position that the empires of the
world were henceforth to assume with reference
to the kingdom of God. — He made a procla-
mation throughout all his kingdom, and
also (made known) by ■writing. — Usually
Tip V2JJH means "to cause to be made known
through heralds," comp. oh. x. 7; Neh. viii. 15 ;
2 Chron. xxx. 5; Ex. xxxvi. 6; that it is to be
taken here in the same sense is clear from the
use of DJ before 3fOD3, which is thus adjoined
t : • :
in zeugma, so that we must supply a new verb
with a general meaning, such as "he made
known."
Ter. 2. The decree of Cyrus immediately fol-
lowing was not merely designed for the Jews;
accordingly was by no means merely to be com-
municated to them secretly; but, according to
ver. 4, it was directed to all the subjects of the
Persian empire. All the more striking there-
fore is the open confession of Jehovah, which
Cyrus makes at the very beginning. — All the
kingdoms of the earth hath Jehovah the
God of heaven given me, and He hath
charged me to build Him a house — We
are not therefore to suppose that the author
simply imputed to Cyrus the acknowledgment
of Jehovah or indeed that he altogether in-
vented this entire edict. Chapter v. 17; vi.
3 suffice to disprove this supposition. It is
not to be supposed, indeed, that Cyrus spake
in his edict of Jehovah as the God of hea-
ven who had given him the lands; for hia
subjects would have regarded it as an apostasy
from the Persian religion, which might have
been fatal to him ; moreover such a thing would
be without any analogy.* Against this view
there cannot be cited the case of that king of
Hamath who in the inscription of Sargon at
Khorsebad and Nimrud is called Jahubihd, in
another inscription however Ilubihd, who thus
seems not only to have employed the name of EL,
but likewise of Jehovah. Comp. Schrader, I. c,
S. 3 sq. Without doubt the Persians had an en-
tirely different self-consciousness from the Sy-
rians, who as a matter of course were much more
closely related to the Israelites. Notwithstand-
ing this, however, it is clear from the fact of
the edict itself and the dismission of the Jews,
that Cyrus tolerated the religion of Jehovah, at
least as much as so many others in his wide
realm, yea we may certainly conclude therefrom
that he favored it. He would not only have Je-
hovah recognised as a God alongside of other
gods ; for such a polytheistic syncretism would
have aocorded but little with the strong mono-
theistic bent of the Persian religion, and would
still less accord with that recognition of Jehovah
which is declared in the decree before us. Cyrus
might very well have regarded the Jewish reli-
gion as a method of worshipping the highest
God, which deserved a preference above many
other sensuous conceptions of the Deity. He
might have seen in Jehovah, so to speak, only
another name for Ahura mazda, and might have
been so much the more inclined to this concep-
tion, as the Persians had an idea of God which
in itself was purer than that of other nations,
which has been obscured for the first time by
more eensuous religious elements, pressing in
upon them from Media and the West. Comp.
Dollinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, S. 351 sq.
[also Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, III., p.
97]. A good impression in this respect might
have been made upon him by the fact that his
conquest of Babylon had been very desirable to
the Jews, yea that they had placed their hopes at
once in him as their deliverer. It is then but
probable that they made their disposition and
expectations known to him, and if they laid
before him, as Josephus {Arch. IX., i. 7) informs
us, at once likewise the prophecies referring to
bim in Isa. xli. 2-4, 25 sq.; xliv. 24-28; xlv. 1
sq., this must have given him a very favorable
disposition towards them. Moreover, as Cyrus
recognised in the Jewish God, so might the Jews
easily find in the Persian God one closely related
to their own, yea identical with Him. Without
regard to the fact that the divine name Ahura =
asura, from as = esse, to a certain extent coin-
cides with ni!T (compare Bottcher, Budimenta
mythologise semiticse, spec. I.), the Zoroastrian
religion was nearer to the religion of Jehovah
than any other, and it is very remarkable that
it is predicted in Isa. xli. 25; xlv. 3, not only
* [We have here not a citation of the very words of
the decree, as is so often the case in Ezra and Nehemiah,
but rather a free reproduction of it.— T r.]
22
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
that Cyrus will call upon and proclaim the name
of the Lord ; that he will recognise Jehovah as
the one who has chosen him, but likewise that
he will be a mighty instrument in the hand of
the Lord for overcoming the respect of the Chal-
dean gods. In fact, since Cyrus and the esta-
blishment of the Persian empire, the temptation
to the rude worship of idols has declined as never
before, not only in Israel, but likewise there
gradually came over the other nations, even over
the Greeks and Romans from that time forth
more and more a spirit of enlightenment that
certainly paved the way for the agency of the
second great instrument of God, the servant of
the Lord foretold in Isa. xlii. — The introduction
given by Cyrus to his decree: "all the kingdoms
of the earth hath Jehovah the God of heaven
given me, and hath charged me with building
him a house in Jerusalem," corresponds with the
beginnings of the proclamations of the Persian
kings, as they are preserved to us in the cunei-
form inscriptions. These likewise frequently
begin with the confession that they owe their
dominion to the highest God, the creator of
heaven and earth. (Comp. Lassen, Die altpersis-
chen Keilinschriften, Bonn, 1836, S. 172; and more
recently Joach. Menant, Expose* des elements de la
grammaire Assyrienne, Par., 1868, p. 802 sq., ac-
cording to whom the trilingual inscription of
Elvend begins thus: dcus magnus Ailra-mazda,
qui maximus deorum, qui hanc terram creavit, qui
hoc ccelum creavit, qui homines creavit, qui poteniiam
(?) dedit kominibus, qui Xerxem regem fecit, etc.
[Also Rawlinson's Monarchies, III., 348, and his
Com. on Ezra, where he gives the inscription of Da-
rius : " The great God, Ormazd, who is the chief
of the gods; he established Darius as king; he
granted him the empire ; by the grace of Ormazd
is Darius king." — Tit.]). The words: "all the
kingdoms of the earth" are explained from the
wide extent of the Persian empire. When Cyrus
conquered Babylon, he had already subjugated
to himself almost the entire eastern Asia, even
to the Indian Ocean (according to Berosus in
Joseph, c. Ap.). Afterwards he pressed south-
ward also, and entered even into Egypt and
Ethiopia. The words of Cyrus: "He hath
charged me to build Him a house," would be
possible and justified even if he had merely felt
himself charged by circumstances to build the
temple at Jerusalem, but is still better explained
if the Jews, as Josephus, I. c, Bays, laid before
h'm Isaiah xliv. 24 and 28, and xlv. 1 sq.
[So also Rawlinson, who says: " It is a reason-
able conjecture that, on the capture of Babylon,
Cyrus was brought into personal contact with
Daniel, and that his attention was drawn by that
prophet to the prophecy of Isaiah. — Cyrus pro-
bably accepted this prophecy as a 'charge' to
rebuild the temple." Keil also refers to Dan.
vi., which states that Darius the Mede made
Daniel one of the three presidents of the one
hundred and twenty satraps of the empire, and
valued him greatly at court. — Tr.]. J. H. Mi-
chaelis therefore explains the passage thus:
mandavit mihi, nimirum dudum ante per Jesaiam,
cap. xliv. 24-28; xlv. 1-13. The reference to
these prophecies is all the more apparent sinoe
there, as well as here, the same fundamental
fact is so strongly and repeatedly empha-
sized, namely, that the Lord gave to him the
kingdoms of the earth, comp. especially Isa. xli.
2, 3, 25 ; xlv. 1 sq. Comp. A. F. Kleinert, Ueber
die Echlheit sammtlicher in dem Buck Jesaia enthal-
lenem Weissagungen, Berlin, 1829.
Ver. 3. Cyrus would first call upon the Jews,
but yet turn to all his subjects with his address ;
because he had something to say to those also
who were not Jews, but were dwelling with the
Jews. — Who among you, of all His people,
etc. With all the people of Jehovah he also pro-
perly includes the descendants of the ten tribes.
Yet these seem not to have been thought of, nor
does it seem that any important element of them
made use of the permission of Cyrus. The bless-
ing:— His God be with him — thus emphatic
in position, shows that that which follows is not
so much command as permission, as if he would
say: His God be with him should he go up and
build. Besides, this wish involves not only the
permission to build the temple, but at the same
time the consent to all that was necessarily con-
nected therewith, especially the emigration to
Palestine.* The additional clause, He is the
God -who is at Jerusalem, which would give
the motive for building the temple of Jehovah,
does not mean that Jehovah is present only in
Jerusalem, and only has power in Canaan, for
Cyrus has already ascribed to Him the power
over the kingdoms of the earth — but it simply
expresses the idea that He has chosen Jerusalem,
above all other places, as the holy place whioh
He would have distinguished for His worship.
[Compare the confession of Darius, Dan. vi. 26,
"He is the living God." — Tr.]
Ver. 4. And as for every one of the sur-
vivors, let the people of his place assist
him, etc — The heathen, on their part, are to as-
sist. IKiyjn-73, is accusative absolute, placed
before for emphasis. The designation of the
exiles as survivors, properly those left over, is
connected with the thought of the great and se-
vere judgments that had overtaken Israel, and is
found therefore especially among the Israelites
themselves, comp. Neh. i. 2 sq. ; Hag. ii. 3 sq.
This thought, however, was natural enough even
for the heathen. The words : From all the
places -where he sojourneth, can only be
connected with the subsequent clause. The Piel
KSStt here means to assist, as in 1 Kings ix. 11,
etc. — With silver and with gold, and with
goods (here perhaps clothing or tents) they are
to enable the departing to emigrate. — Besides
the free-will offering. — This was something
additional (Dj^ comp. ver. 6) to the gifts, by
which they were to contribute directly to the
building of the house of God. Comp. chap. viii.
25 ; Ex. xxxv. 29 ; Lev. xxii. 25. [Rawlinson
regards the free-will offering as that of Cyrus
himself.— Tr.]
Ver. 5. The permission to march to Jerusalem
was made use of by the heads of the fathers
of Judah and Benjamin and the priests
and the Levites. — We are to conclude as a
* I see no sufficient ground, with Ewald, Lehrbuch, ?
734, either to strike out entirely ^ry or change it into
nVY, after2Chron. xxxvi. 23. In'Esd. it 5, we have
for it tffrw.
CHAP. I. 1-11.
23
matter of course that with the heads of the fa-
thers* the fathers themselves Bet out, and with
the fathers their families ; that is, that the divi-
sions of a higher and lower degree accompanied
their heads. But it does not mean that all of
the heads of the three tribes mentioned set out,
but all -whose spirit God had raised. — It
certainly must have been the most of them, other-
wise it would not have been said so distinctly
' the heads of the fathers. The simple 737 (to
be distinguished from 737?, chap. vii. 28) does
not serve, in enumerations, to add in a Bhort, and
summary way all the others, which have not yet
been mentioned, as if the meaning were that, be-
sides the heads there were others also who set
out (Berth. [A. V.]), but it adds to that which
has been already said a still closer definition,
which is important to the context, (comp. Neh.
xi. 2 ; 1 Chron. xiii. 1 ; 2 Chron. v. 12), so that
it corresponds wiih our "namely," "that is"
[Ew. §310a]. 7 properly here, as elsewhere,
indicates the belonging to a class or kind. The
author has then, in a manner peculiar to him-
self, subordinated the following relative clause
to the "73 without "TON. God must awake the
spirit of those who would ascend, that is, must
make them willing (comp. ver. 1) ; for the return
home was not a matter that required no consi-
deration. Their native land lay either desolate
or occupied with heathen and bnrbarous nations.
Great dangers threatened the little nation, that
would put itself in opposition with the inhabitants
and indeed severe tasks awaited them. In Ba-
bylon, on the other hand, their circumstances
had become such that they could very well en-
dure them, yea, they were favorable, as we can
see from Isa. lvi. 11 — lviii., hence ttoXKoi Kari-
[LEtvav sv Tq (iafivXCtvi. t& KT^/iara KaTahiirecv bv
i?£tovrec. (Many remained behind in Babylon,
unwilling to relinquish their property (Joseph.
Arch. XI. 1,1).
Ver. 6. All they that -were about them. —
The call to assist the returning exiles was obeyed
and their neighbors, who certainly included the
Israelites, who remained behind, who if they had
means, would especially contribute with liber-
ality (comp. Zech. vi. 9) in order to a certain ex-
tent to make up for what they seemed to neglect
by their remaining behind. But there were
surely heathen, also, whom Cyrus had chiefly in
view, under the supposition that the Israelites
could not let his permission go by without using
it. The example of the king and his exhorta-
tion must have already made them willing, but
there were certainly here and there some who
were influenced by their friendly relations to
the departing. DJTT3 pffl means, like p'tnn
T3, first of all to fake by the hand, in order to
hold or support (Berth., Keil), then passes over
* Ln)3«n 'ETCH for the fuller form DUNH JV3 'itfon,
T|T " T T |T " " T
Ex. vi. 14, that is, heads or chiefs of the fathers' houses
or families, which were subdivisiona of the ninSfc'D, as
t : •
the latter were of the D,D3E' or tribes. Thus the fathers'
* t :
houses of the going up from Babylon are in striking
contrast with the tribes of the going up from Egypt.
— Taj.
as the German "jemandem unler die Arme greifen,"
immediately to the meaning " assist" (although
the construction with 3 is against a full equiva-
lence of the expression with the frequently-oo-
curring T p-WI) as is clear from the context,
which demands the meaning, assist, the 3 be-
fore e]D3_,73 the following noun 3m, and the
XEO corresponding to it in ver. 4. — Besides all
that was willingly offered. — "137 is here con-
nected with Tg, (which properly would have
sufficed by itself), for the usual Jlp Gen. xxxii. 12.
Comp. Ex. xii. 37 ; Num. xxix. 39. ~73 after
7J? is certainly to be taken as neuter. 3'ljnn
which is closely connected with the foregoing
must have supplied not only 1t?X, but also the
subject "what" he, namely, the giver, gave as an
offering. 3j]jnn means properly " to act freely,"
is frequently used in this sense by our author, so
likewise here " to give freely," comp. 1 Chron.
xxix. 9 ; Ezra ii. 68 ; iii. 5, and indeed in the
liturgical sense " give for the temple," to a cer-
tain extent as an offering, H31J. Comp. ver. 4.
Vers. 7—11. It was Cyrus himself who espe-
cially helped the returning exiles by bestow-
ing upon them the vessels that had been
plundered from the temple. These vessels might
have been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar, at
the very first capture of Jerusalem in the
fourth year of Jehoiakim, comp. 2 Chron. xxxvi.
7 ; Dan. i. 2. That nothing of the kind is men-
tioned either in 2 Kings xxiv., or by Jeremiah,
is explained naturally from the fact that in ge-
neral so little is expressly said with reference to
that first campaign of Nebuchadnezzar. When
Jehoiachin (Jechoniah) was carried away cap-
tive, there was certainly «. plundering of the
temple, and that seemed more worthy of men-
tion, 2 Kings xxiv. 13; Jer. xxvii. 16; xxviii. 1
sq. ; whilst it is expressly said, 2 Kings xxiv.
13, that Nebuchadnezzar at this time brake off
the gold of the vessels, which seems to indicate
that there were no longer vessels of massive gold,
but merely vessels overlaid with gold. When
Zedekiah was set aside by the governor of Ne-
buchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan (2 Kings xxv. 13 sq.;
Jer. Hi. 18 sq.), the vessels remaining were
mostly of brass.
Ver. 8. Cyrus delivered over the vessels by
the hand of the treasurer Mithredates.* —
T~l)>, that is, so that he had at the same time to
take them in his hands to inspect them, to recog-
nize them as the vessels of the temple at Jerusa-
lem, accordingly under his supervision. Comp.
chap. viii. 33; Esth. vi. 9. 13IJ is the Zend
gaza-bara, treasurer, whilst the other form, ~\2~\i
pi. TITU Dan. iii. 2, 3, corresponds with the
old Persian gada-bara [gainl bara, modern Per-
* [Mithredath. Rawlinson : " The occurrence of this
name, which means given by Mithra," Persian Mith-
radata — Mithra, " the Sun-God," and data past part, of
da = " to give," or dedicated to Mithra, is an indication
that the sun worship of the Persians was at least as old
as the time of Cyrus, (Comp. Xen. Cyrop. ch. VIII. 3,
§ 24."— Taj
24
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
sian geng' war) from gadct or ganda. Comp. Eeil,
Dan. v. 36, Anm. 1. — Sheshbazzar, the prince
of Judah, to whom Mithredates counted out the
vessels, meets us again in the Clialdee passage,
chap. v. 14, 16, and indeed as pecha or governor
of the new community in Judea, who laid the
foundation of the new temple, so that without
question he is identical with Zerubbabel (chap,
ii. 2 ; iii. 8 ; iv. 3) the son of Shealtiel (chap. iii.
2,8; v. 2 ; Hag. i. 1, etc., comp. also Matth.
i. 12 ; Luke iii. 27), who, 1 Chron. iii. 19, is like-
wise a son of Pedaiah, a brother of Shealtiel, and
belongs to the family of Daniel. Alongside
of the more Chaldee name of Sheshbazzar, Zerub-
babel was used as a more Hebrew name. The
latter occurs even in the Chaldee part of the
book, chap. v. 2. In the same way Daniel and
his three companions had with their Chaldee
names, which they received when they entered
into the service of the king of Babylon, likewise
Hebrew names, Dan. i. 7. The meaning of Shesh-
bazzar is still more uncertain than that of Zerub-
babel. Not even the pronunciation of the word
is certain. The Alex, version has, in most ac-
cordance wi'h the Masoretic form ZaaaSaaap,
but likewise 2,a(3axaaap, and Savaftaocsafioc. The
latter form is found in accordance with the best
MS3. in Esdras, where the reading alongside of
it is ~%aaavaacap.
Ver. 9. In the enumeration of the vessels their
names, as well as their numbers, afford difficul-
ties. Instead of the usual names for temple ves-
sels, others are chosen here, perhaps, because
they were preferred as more comprehensive and
popular terms. The detailed numbers do not
correspond with the sum total in ver. 11. Thirty
golden and one thousand silver D'7Q1JX were
numbered first of all, according to the Alex, ver-
sion ipvuTTJiiEc (wine coolers), Esdras ii. 11, airov-
dsia, cups for drink-offerings, according to the
interpretation of the Talmud in Aben Ezra from
"UX to collect, and D 70, lamb, vessels for collect-
- T V T
ing the blood of lambs, which is certainly unte-
nable. Probably we have in the Arabic kirtallat,
Syriac hartolo, Greek adpralXoc, the same term
accordingly a basket coming to a point below (see
Suidas). The twenty-nine D'sSra which follow,
are judged according to their small number
merely a subordinate kind of the preceding,
which differed from them in some Bpecial kind
of decoration or arrangements, thus not cultri,
sacrificial knives (Vulg.), according to rabbini-
cal interpretation, from ^711 to penetrate, to cut
in two, but rather according to n'l£3 7TO = braids,
Judges xvi. 13, 19, adorned with net work(Ew.)
or provided with holes above, designed for in-
cense (Berth.), or likewise from ^Sn in Piel and
Hiph. to change, sacrificial dishes serving for
the pouring out of the blood of the sacrifices.
Ver. 10. The thirty golden cups D1^33 (pro-
perly covered vessels, 1 Chron. xxviii. i7) are
followed by silver ones in parallelism with verse
9. CntfD has been taken by the ancient and
more recent interpreters as an adjeotive in the
sense of secundarii, as if the silver oups were
thereby compared with the golden as expressive
of a less good, merely second sort and quality.
Since this closer definition seems strange and at
any rate supei fluous, it is more appropriate to sup-
pose that D'JiTO (pointing it, as it were, as a Piel
participle) designates a subordinate kind of cups,
corresponding with the D'S/PD in the previous
ver. and with essential'y the same meaning, which
likewise served for pouring out ; or it has arisen
from a numeral, perhaps D'g7S (Esdras ii. 12),
so that not 410 but 2410 silver cups were re-
turned. If we find a subordinate sort indicated
by D'JE'D, then the number must be supplied to
the previous principal sort. Of the subordinate
sort there were 410, and of other vessels 1,000
more.
Ver. 11. The sum total, 6400, is more thr.n
double the detailed numbers given in our text of
the 9th and 10th verses, 2499, and can only be
made out by conjecturing the number of the sil-
ver cups as 1000 or 2000. If we supply 2000,
the sum total of 4499 results, thus in round num-
bers 4500, and it is possible this may be the cor-
rect sum, arisen from 6400 by transposition of
numbers. But at any rate the LXX. already
favored the text, as we have it, and Esdras which
has 1000 golden and 1000 silver cirovvela; 29 sil-
ver -frvtanai, 30 golden, and 2410 Bilver tpiahai,
and 1000 other vessels, in all 5409, has ventured
to conjecture, in order to reach the sum total in
some measure. [So Keil, but Ewald, Gesch. IV.
p. 88, Bertheau elal. more properly find the key
to the difficulty in Esdras. — Tr.]. It is however
possible that the author, as J. H. Michaelis as-
serts against Clericus, passed over many sub-
ordinate vessels in the detail, but in the sum-
total has taken them all into consideration. [Eaw-
linson thinks the sum-total in our passage a
corruption. — Tr.]. — All these did Shesh-
bazzar bring up -with (or at) the bringing
up of the captives. — {T\hyT\ is the infin. Niph.
with passive meaning as in Jer. xxxvii. 12). This
statement passes over lightly the long and diffi-
cult journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. It is
possible that the documents used by our author,
contained something more on this subject. But
the author himself has hardly given anything
more that has been lost, but he hastens to his
proper topic, to come to the building of the tem-
ple in Jerusalem. In Esdras v. 1-6 some verses
are found respecting the journey of those who
returned under Darius. Darius sent with them
1000 cavalry, in order to bring them in peace to
Jerusalem, with musical instruments, with kettle-
drums and flutes, and all their brethren played,
etc. Fritzsch and Bertheau are of the opinion
that these verses were taken from a Hebrew ori-
ginal and conjecture that they originally stood in
our book of Ezra, and referred to the return under
Cyrus. But their contents are bo cheerful that
we have no reason for finding any greater autho-
rity for them than that afforded by 1 Chron. xiii.
8, and similar passages.
THOUGHTS TTPON THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.
Ver. 1. That it might be fulfilled.— This chapter
contains nothing less than the beginning of the
fulfilment of all the great and glorious prophe-
CHAP. I. 1-11.
25
cies with which the prophets before the exile
brightened the gloomy night of the severe judg-
ments of God — the dawning light of the grace of
God in all its greatness, that would re-awaken
the people of God from death and the grave, and
enable them to live a new and glorious life — the
glorious liberty of the children of God in the
fullest and highest sense. What a great revolu-
tion of affairs was now to be expected! What a
fulness of salvation after the night of misfortune
— the entire extent of Messianic redemption!
The beginnings were very small, very insignifi-
cant. There was no king to rule in strength out
of Zion and conquer the world, to restore the
ancient theocracy in the political sense, if it were
only in the old proportions, not to speak of
greater proportions and a more complete form.
There were no people, great and strong, of their
own increase in numbers, breaking through
their boundaries and imparting themselves to
the world (comp. Mic. ii. 12, 13). There was no
territory, broad and free, yea, not even a little
piece of land, that the people could really call
their own, on which they could really feel that
they were free. In other cases, when the Lord
had redeemed His people from severe afflictions,
or had intended to produce a new and better be-
ginning of their development, He had awakened
from their midst an instrument endued with an
especial fulness of the Spirit and power. But
now even this failed them. It was the heathen
king whom He used as His instrument. More-
over not the people as such, but only a small
portion of them, were permitted to re-people
Jerusalem. The reorganization of a. political
commonwealth was not allowed, but only the re-
establishment of the temple and its worship.
Instead of a people, who might have organized
and vindicated themselves as such, there could
now only be a religious congregation in Jerusa-
lem and Judah. Faith in God's faithfulness and
truth, in Israel's lofty destiny and future glory,
so far as it at all existed, or was about to awaken
afresh, was now once more put to a severe test,
even when its confirmation seemed to be in pros-
pect. But if the Lord had so often and so long
been obliged to wait until Israel turned in re-
pentance to Him, how unreasonable and pre-
sumptuous would it have been, if now Israel had
been unwilling likewise to wait and see whether
the Lord would yet again turn in grace to them.
The Lord was obliged to have such extraordi-
nary patience with men, that men, if they knew
themselves even to a very limited extent, could
never find reason or justice in being impatient
with the Lord. Besides it was very well calcu-
lated for those who were to be placed on a higher
stand-point and have the eyes of their faith made
more sensitive, and certainly for those who came
after them, who might look over these email be-
ginnings, in connection with their results, be-
cause of its very insignificance, to enable them
to foresee, or at least forebode therein, the indi-
cations of the highest and brightest end, and to
wonder all the more at the really divine opera-
tion of God; as indeed it was permitted to more
than one pious singer, looking at the glorious
end, to raise already his triumphal cry and ever
re-echo it anew: the Lord is King, He clothes
Himself with salvation. Comp. Ps. xciii. 1;
xcvi. 10; xcvii. 1; xcix. 1 (on the basis of Isa.
lii. 7).
The word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah.' —
All the previous prophecies of the impending
judgments of God, and the temporary ruin of
Israel, had again combined in the words of Jere-
miah, and developed into the greatest definite-
ness. As a great prophet, who on the aic/j.% of a
critical period, yea, immediately on the brink
of the abyss, had caused the oall to repentance
once more to sound forth with mighty power, and
had brought the prophecy of the impending
judgment to a conclusion; like Elijah he became
typical of the angel which the Lord would
send before Him, before the coming of the great
and terrible day, Mai. iii. 1. As the Jews ex-
pected Elias, so did they Jeremiah, before the
advent of the great Messianic events, Matth.
xvi. 14; Luke ix. 19; Bertholdt's Ohristol. S.58.
Now it was just this preacher of repentance and
chastisement who had become for the exile times
and those immediately following, the most im-
portant preacher of salvation, as is clear likewise
from Dan. ix. 2. The Lord could not limit
through him the duration of the time of chastise-
ment without therewith at the same time prede-
termining the time of the beginning of the period
of redemption, so that, so long as the question
of the time Beriously occupied the soul, the refe-
rences were made chiefly to Jeremiah. Thus in
fact the divine word of chastisement ever goes
hand in hand with His word of salvation, and
His negative with His positive working. His
chastening is in truth ever a helping; yea, His
killing is a making alive. He puts to death only
the dead.
The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of
Persia. — The Lord had hitherto made use of the
heathen nations and their kings, when He would
chastise Israel. They had been His rods and
had been obliged to act in a negative relation to
Israel. Now, on the other hand, He makes the
mightiest empire of the world, yea, its greatest
king, to assist in the accomplishment of very po-
sitive ends, in the realization of His most im-
portant and greatest designs of redemption.
Egypt had once been obliged to help Israel with
her possessions (Ex. xi. 2), being a weak type,
so now the heathen who had previously plun-
dered Israel were obliged to restore a part of;
their possessions; and Cyrus, the king of the
same empire that had robbed Israel of her most
sacred possessions, was obliged to restore the
holy vessels, in order to assist in rebuilding the
temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Comp. Esth.
viii. 25 sq.; 2 Maoc. iii. 35; xiii. 23. This was
in fact much more and bore stronger witness to
the truth of the Lord and His final victory over
the heathen world and its idolatry than the
awakening of a great king and prophet in Israel.
It already involved something of what the great
prophet had uttered in the severest times of af-
fliction as the greatest consolation, that the same
heathen who threatened to tread Israel as a
worm under their feet, should bring the children
of Israel near in their bosom; yea, in that the
mightiest king of the earth, the great king of
Persia, had assisted Israel even to the accom-
plishment of their highest and noblest task, the
honoring of their God, the word that the kings
2
26
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
should be the nursing fathers of Israel^ and
their queens their nursing mothers (Isa. xlix.
22, 23), already received the very best fulfil-
ment. But it involved something still greater
and more important. Since Israel remained in
such a weak and dependent position, and was no
longer able to give (heir spiritual blessiugs poli-
tical security by a mighty commonwealth of their
own ; it must be shown, as never before, that the
truth, whose bearers they were called to be, was
able to stand by its own indestructible power,
and was strong enough of its own fulness and
glory to protect the congregation of its adherents
and preserve them, notwithstanding their exter-
nal dependence, in internal freedom and inde-
pendence.
Ver. 2. With exalted self-consciousness Cyrus
could say not only that all the kingdoms of the
earth had been given to him, but also that God
the Lord Himself had given them to him. More-
over he says this with humility, for it is with
the feeling and recognition of the task thereby
imposed upon him by God of building His tem-
ple. Naturally enough, he does not behold, — ■
yea, he does not even surmise, what a high mis-
sion he has, that he is thereby bringing into ex-
istence the bud out of which the kingdom of God
in its time is to break forth as the loveliest blos-
som and noblest fruit as well to the blessing of
all nations, as for the complete glorification of
the divine name; but however little he under-
stood this, he yet nevertheless in praiseworthy
respect before the holiest things of a nation
reached for Ai his hand full of help, and fulfilled
unconsciously the highest mission of a temporal
prince. What he accomplished was indeed still
something in embryo, but we can see in the co-
vering still wrapped about it already the sprout-
ing forth of the richest and most wonderful life.
Hence it is that the sacred Scriptures have ac-
corded him a significance that is given to no
other foreign king. The Lord does not call him
His servant as Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxv. 9;
xxvii. 6; xlili. 10), but His shepherd, who will
fulfil all His pleasure, yea, His mashiah (Is. xliv.
28; xlv. 1). It has been said that in Isa. xl. —
xlviii. Cyrus comes into consideration even for
Messianic prophecy; for the servant of the Lord
is placed in prospect for the accomplishment of
the higher Messianic hopes, Cyrus for the lower.
This is correct, inasmuch as the external politi-
cal work that is necessary for the accomplish-
ment of salvation is assigned chiefly to him, since
indeed the proper mediator of salvation is to
execute a higher spiritual ministry. It may
therefore be said with a certain propriety
(Starke) that he is a type of Christ in His
royal office. Placed at the beginning of a new
period, when the congregation was to be consti-
tuted no longer as a political, but as a religious
body, he is the first of those who put external
political affairs in such a relation to that body,
that whilst something different from, they are
yet friendly, supporting and protecting; and he
is well adapted to represent for all time this mi-
nistry of the patron. His name has been incor-
rectly explained as "sun." In modern Persian
the sun is char; in Zend, hvare; sunshine is
charsid, with a weak initial ch, which, according
to Rawlinson, Spiegel, et al., would lead us to
expect in ancient Persian uwara, whilst Cyrus on
the monuments is kuru or khuru, on a block of
marble in the valley of Murghab, near the tomb
of Cyrus; k'ur'us, so likewise Beh. I. 28, 39, etc.
(comp. Sclirader, I. c, S.2A4), with initial hard
k. But the prophet did actually view him as
possessed of a sunny nature and activity, since
he represents the Lord as inquiring with refer-
ence to him; who raised up righteousness from
the east; called him to his foot, tic. (Isa. xli. 2),
and is constantly putting him in relation to the
sunrise (xli. 25; xlvi. 11).
Ver. 3. Let him go up and build. — In former
times Israel had needed external political inde-
pendence and a government of their own, simply
because they were still too weak to preserve the
pound entrusted to them for the entire human
race, without external props and means of pro-
tection; because the sweet and saving kernel
which was to develope in Israel could only ripen
as it were in a sufficiently firm shell. The dan-
ger of their giving themselves over internally to
heathenism was for the most part overcome by
their having been externally abandoned in exile
among the heathen. The tendency to heathen-
ism, that previous to the exile broke out again
and again with ever-increasing strength, and
which in the previous centuries could have been
overcome with difficulty, owing to the fact that
it had the appearance of being an advance in
enlightenment beyond the ancient faith of their
fathers, had been rendered disgusting to them
by the cruelty and severity of the heathen them-
selves. Thus it was now possible that there
should be a new form of life and activity entirely
different from any thing previous. It was the
most important change of affairs that could take
place at any time before Christ (comp. Ewald,
Oesch. Israels IV. S. 35). The task of establish-
ing a grand independent form of government for
the national life, and securing it by the develop-
ment of power externally, could now be aban-
doned; the task of cultivating the worship of
the true God could be made much more prepon-
derating in its influence; Israel could become a
religious congregation instead of a political com-
monwealth; they could — expressing the idea
with the words of Cyrus — go up and build the
temple of the Lord. That this great change
was now actually accomplished, in that there
was so little cohesion in Israel itself, and, for
the most part, there was so little thought of
again constituting a powerful body externally,
whilst Cyrus, on his part, did not afford them
political freedom, but only religious liberty,;
that was in truth no hindrance to the develop-
ment of the kingdom of God, but an indication
of what the Lord would accomplish with His
people, a preparation of the kingdom of God as
a kingdom which is not. of this world, which in
truth deserves to be called the kingdom of hea-
ven. The blessing that was to come from Israel
upon the families of the earth was thus too spi-
ritual and internal to be brought about among
the nations through a government with external
means. Israel's proper and highest task could
henceforth only be to let the external opposition
to the nations of the world more and more pass
away, to subordinate themselves more and more
in external and temporal things ; at the iame
CHAP. I. 1-11.
27
time disappearing among them as an external
body, in order to permeate them so much the
more internally with the holy and divine thinga
committed to their trust.
Ver. 5. "And the heads of the fathers arose." —
It was also already a step nearer to the end and
a hint of what must transpire in greater and
greater proportions, that Israel no longer as
such, or according to an external necessity of
nationality, but that only a part of Israel by
virtue of free resolution marched to Jerusalem
to constitute the new religious community at
that, place. Individual freedom, and accord-
ingly the importance of the single person and
the right of the personal subject, have their
proper place in the kingdom of God. Only
those marched up whom the Spirit of God awa-
kened, that is, only the zealous and the awa-
kened, whose spirits allowed themselves to be
filled from God with courage and joy to over-
come all the difficulties that opposed them, and
with a longing for the land of their fathers that
outweighed every other consideration. This
limitation was, moreover, entirely in accordance
with the divine purpose. They must bring with
them a zeal for the service of the true God that
could not be quenched, at least entirely by the
difficult and gloomy circumstances in Judea,
that might be enkindled and fed in some of
them by these very circumstances. For although
those remaining behind still retained an impor-
tance with reference to the kingdom of God, yet
the most direct and greatest importance was
henceforth to be given to the congregation in
Judea; they were to constitute first and chiefly
the ground in which the highest and noblest
things might become possible.
Ver. 6. "And all their neighbors helped them."
The world generally will be pleased only with
the worldly members of the congregation, the
lukewarm and faint-hearted. The more decided
and zealous provoke opposition, and are often
enough met with hostility, oppression and afflic-
tion. Yet there are times when the world is
obliged to make manifest the fact that they have
more respect for the zealous than for the indif-
ferent, when they cannot but show their good-
will and friendship, yea, act favorably towards
those very efforts that are directed towards
divine things. Even the men of the world have,
so long as they have not become entirely har-
dened, two kinds of hearts within them, and it
is only necessary that a suitable impulse should
be given them, that the better heart may assert
itself within them. Even they have a certain
feeling that their best and deepest needs can
only be satisfied by God and His Spirit, as He
comes near to them in the true congregation.
Vers. 7-11. And Cyrus the king brought forth
the vessels of the house of the Lord. — Israel had
not then been brought so far as to have been
able to recognize with full clearness their pure
spiritual calling, as to have been able to sepa-
rate altogether with entire certainty the spiritual
and the divine, in which their calling consisted,
from the externa], earthly and temporal. The
time when God would have His place of worship
neither in Jerusalem nor on Gerizim, could only
come with a new and higher stage of the divine
revelation of Himself, yea, only with the fulfill-
ment of that revelation. Until that time the
Lord had Himself ordered, in accordance with
the lower and limited stand-point of His people,
that one particular, chosen place, a special
sanctuary, with its vessels, and a priesthood set
apart from the people, should to a certain extent
share in the sanctity which was properly appro-
priate only to the Holy One Himself. As the
Lord brought about the restoration of the tem-
ple itself, so He did also the restitution of the
saored vessels; and the great numbers of them
given back to the returning exiles, although
in itself unimportant, yet was notwithstanding
an evidence that He could re-establish His wor-
ship in a magnificence and dignity as great as
possible in accordance with the ideas of- the'
times. — In connection with the awakening of
the enthusiasm for the ancient and honorable
sanctuaries, it might easily happen that their
sanctification might be overdone, yea, that they
might take the place of the essence of religion
itself, so that the externalizing of religion,
although in a new form, might creep in anew,
that a hierarchy might arise instead of the
kingdom of God; but a congregation, in which
the only truly holy one has once been recog-
nized so decidedly as in Israel, carries the ker-
nel of reformation ever in itself. And by the
fact that the hierarchy also shows itself as
something unsatisfying, empty and vain, the
hunger after that of which it is the mere phan-
tom must be awakened with all the more strength,
at least in the souls of the more spiritual.
HOMILETICAL AND PKACTTCAL.
The pledges of redemption possessed by the
congregation of the Lord even in the severest
afflictions: ]) God's unchangeable faithfulness,
which fulfils the promises He has given at the
right time; 2) God's infinite grace, which chas-
tises indeed, but does not give over to death,
but, on the contrary, breaks forth anew in its
time in spite of the severest judgment ; 3) God's
unsearchable wisdom, which advances towards
the end, even in the most improbable manner;
4. )God's all-conquering power, which even makes
use of the powers of the world and their means.
The redemption from Babylon a type of the
redemption from the bonds of the devil and
hell: 1) With reference to the Redeemer; He
breaks into the kingdom of the enemy (Babylon)
and conquers it; 2) With respect to the Re-
deemed ; the susceptible arise in order to march
home; 3) With respect to the end of redemption ;
the temple of the Lord, a tabernacle of God
among men, is built. Or: 1) With reference to
its occasion; the greatness of the misery excites
God's compassion; 2) With reference to its
source ; it is the divine grace notwithstanding
human sin ; 3) With reference to its extent ; the
susceptible are awakened to accept redemption ;
4) With reference to its end ; it is the glorious
freedom and blessedness in the internal oommu-
nion with the Lord. Brentids remarks respect-
ing those remaining behind in Babylon: adum-
brant omnes illos, quifiduciam suam in hunc mun-
dum collocant, satius esse existimanies, felicitate
huj'us mundi firm, guam per infelicitatem ad perpetua
gaudia ingredi. — Divine grace after wrath: 1)
28
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
Its time; it waits until God's chastening judg-
ment has been accomplished, but does not tarry,
but rather corresponds with the divine veracity ;
2) its method ; it works often secretly, but shows
itself to be all the more appropriate and glorious
whether we regard the instruments that it uses
or the persons in whose behalf it is employed,
or the gracious acts that proceed from it; 3)
its end; it is the highest and noblest that there
is, the building of the temple, that is, the recon-
ciliation of man with God for their salvation
and His glory. — God's wonderful ways, that
He chooses in leading His people: 1) Out of the
depths up on high ; 2) By changing enemies
into friends; 3) From small beginnings to a
glorious end.
Ver. 2. The universality of God's revelation
of Himself : 1) To whom made; even the hea-
then, even a Cyrus; 2) What it reveals: a)
that God is the author of all things, the source
of all power and strength; b) That He is the
end of all things, that every one is obligated to
honor Him. — The prince endowed with God's
grace: 1) He derives his power from God: 2)
He puts himself at the service of the divine
honor. — Man in his true subordination to God:
1) he ascribes his possessions to God; 2) he
employs them in the divine honor.
Ver. 3. The work of the redeemed: 1) to be
pilgrims, namely, on the march to the holy city;
2) To build the temple of God; 3) To honor
God therein and be saved.
Stahkb: Ver. 1. No one will be ashamed
who patiently waits for divine help (Ps. xxv. 3 ;
Sir. ii. 7; xvi. 13). The king's heart is in the
hand of the Lord as brooks of water, and He
inclines it whither He will (Prov. xxi. 1; Job
xii. 24). God often touches the hearts even of
uubelieving princes, etc.; therefore let us ever
pray for them (1 Tim. ii. 12).
Ver. 2. As Cyrus was of humble origin, lived
in his childhood as an humble shepherd, and
then God had been with him in a truly wonder-
ful manner, used him, moreover, to deliver the
people of God from captivity, so all this is to be
found in Christ, although in a much more extra-
ordinary manner. It is a very easy thing for
God to make His enemies the benefactors of His
Church (Prov. xvi. 7).
Ver. 6. We are bound, in whatever station in
life we may be placed, to employ our means for
the advancement of the true worship of God (1
Chron. xxx. 6; 2 Chron. xxiv. 4; xxxi. 10).
[Scott: When God has work to do, they
whom He hath chosen to perform it find their
minds enlarged to entertain noble designs, —
That which is devoted to the service is entrusted
to the protection of the Lord. — Henry: Those
are much honored whose spirits are stirred up
to begin with God and to serve him in their
first years. — Well-willers to the temple should be
well-doers for it. — Our spirits naturally incline
to this earth and to the things of it; if they
move upwards in any good affections, or good
actions, 'tis God that raiseth them. — Words-
worth: Cyrus is contrasted with Pharaoh, who
resisted God's Spirit. — Egypt gave up its gold
and silver and jewels to Israel at their Exodus ;
Bibylon gave back the vessels of gold and sil-
ver to God's house. The enemies of Christ will
one day be made subjects tributary to Him
(Acts ii. 35; 1 Cor. xv. 25).— Tr.]
B.— THE CATALOGUE OF THE RETURNING EXILES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS FOR
THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.
Chapter II. 1-67. (Comp. Nehem. vii. 6-73.)
I. The catalogue of the families and households of the people. Vers. 1—35.
1 Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity,
of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every
2 one unto his city ; Which came with Zerubbabel : Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Eee-
laiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mizpar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah. The number of the
3 men of the people of Israel : The children of Parosh, two thousand a hundred
4 seventy and two. The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two.
5, 6 The children of Arah, seven hundred seventy and five. The children of Pahatb-
moab, of the children of Jeshua and Joab, two thousand eight hundred and twelve.
7, 8 The children of Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty and four. The children of
9 Zattu, nine hundred forty and five. The children of Zaccai, seven hundred and
10, 11 threescore. The children of Bani, six hundred forty and two. The children
12 of Bebai, six hundred twenty and three. The children of Azgad, a thousand two
13 hundred twenty and two. The children of Adonikam, six hundred sixty and six.
CHAP. IT. 1-70. 29
14, 15 The children of Bigvai, two thousand fifty and six. The children of Adin, four
16 hundred fifty and four. The children of Ater of Hezekiah, ninety and eight.
17, 18 The children of Bezai, three hundred twenty and three. The children of Jo-
19 rah, a hundred and twelve. The children of Hashum, two hundred twenty and
20, 2 1 three. The children of Gibbar, ninety and five. The children of Beth-lehem,
22, 23 a hundred twenty and three. The men of Netophah, fifty and six. The men
24 of Anathoth, a hundred twenty and eight. The children of Azmaveth, forty and
25 two. The children of Kirjath-arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and
26 forty and three. The children of Ramah and Gaba, six hundred twenty and one.
27, 28 The men of Michmas, a hundred twenty and two. The men of Beth-el and
29, 30 Ai, two hundred twenty and three. The children of Nebo, fifty and two. The
31 children of Magbish, a hundred fifty and six. The children of the other Elam, a
32 thousand two hundred fifty and four. The children of Harim, three hundred and
33 twenty. The children of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, seven hundred twenty and five.
34, 35 The children of Jericho, three hundred forty and five. The children of Senaah,
three thousand and six hundred and thirty.
° II. The catalogue of the Priests, Levites, and Servants of the Temple. Vers. 36-58.
36 The priests: the children of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua, nine hundred seventy
37, 38 and three. The children of Immer, a thousand fifty and two. The children
39 of Pashur, a thousand two hundred forty and seven. The children of Harim, a
40 thousand and seventeen. The Levites : the children of Jeshua and Kadmiel, of
41 the children of Hodaviah, seventy and four. The singers : the children of Asaph,
42 a hundred twenty and eight. The children of the porters: the children of Shallum,
the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children
43 of Hatita, the children of Shobai, in all a hundred thirty and nine. The Nethiuim,:
44 the children of Ziha,the children of Hasupha, the children of Tabbaoth, The children
45 of Keros, the children of Siaha, the children of Padon, The children of Lebanah,
46 the children of Hagabah, the children of Akkub, The children of Hagab, the
47 children of Shalmai, the children of Hanan, The children of Giddel, the children
48 of Gahar, the children of Reaiah, The children of Rezin, the children of Nekoda,
49 the children of Gazzam, The children of TJzza, the children of Paseah, the chil-
50 dren of Besai, The children of Asnah, the children of Mehunim, the children of
51 Nephusim, The children of Bakbuk, the children of Hakupha. the children of Har-
52 hur, The children of Bazluth, the children of Mehida, the children of Harsha,
53, 54 The children of Barkos, the children of Sisera, the children of Thamah, The
55 children of Neziah, the children of Hatipha. The children of Solomon's servants :
56 the children of Sotai, the children of Sophereth, the children of Peruda, The chil-
57 dren of Jaalah, the children of Darkon, the children of Giddel, The children of
Shephatiah, the children of Hattil, the children of Pochereth of Zebaim, the chil-
58 dren of Ami. All the Nethinim, and the children of Solomon's servants, were three
hundred ninety and two.
III. The members of the People and the Priests without Oenealogy. Vers. 59-64.
59 And these were they which went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsa, Cherub, Addan,
and Immer : but they could not shew their father's house, and their seed, whether
60 they were of Israel : The children of Delaiah, the children of Tobiah, the children
61 of Nekoda, six hundred fifty and two. And of the children of the priests : the chil-
dren of Habaiah, the children of Koz, the children of Barzillai ; which took a wife
62 of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called 'after their name : These
sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were
63 not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood. And the Tir-
shatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there
stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.
IV. Sum total of those who returned, their Servants and Beasts of Burden. Vers. 64-67.
64 The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and
65 threescore, Besides their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thou-
30
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
sand three hundred thirty and seven : and there were among them two hundred sing-
66 ing men and singing women. Their horses were seven hundred thirty and six ;
67 their mules, two hundred forty and five ; Their camels, four hundred thirty and
five; their asses, six thousand seven hundred and twenty.
V. Contributions for the Building of the Temple, and Closing Remarks. Vers. 68—70.
68 And nome of the chief of the fathers, when they came to the house of the Lord
which is at Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place :
69 They gave after their ability unto the treasure of the work threescore and one thou-
sand drams of gold, and five thousand pounds of silver, and one hundred priests'
70 garments. So the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singers,
and the porters, and the Nethinim, dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The same catalogue as that here given is like-
wise found in Neh. vii. 6-73. The two texts
differ, to some extent, in the names, and especially
in numbers. This is not so remarkable, con-
sidering the long list; at the bottom these differ-
ences are insignificant enough. This is clear
from the notes made in connection with the trans-
lation. We have passed over some very trifling
deviations, which are manifestly to be regarded
as due to oversight of the copyist. The pecu-
liarities of Esdras are scarcely anywhere of such
a character that we can find in them an evidence
of the original reading. This catalogue of the
constituents of the new community may be placed
in parallelism with that of the constituents of
the ancient community, Num. i. 5 sq.
Verses 1 and 2 give the individual members
connected with the names of their heads. —
And these are the c.hildren of the pro-
vince, etc. nj'"]D. from y\, properly, judicial
or official district, is here the province given in
charge to the judge or governor of Jerusalem
(Neh. xi. 3), just as in chap. v. 8; Neh. i. 2.
["The children of the province are the Israelites
who returned to Palestine, as distinct from those
who remained in Babylon or Persia" (Rawlin-
son). — Te..] Instead of'the usual form Nebuchad-
nezzar (with a in the last syllable), the Kethib
has Nebuchadnezzor (with o), a form which, to a
certain extent, is nearer to the Chaldee pronun-
ciation of the name. Another approximation is
the form Nebuchadrezzar (with r in the penult)
in Jer. xxi. 2, 7; xxxii. 1; xxxv. 11; xxxix. 11,
etc. ; Ezek. xxvi. 7; xxix. 18 sq. ; xxx. 10, —
and both approximations are combined in that
of Nebuchadrezzor. The name in Chaldee, ac-
cording to Mediant, Orammaire Assyrienne, 1868,
p. 327, is nabu kadurri usur; according to Schra-
der, die Keilinschriften, etc., S. 235, is Nabiuvku-
durrinsur and means "Nebo protect, or protect the
crown." That in Hebrew a J is usual in the
penult, instead of 1 is connected with the fact
that the primitive form of usur is nasar. — Every
one unto his city. — 'Wyh ttf'X is apparently
used from the subsequent standpoint of the au-
thor of the document. It certainly does not
mean, according to the city, which was already
theirs from the time of the fathers — for only a
small portion of the former southern kingdom
was taken possession of by the new community.
Thus many did not return to the cities where
their ancestors had dwelt, but to the city which
subsequently was their own when this catalogue
was prepared (with Bertheau against Keil [Raw-
linson]). Comp. t. 70.
Ver. 2. Which came with Zerubbabel. —
Whilst ?31E'"'l in ver. 1 is conceived as merely a
continuation of ilSjn "WX, ISO "WS is in ver. 2,
T t V V v: T V ■■■: '
a parallel, co-ordinate clause. Hence it again
has the preterite. Nehemiah in ver. 1 uses the
participle D'SG corresponding with the D'/^il
in ver. 1. — Zerubbabel, now 73311?, and some.
times /33TT is formed not from 'VIT (scattered),
as would seem at first sight, but from J?1"U (sowed)
and 733 (that is born in Babylon). Comp. also
chap. i. 11. Jeshua— -g}& (later form of ^HJftiT,
comp. Neh. viii. 17) is here the first high-priest
of the new community, the son of Jehozadak,
the grandson of the high-priest Seraiah, 1 Chron.
vi. 14, whom Nebuchadnezzar put to death at
Riblah, in the land of Hamath, 2 Kings xxv. 18
sq. Comp. chap. iii. 2, and chap. v. 2. In Hag.
i. 2 and 14, and Zech. iii. 1, we find the older
form of his name Jehoshua. The other men
here named who come into consideration as
chiefs are unknown to us. For Nehemiah
and Mordecai are not at all to be identified
with the later persons who bore these names.
Instead of Seraiah, Neh. vii. gives Azariah; but
in Neh. x. 2 both names are found alongside of
one another as names of families of priests in
the time of Nehemiah, so that we may conjecture
that both names were then favorites and in fre-
quent use in the families of the priests, and
therefore would be easily interchanged. If we
count here the name of Nahamani, who is named
in Neh. vii. 7, but is missing here, we have just
twelve heads which, without doubt, refers to a new
division of the community into twelve divisions.
That the idea at the basis of this catalogue was
that, the new community represented entire Israel
and its twelve tribes, is clear from the title that
directly follows — number of the men of the
people of Israel — especially however from the
twelve sin-offerings in chap. vi. 1. Notwith-
standing this fact it may be that the twelve were
all from the three tribes to whioh almost all those
that returned belonged, Judah, Benjamin, and
Levi. The last words of the verse, "the number
of the men of the people of Israel," constitute
CHAP. II. 1-70.
31
the special title of the first section of the cata-
logue after the analogy of vers. 36, 40, 43 and 55.
VerB. 3-35. The families and households of
the people. Many of the names mentioned in
vers. 3-19 and ver. 82 meet us again in the
register of the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, thus
the children Parosh, Pahath-Moab, Adin, Elam,
Shephatiah, Joab, Bebai, Azgad, Adonikam,
Bigvai, and according to the original reading,
the children of Zattu and Bani, in ch. viii., in
the catalogue of those returning with Ezra ; so
likewise men of the sons of Parosh, Elam,
Zattu, etc., in ch. x., among these, who had
strange wives, and also in Neh. x. 15 Bq., "from
which we see, a) that of many families only apart
returned with Zerubbabcl and Jeshua; another
part followed under Ezra; i) that heads of the
fathers' houses are not mentioned for the sake of
their personal names, but for the names of the
houses of which they were fathers originating
without doubt from more ancient times" (Keil).
Since in vers, 30-35 the inhabitants of the other
cities are mentioned according to the names of
their localities, so probably the most or all
which bear the names of their fathers' houses
are to be regarded as inhabitants of Jerusalem.
The names in vers. 3-19 are beyond question
names of families or households, and those in
vers. 20-29 and 33-35 are just as surely names
of cities. This order seems, however, to be in-
terrupted by vers. 30-32, in that perhaps Harim,
according to ch. x. 21, the other Elam, after the
analogy of ver. 7, and perhaps also Magbish,
are names of persons, not of places. Yet Ezra
x. 21 is not entirely decisive for Harim as the
name of a person, since in Neh. a. 15 sq., like-
wise, names of places, as for example Anathoth,
occur in ver. 19 in the middle among names of
families. Besides it is possible that the text in
vers. 30-32 may have been corrupted ; it seems
strange that with the other Elam here the same
number, 1254, occurs as with the Elam of ver.
8, and that the name Magbish is not found either
in Nehemiah or Esdras. In Esdras the other
Elam is passed over, and instead of the children
of Harim three hundred and twenty, there is
(ch. v. 16) in the corresponding place, that is,
among the names of families, vi6i 'Apdfi, thirty-
two. The cities mentioned in vers. 20-35 occur
for the most part in other parts of the Old Tes-
tament: Gibeon, which, according to Neh. vii.
25, is to be read for Gibbah, already in Josh. ix.
3; Bethlehem in Ruth i. 2; Mie. v. 1; Netopha
(apparently in the vicinity of Bethlehem) in 2
Sam. xxiii. 38 sq. ; 2 Kings xxv. 23; 1 Chron.
ii. 54; Anathotn in Josh. xxi. 18; Jer. i. 1;
Kirjath arim, Chephira and Beeroth as cities of
the Gibeonites, Josh. ix. 17; Kama and Geba
already in Josh. ix. 25 sq., and then especially
in the history of Samuel and Saul ; Michmas
in 1 Sam. xiii. 25 ; Isa. x. 28 ; Bethel and Ai in
Josh. vii. 2 and Jericho in Josh. v. 13, etc. ; all
situated in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and first
of all taken possession of by those who returned.
On the other hand Azmaveth or Bethazmaveth,
Neh. vii. 28, occurs besides only in Neh. xii. 29.
Accordingly it was situated apparently in the
neighborhood of Geba. It has not yet been dis-
covered. Hitter's conjecture (Erdk. xvi. S. 519)
that it is El-Hizme in the vicinity of Anata has
nothing in its favor. Nebo, which has nothing
to do with the mountain of this name, Num.
xxxii. 32, has been identified with Nob, or Nobe,
1 Sam. xxi. 2, whose situation would certainly
suit, especially as in Neh. xi. 31 sq., among
many other places named here Nob, but not
Nebo, is mentioned. Besides the sons of Nebo
occur again in Ezra x. 43. Bertheau thinks
of Nuba or Bcit-Nuba (Robinson, New Bibli-
cal Researches III. page 144). Lod is Lydda,
where Peter healed the paralytic (Acts ix. 32
sq.), at present Ludd, comp. 1 Chron. viii. 12.
Ono, which occurs again in Neh. xi. 85 and 1
Chron. viii. 12, must have been situated in the
vicinity of Lydda. There also we must seek
Hadid, now El Haditheh (Robinson, B. R., p.
143), according to 1 Mace. xii. 33; xiii. 13.
Senaah was regarded by the more ancient inter-
preters as 2ewd vvv MayoaAcrewd, which, ac-
cording to Jerome, was situated as terminus
Judse in septimo lapide Jerichus contra septentriona-
lem plagam (Onom. ed. Bars, et Parth., p. 332),
and which is hardly to be identified, as Robin-
son (B.R. III. p. 295), with Mejdcl, which is too
far distant, four German miles north of Jericho,
situated on a lofty mountain-top. At the build-
ing of the walls of the city, Neh. iii., there are
mentioned besides the men of Jericho, Senaah
and Gibeon, inhabitants also of Tekoah, Zanoah,
Bethhaccerem, Mizpah, Bethsur and Keilah, and
a still greater number of cities occurs in Neh.
xi. 25-35. From this it is clear that gradually
the cities of Judah and Benjamin were taken
possession of, and more and more of ihem inha-
bited.
Vers. 86-39. The priest-classes. Of the four
names mentioned here three agree with the
names of three classes of prie&ts, which were
among the twenty-four classes introduced by
David, 1 Chron. xxiv. 7 sq. ; Jedaiah was the
second, Immer the sixteenth, Harim the third
class. It is very probable, therefore, that the
divisions here are connected with such classes.
For additional remarks upon this subject, vid.
notes upon Neh. xii. 1 sq. The house of Joshua,
however, may very properly refer to the house
of the high-priest Jeshua, to which the children
of Jedaiah belonged. This view is favored by
the fact that among those who returned, in all
probability, this family was more numerously
represented perhaps by a class of priests be-
longing to it. It is true the high-priest Jeshua
belonged to the line of Eleazar; the class of
Jedaiah, on the other hand, it is supposed, we
must seek as the second in the line of Ithamar,
and yet the order of classes was determined by
lot, 1 Chron. xxiv., and it is a very natural sup-
position, Bince there is some uncertainty in the
passage as to the method of the lot, that the
second class wa9 of Eleazar's line. Eise Jeshua
might also be the name of an ancient head of
the family ; in 1 Chron. xxiv. 11 it is the name of
the ninth class of priests. — The children of
Pashm- constitute a new class, which does not
occur in 1 Chron. xxiv. as a class of priests, and
this name does not occur among the nine classes
subsequent to the exile, Neh. xii. They occur
again, however, in Ezra x. 18-22 among the
priests who had married strange wives, along-
side of the sons of Jeshua, Immer and Harim.
32
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
The name Pashur is besides found even in more
ancient times, 1 Chron. ix. 12 ; Nehem. xi. 12 ;
Jer. xx., xxi.
Vers. 40-58. The Levites, servants of the
temple (Nethinim), and servants of Solomon:
The Levites fall into three divisions according
to their different official duties ; the first was
the Levites in the narrower sense, the assistants
of the priests in the divine worship, the second
was the singers, the third the porters, 1 Chron.
xxiv. 20-31 ; xxv. and xxvi. 1-19. The children
of Jeshua and Kadmiel are mentioned in ver.
40 as Levites in the narrower sense. The addi-
tional clause: of the children of Hodaviah,
belongs probably only to the last family, the
children of Kadmiel, comp. notes on iii. 9; the
name is not found in the lists of Levites in
Chronicles. — Of the singers (ver. 41) only the
members of the choir of Asaph returned wiih
the first company. Yet in Neh. xi. 17 three
classes are mentioned again as in times before
the exile. — Of the six classes of porters (ver. 42)
three, Shallum, Talmon and Akkub, are men-
tioned 1 Chron. ix. 17 as those who dwelt in
Jerusalem already before the exile. Thirty-five
families of the Nethinim are mentioned (vers.
43-54), of the servants of Solomon ten families
(vers. 55-57). In Nehemiah the children of
Akkub, Hagab and Asnah have fallen out, and
some names are written differently, partly
through oversight, partly on account of another
method of writing them. The most of the fami-
lies of the Nethinim may have descended from
the Gibeonites, Josh. ix. 21-27. The children
of Mehunim, however, in ver. 50, belonged, as
the plural form of the name shows, to the tribe
or people of the Mehunim, and were probably
prisoners of war, — perhaps after the victory
of the king Uzziah over that people (2 Chron.
xxvi. 7) they had been given to the sanctuary as
bondsmen. The children of Nephusim might
have been prisoners of war from the Isbmaelite
tribe of tC'33, Gen. xxv. 15. The children of
' T
the servants of Solomon, who are mentioned
again in Neh. xi. 3, elsewhere connected with
the Nethinim, wilh whom they are here arranged
in the enumeration, were certainly not the de-
scendants of those Amorites, Hethites, etc.,
whom Solomon, 1 Kings ix. 20 sq. ; 2 Chron.
viii. 7 sq., had made tributary and bondsmen
[Rawlinson], but apparently prisoners of war
from tribes that were not Canaanites. The
name DpSH DT OS in ver. 57 probably denotes :
catcher of gazelles.
Vers. 59, 60. Fellow-countrymen, who could
not show their ancestry. They went up from
Tel Melah (salt-hill), Tel Harsa (bush or
wood-hill), Cherub, Addan and Immer. The
last three words are probably not names of per-
sons, they are first mentioned in ver. 60, but
still as names of places. Like Tel Harsa, they
might likewise be conneoted without ID. Per-
haps they may designate one district, that is,
three places situated close to one another in the
same district. We have then perhaps three dis-
tricts for the three families named in ver. 60. —
[Rawlinson regards these as villages of Baby-
lonia, at which the Jews here spoken of had
been settled. The first and third he regards as
really identified with the Thelme' and Chiripha
of Ptolemy. — Tk.] — They could not show
their fathers' house, that is, could not prove
to which of the fathers' houses of Israel their
forefathers, after whom they were called, Dela-
iah, Tobiah and Nekoda, belonged. — And their
seed, that is, their family-line, whether they
were of Israelite origin or not. Clericus pro-
perly remarks : Judaicam religionem dudum seque-
bantur, quamobrem se Judseos censebant: quamvis
non possent genealogicus tabulas osiendere, ex quibus
constaret, ex Hebrseis oriundos esse. It is possible
that there was a doubt whether the children of
Nekoda here mentioned did not belong to the
Nethinim family of the same name in ver. 48,
and with respect to the other two families, there
were similar doubts (Bertheau). Since we do
not find any of these names again in the enume-
ration of the heads of the people and fathers'
houses in Neh. x. 15-28, or in the list of Ezra
x. 25-43, it seems that although they were not
expelled, yet the right of citizenship was with-
held from them.
Vers. 61-63. Priests who could not show that
they belonged to the priesthood, the children
of Habaiah, Hakkoz and Barzillai. Whether
these children of Hakkoz claimed to belong to
the seventh class of priests of the same name, 1
Chron. xxiv. 10, is uncertain. The name occurs
also elsewhere, comp. Neh. iii. 4. — The children
of Barzillai were descended from a priest who
properly bore another name, but who married a
daughter of the Gileadite Barzillai, well-known
in the history of David (2 Sam. xvii. 27; xix.
32-39; 1 Kings ii. 7). It is conjectured that
she was an heiress (Num. xxxvi.), and to ob-
tain possession of her inheritance, he assumed
her name. Comp. Num. xxvii. 4. The name
Barzillai and membership in a family of Gilead
might have subsequently rendered the priestly
origin of his posterity doubtful, although they
would by no means have lost the right of the
priesthood, if they could have proved in any
way their priestly origin. The suffix with DDE'
must be referred back to fiij3. For the masc.
form for the fem., comp. Gesen., § 121, Anmerk.
1. Their register in ver. 62 is their t£T\VI "ISp.
Neh. vii. 5, their writing of genealogy, their
register of their descent; this writing had the
title of CWrrrian, those registered as to gene-
alogy ; for this word is in apposition with D3J13.
and ?N¥DJ refers back to this plural, for which
in Neh. vii. 64 the sing., NSDJ, referring back
to D3j"I3, is found, as we say in Ger-nany, not
to be able to find their forefathers, instead of
the register of their forefathers.- — They were
as polluted put from the priesthood.—
OKI]} is a pregnant term=they were declared
polluted, so that they were excluded from the
priesthood. The more definite decision respect-
ing (hem was given according to ver. 63 by the
Tirshatha, the civil governor of the community,
according to Neh. vii. 65, comp. with ver. 70,
Zembbahel, who, Hag. i. 1, 14 ; ii. 2, 21, is
called mirr nnD. In Neh. viii. 9 and x. 2
t : —
Nehemiah bears this title, who besides in Neh.
CnAP. II. 1-70.
33
xii. 26 likewise has the title HnS, Tir6hatha
is without doubt the Persian designation of the
governor. It is probably not oonnected with
taras, fear = the one feared [Rawlinson, who
regards it as the Persian tarsata, past part, of
tars=to fear=the feared, a title which well
might be given to one in authority. He com-
pares the German gestrenger Serr and our title
of " Reverend." — Tn..], or with tarash, acer,
ouj<er=the severe lord, but is from the Zend
thuorestar (nom. thuoresta)=z=prdsfectus, penes quern
est imperium, Gesen., Thes., p. 1521 ; Benfey, die
Monatsnamen, S. 196. The reason why the name
of Zerubbabel is not added, and why he is not
mentioned in Neh. vii. 66—70 in connection with
this title, is that there is no importance to be
ascribed here to the person, but only to the
position expressed by the title. It is not strange
that the civil governor made this decision with
reference to the priesthood, because of the close
connection between the civil and religious af-
fairs of the community at Jerusalem. Their
prohibition from eating of the most holy things,
that is, of those that were consecrated to the
Lord, of whioh none but the priests could par-
take, and these only of certain prescribed parts
in the holy place (comp. Lev. ii. 3), excluded
them from participation in those revenues that
were immediately connected with priestly occu-
pations, and therefore without doubt likewise
from the priestly occupations themselves. The
children of Habaiah, etc., were not to come near
the most holy things, e. g. the altar of burnt-
offerings (Ex. xxix. 37; xxx. 10), and especially
were not to enter the most holy places (Num.
xviii. 10). A portion of the general fees which
were offered to the priests was not denied them,
since their right to the priesthood was not ex-
pressly denied, but left in suspense-. — Till there
stood up a priest -with TJrim and Thum-
mim. — "IDJ7 is according to later usage for
tHp (comp. Dan. viii. 23; xi. 2, etc.). The
question arises why the high-priest Jeshua
could not have given the desired decision by
means of Urim and Thummim, for the use of
which we are to compare Ex. xxviii. 30. The
reason could hardly have been of such a perso-
nal and external character as Ewald, Gesch.
1st. IV. 95 conjectures, as if Jeshua was perhaps
not the eldest son of his father, and therefore
not entirely suited to the high-priesthood.
It is probable that in the times subsequent
to the exile there was no longer as formerly
any more decisions by means of Urim and
Thummim. Little importance is to be given
to the opinion of Josephus Arch. III. 8, 9, that its
use had not ceased till two hundred years before
his time, since he acts upon the opinion that it
had been used for the purpose of predicting vic-
tory. The Rabbins reckon this method of divine
revelation among the five things which from
the beginning were lacking in the second temple.
Comp. Buxtorf, exercitt. ad historiam Urim et
Thummim, cap. V., and Vitringa observatt., s.
VI., cap. VI , p. 324 sq. We are rather to sup-
pose that they believed that they must wait until
such a time when the high-priest would again be
able to fulfil his entire calling. The temple must
first arise again, and the Lord must declare His
presence again in some special practical and un-
mistakable manner, without which indeed a re-
velation through Urim and Thummim was in-
conceivable.
Vers. 64-67. The sum-total of those that
returned, thoir servants and maid-servants
and beasts of burden. The sum of 42,360 is
given in our passage in Nehemiah and Esdraa,
for the whole congregation together (so mani-
festly here "intO, (it is otherwise in chap. iii.
9 ; vi. 20) ; a number which is not gained by
adding the detailed numbers together, either
here or in Neh. or Esdras, for the sum total is
much too great for the detailed numbers, which
amount to only 29,818 here, in Nehemiah 31,089,
in Esdras 30,143. How then did tLis difference
arise ? Even Keil is convinced that it is due
only to mistakes of copyists. "Any attempt to
explain them (the differences) in any other way
cmnot be justified." But if this were really so,
there would be greater differences between the
detailed numbers as they are given here and in
Nehemiah ; and reckoned together they would,
in accordance with one or the other texts, ap-
proximately make out the sum total of 42,360. If
such essential mistakes as these occurred in co-
pying, then the fact that the result of reckoning
together the numbers agrees, at least in the
main, and that each text is about the same num-
ber behind the sum total of 42,360, could not be
possible unless the mistakes were above all in
this sum total, which however is inconceivable
in connection with the exact agreement which
everywhere prevails. It is certainly clear that
the sum total was not meant to embrace any
others, such as those who returned of the ten
tribes (Seder Olam, Raschi, Usserius, J. H.
Mich., et al.) but only the constituent parts con-
tained in the previous verses. But perhaps it
was understood of itself according to the funda-
mental notions and ideas of the time that there
were others still belonging to the 2172 sons of
Parosh, etc., who properly were not reckoned
with them, but who yet united with them in con-
stituting the "entire congregation,'- 7Dpn~73,
and were given with them in summing it up. It
depends upon the idea of l7\r>T\~12. Possibly
if the number of the children of Parosh, etc.,
were to be given, only the independent people,
especially the heads of families, came into con-
sideration ; whilst in the "entire congregation "
there were, counted perhaps likewise the larger
sons, who had reached the age of discretion, Neh.
viii. 2, 3. If in Esdras v. 41 our ver. 64 reads
" all of Israel from twelve years old and up-
wards, besides the servants and maid-servants,
were 42,360," this addition, "from twelve years
and upward," is indeed critically worthless, yet
it might rest upon a correct knowledge of ancient
customs, although perhaps the age of twelve years
corresponds only with latter circumstances. If
the servants and maid-servants were reckoned to
the bnprr^, whose number is given in ver. 65,
they might have been counted in the sum total,
although they were not taken into consideration
in the detailed numbers.
Ver. 65. Besides their servants and
34
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
maids. — HvX, which is properly connected with
the subsequent words by the accents, is explained
as referring to the following sum, 7337 = be-
sides their servants, etc., who make out the fol-
lowing numbers. The additional clause : And
they had two hundred singing men and
women, can only mean : and they who returned
— for the suffix OTp, certainly refers to those to
whom the suffix of DjTISjj?, etc., also refers, —
had singing men and women, who because
they were hired and paid, stood upon the same
footing as the servants and maids, and since they
were probably not of Israelite origin did not be-
long to the congregation. They served, how-
ever, doubtless to increase the joy of the feasts,
and for singing dirges in connection with sor-
rowful events, comp. Eccl. ii. 8 ; 2 Chron. xxxv.
25. At any rate these singing people are to be
distinguished from the Levitical singers and mu-
sicians who took part in divine worship. J. D.
Mich, would change these singing men and wo-
men into oxen and cows (as if D'H'WD wero
for DHli^) since we would rather expect these
here, after the domestics, and in connection with
the horses, mules, camels, and asses. But it may
be that the returning exiles only took with them
beasts of burden, or at least chiefly of these, and
obtained their cattle rather on their arrival in
Canaan. If animals were intended here, we
would not have DH7, but the suffix as in the fol-
V T
lowing verse.
Vers. 68-70. Contributions for the building
of the temple and closing remarks. — Ver. 68.
And of the heads of the people = some
of them. Comp. D^n- pi in ver. 70. Neh. uses
instead riXpni, a part, as Dan. i. 2, etc.. Uljnn
they freely offered gifts, and indeed for the house
of God. Comp. notes upon chap. i. 6. "ITD^'H1?,
= in order to erect it, rebuild it^<l01pnl7, comp.
ver. 63.
Ver. 69. They gave to the treasure of
the 'work, that is, into the treasure that was
collected for the work of the temple 61,000 da-
rics of gold, ( fl03"n here and Neh. vii. 70 sq.,
for which [13"v™, with X, prosthetic. 1 Chron.
xxix. 7, and Ezra viii. 27, the Greek SapeucSc, a
Persian gold coin worth twenty-two German
marks, [shillings, English] or seven and a half
German thalers [five and a half American dol-
lars], comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 7) = 457,500 Ger-
man thalers, and 5,000 pounds of silver (above
200,000 German thalers) and 100 priests' gar-
ments. It seems that our author has here abbre-
viated the list that was before him, and given the
figures in round numbers. We recognize here,
as Bertheau properly points out, expressions
peculiar to the author: "house of Jehovah,
which is in Jerusalem," comp. chapter i. 4
iii. 8 ; DTJfin, comp. chapter i. 6 ; iii. 5 : 1 Chr
xxix. 5, 6 ; TD^il?, comp. 1 Chron. xvi. 16
2 Chron. ix. 8 ; Ezra ix. 9 ; DH33, comp 1 Chr
xxix. 2; " they gave into the treasure," comp
1 Chron. xxix.
In Nehemiah the text
of the document has been more faithfully re-
tained.— In accordance with this some of the
heads of fathers' houses contributed to the work,
vii., the Tirshatha (who comes into considera-
tion as the first of these heads, and is mentioned
by himself, with his contribution, which was
probably especially large) gave to the treasure
1000 darics of gold, 50 sacrificial bowls, and 30
priests' garments, and 500, probably pounds, of
silver). It cannot mean 530 priests' garments,
for then the hundreds should stand first. Per-
haps the things numbered have fallen away be-
fore the 500, in all, probably, D'jn IP^l. Some
(viz., others besides the Tirshatha) heads of fa-
thers' houses gave 20,000 darics of gold, 2200
pounds of silver, and the rest of the people gave
20,000 darics of silver, 2000 pounds of silver, and
67 priests' garments. Accordingly the sum total
amounted to 41,000 darics of gold, 4700 pounds
of silver, 97 priests' garments, and 50 sacrificial
bowls. An important difference between these
statements and our text of the book of Ezra is
found in 4l,0C0 darics, for which Ezra has 61,000.
Since this cannot be balanced by the 50 sacrifi-
cial bowls, which are passed over in our text, the
61,000 must be ascribed to a copyist's error.
Ver. 70. Here, in the closing remarks, the
hand of our author may be recognized. The ori-
ginal text read somewhat thus: And the
priests and Levites and some of the peo-
ple and entire Israel dwelt in their cities.
— But the author would in his own way specify
the persons who took part in the divine worship,
and adds therefore after those of the people, the
singers and door-keepers and temple ser-
vants, and in connection therewith perhaps also
that which directly followed the former, in their
cities, which is missing in Nehemiah. In Ne-
hemiah this statement is improved in this way,
that he lets the Levitical singers and porters fol-
low immediately after the Levites, and indeed
the porters first, notwithstanding their office was
less honorable than that of the singers, because
he is not concerned with the dignity of their of-
fice, but with their membership among the Le-
vites. It is true he had the disadvantage of
being obliged to separate theNethinim, whom he
could not very well place " before those of the
people," by D^'P JD1 from the porters and sing-
ers. DITI [3? at any rate does not mean "some,"
"many of the people;" the meaning cannot be
that at first only some of them took possession of
their cities, against which is the concluding state-
ment " and all Israel were in their cities,"* but
the others of the people, besides the priests and
Levites. Respecting the in their cities, comp.
remarks on ver. 1. Our author in a similar man-
ner, as in the closing verse of the first chapter,
passes over many things that would have seemed
worthy of mention under other circumstances, as
in what condition they found the cities, where
they settled, whether they contended with the
inhabitants of the laud for them, how they ac-
complished their organization and the like. The
reason is the same as that adduced in our notes
upon chap. i. 11.
* f" All Israel" is interpreted by Kawlinson as refer-
ring to representatives of the ten tribes.— Tb.]
CHAP. II. 1-70.
35
THOUGHTS TOON THE HISTOKY OF KEDEMPTION.
Ver. 2. Since tbo people formed the new con-
gregation no longer as a nation, or according to
their external membership in the nation, — since
all depended upon the free choice of particular
families, — there is no longer any mention of
the ancient distinction of tribes which was based
on merely natural laws. But the congregation,
notwithstanding, again has its heads, and indeed
again exactly twelve, as the people in the times
before the exile had had twelve elders of tribes.
Doubtless they needed them still just as much,
if not even still more, since indeed the Persian
king and his officers did not occupy themselves
so immediately, and in so many ways, in their
affairs as the previous royal government had
done. The restoration of the temple and its
worship was imposed directly and pre-eminently
upon them, and they certainly had pre-eminently
to take care that (he law of God should prevail
as thoroughly as possible in the life of the con-
gregation. Hence there is sufficient reason that
they should be placed foremost here just as the
twelve elders of tribes had been in the time of
Moses, Num. i. 15, 16. There must always be
office-holders, ranks, and a corresponding subor-
dination in the congregation of God, as surely a3
it ever needs guidance and training. And if the
officials are no longer given by natural rank, or
appointed by the state, if the relation to them is
thus a more tender one, then they ought to meet
them as those who have been freely chosen to
positions of trust, with all the more respect, yea,
reverence.
Vers. 36-39. The priests were disproportion-
ately numerous in the new congregation. They
made up about the seventh part of the whole.
If in consequence of this they were obliged to be
all the more discreet to maintain themselves,
since the offerings falling to them hardly sufficed
for their support, — if therefore it could not be
permitted them to acquire land for themselves,
work them, or to learn trades and practice them,
then it was without doubt the very reverse of
what they ought to have done, when they, in
consequence of this, became conformed to the
world and helped to favor the mingling with
heathenism, as we observe to be the case even in
the high priestly family itself. Comp. chap. x.
18. They ought, owing to their great numbers,
to have offered to the congregation all the greater
support against the worship of idols and apostasy
from the law, and at any rate they should have
been a living, practical reminder of their most
appropriate and highest tasks. They should
have more and more impressed upon the entire
congregation a priestly, spiritual character. The
universal priesthood, which the worldly Chris-
tians claim, in a false sense, should be imparted
more and more decidedly to the true congrega-
tion in the true sense.
Vers. 64-67. The ne'w congregation must have
appeared to themselves extraordinarily small
and weak, when they compared themselves with
the first beginnings in the time of Moses, when
the men of war were about 600,000. (Comp.
Numb. i. 46 and xxvi. 51.) It was all the more
incumbent upon them to maintain themselves as
far as possible in unity with those who remained
behind in exile, and cultivate the bond of com-
munion with them, accordingly widen their
views, and keep themselves from narrow-heart-
edness, — or, if their relation to them proved again
to be only a loose one, to consider themselves as
a mere remnant, that had been preserved from the
divine judgment by grace, accordingly to let
themselves be reminded by their weakness of the
divine holiness as well as compassion. The
weaker they were in themselves, the more were
they prompted, at all events, to seek their
strength in the Lord, and expect their help from
Him. Moreover we may conclude from their
small numbers that it is not the great multitude
to which the development of the church leads;
rather those by whom God's thoughts of re-
demption are to realize themselves chiefly and
most immediately, constitute naturally only a
small minority. Besides, we may conclude from
vers. 65-67 that among those who returned there
were likewise men who were quite wealthy, that
therefore the idea is not at all correct that only
those had sought out Jerusalem again who had
nothing to lose in Chaldea (Talm. bab. tract.
Kidduschim). Without doubt God was able al-
ready in the Old Testament times to awaken a
living zeal for His cause, not only among the
poorer, but also, at the least, of making here and
there also the rich, with their possessions, ser-
viceable to His cause.
Vers. 68-69. By offering gold and the other
gifts which had reference to the restoration of
worship, the new congregation showed their ear-
nest desire to really become what was incumbent
upon them (o be. Christianity should never fall
behind them; but although its task is mainly
the internal and spiritual offerings, they should
be ready to prove the truth of their spiritual-
ity, where it is necessary, by external offerings
likewise.
HOMILETTCAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1, 2. Take care that thou and thy house
above all belong to those who constitute the con-
gregation of the Lord. Only they are named and
numbered in the book of life.
Vers. 68, 69. Let not thy house, but God's
house, be thy chief care. With reference to the
statements respecting the riches of the returned
exiles in ver. 65 sq. Bkentius appropriately re-
marks: Ejecti erant Judxi e Hierusalem propter
scelera sua. Nihilominus fovit eos inter gentes et lo~
cupletavet eos. Unde Jeremiie vigesimo nono dicitur:
Ego scio cogitationes, quas cogilo super vos, cogita-
tiones pacts et non afflictionis, ut dem vobis finem.
With the same appropriateness Staeke: "The
Lord killeth and maketh alive, leadeth into
Sheol and again out of it, 1 Sam. ii. 6. Let no
one, therefore, utterly lose courage in enduring
crosses, suffering, poverty and misery, per-
secution and imprisonment. God extends His
church amidst crosses and persecutions all the
more, and causes it to bloom as a palm-tree,
Psalm xcii. 13; Matth. xvi. 18; Acts xi. 19-21."
Upon ver. 68: "Whatever we give to the glory
of God, we should give willingly, for God loveth
a cheerful giver." Upon ver. 70: " My God, if
Thou wilt redeem me some day out of this body
36 THE BOOK OF EZRA.
in the world, (ben remove me likewise to the
eternal and true fatherland and Canaan, the right
to which our first parents lost by their disobe-
dience for themselves and all men, but which
Christ has regained for us." [Scott: Our gra-
cious Lord will carry us through those under
takings which are entered on according to His
will with an aim to His glory, and in dependence
on His assistance; aud then we shall be made
superior to all difficulties, hardships and dan-
gers.— Henry: 'Tis an honor to belong to God's
house, though in the meanest office there. — Let
none complain of the necessary expenses of their
religion, but believe that when they come to ba-
lance the account, they will find it quit cast.
— Tb.]
SECOND SECTION.
The First Effort.
Chaps. III. IV.
A— THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ALTAR AND THE PREPARATION FOR BUILD-
ING THE TEMPLE.
Chap. III. 1-13.
L Building of the Altar, Feast of Tabernacles, and anxiety for the Building of the Temple. Vers. 1-7.
1 And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the
2 cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. Then
stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel
the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel,
to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.
3 And they set the altar upon his bases ; for fear was upon them because of the peo-
ple of those countries : and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even
4 burnt offerings morning and evening. They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as
it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the cus-
5 torn, as the duty of every day required ; And afterward offered the continual burnt
offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were con-
secrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the Lord.
6 From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the
7 Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. They gave
money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters ; and meat, and drink, and oil,
unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the
sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia.
II. Laying of the Corner-stone of the New Temple. Vers. 8-13.
8 Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in.
the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of
Jozadak, and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they
that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem ; and appointed the Levites,
from twenty years old and upward, to set forward the work of the house of the
9 Lord. Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons,
the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God : the
10 sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites. And when the
builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their
apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise
11 the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel. And they sang together by
course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord ; because he is good, for his
mercy endweth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great
shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the
CHAP. III. 1-13.
37
12 Loed was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who
were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house
was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice ; and many shouted aloud for joy :
13 So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of
the weeping of the people : for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise
was heard afar off.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The history itself now follows the historical
foundations. The most prominent and interest-
ing feature of the narrative is the readiness and
zeal of the new congregation, with reference to
the temple and its worship, the re-establishment
of which was their proper work, and indeed first
of all in vers. 1-3 in the building of the altar.
Ver. 1. And -when the seventh month
was come. — The author calls attention to the
zeal of all, without exception ; especially also
of those dwelling outside of Jerusalem. He
means, of course, the seventh month of the same
year in which the returning exiles arrived in Je-
rusalem, else he would have been obliged to de-
fine it more closely. Besides, it is clear from
ver. 8, that the following year was the second
after their arrival. The seventh month was pro-
perly the festival month, and accordingly the
time in which it must be shown how zealous the
new congregation was with reference to the ser-
vice of God. The new year's day, the atonement
day and feast of tabernacles fell on this month. —
And the children of Israel were in the ci-
ties.— This clause is meant to indicate that they
had already attained a certain degree of rest, but
at the same time they had obtained a possession
and a labor therein, which might have readily
detained them ; at any rate that they were again
obliged to leave their own affairs and assemble
together,-— this, however, merely for the purpose
of at once uniting in Bhowing that they would not
now allow themselves to be detained by anything
from the celebration of the feasts of the law. It
is clear from verse 6 that they did not wait un-
til thefeast of tabernacles, the 15th of the month,
as it wa3 prescribed in the law, but already on
the day of the new moon came together, yea, in
part already some days earlier, so that the build-
ing of the altar, which was for the first time un-
dertaken on their coming together, might be
ready for the day of the new moon. — The peo-
ple gathered themselves together as one
man. — This primarily means " aa if inspired by
one will," thus, " with one spirit " (Keil) Sfio-
$v/utd6v, 1 Esdras v. 46, thence also as much as
to say "entirely" (Berth.). For the verbal
repetition of this verse in Neh. vii. 73, and chap,
viii. 1, where an entirely different event was
thereby to be introduced, and for the additional
clause, which Esdras improperly has appended
here, after Neh. viii. 1, see note on Neh. viii. 1.
Ver. 2. Jeshua, etc., stood up and built
the altar, etc. — This clause indicates the zeal of
the heads of the congregation at Jerusalem, which
very well corresponded with that of the people
as a whole, but which yet has something striking
in it, if as is the most natural interpretation, the
future, with 1 consec, expresses chronological
sequence. We are to suppose that they had not
first caused the people to come together, but al-
ready before had gone to work in building the
altar.
Ver. 3. This verso more closely defines the
previous one, and in its first half is designed for
an explanation of the hesitation of Jeshua and
the rest, in its second half for an explanation of
what was meant by offering offerings according
to the law. — And they set the altar upon
his base — that is, on the foundation that was
present long before for it. The sense of /]}
1DJ1DD is without doubt essentially the same as
UDD 7J? in chap. ii. 68. The qeri of the punc-
tators has the moro usual plural of the masculine
form, which occurs also in Ps. civ. 5 ; the plu-
ral, however, is unsuitable here, because there
can be no reference to different foundations, and
still less to different pedestals for the altar.
Comp. truilin, Zech. v. 11. It is manifest that
there is here an indication that they made their
work as easy as possible, and sought to finish it
as soon as they could. For if it was also natu-
ral that they should re-erect the temple on its
old foundations, partly because the place could
not be arbitrarily changed, partly because the
difficult substructures might still, without doubt,
be very well made use of, yet with the altar it
might easily have been entirely different. Under
favorable circumstances they might have been
obliged to re-establish it on an entirely new foun-
dation, since the old foundation, probably, was
no longer intact. Hence the explanatory clause
is added: why they had not previously gone to
work: — For (they did it) because fear was
upon them, because of the people of those
countries ; properly fear or terror, which was
on them. The 3 here expresses the condition
in which they were (comp. Ewald, \ 217 /, and
\ 299 b), or more accurately, it states under what
circumstances the action proceeded. At any rate
it can also be explained with Ewald, $295/.-
in anxiety it was incumbent upon them (OiTTJ?)
namely, to build. The conjecture of Ewald
(Gesch. IV., S. 131), that the suffix of OrrS.f? re-
fers to the people of the lands and the reference
is to their coming together to Israel in a friendly
spirit, in accordance with Esdras v. 49, is en-
tirely inadmissible. Accordingly they had not
ventured to undertake anything greater or more
public, because they feared the hostility of the
surrounding nations, so long as the congregation
was not assembled in greater numbers, and they
had even now to fear hostile interruption in a
greater undertaking. The explanation of J. H.
Mich, and Keil : They re-established altar and
worship in order to secure for themselves the
divine protection against the peoples, of whom
they were afraid, not only requires us to supply
too much, but also is opposed by the fact that
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
we should expect, if this view were correct, that
they already previously would have gone to work
upon the erection of the altar, and have offered
sacrifices, especially those of the daily sacrifice.
The peoples are certainly the neighboring peo-
ples, comp. chap. ix. 1 ; a. 2. — And offered
thereon burnt offerings, etc. — They sought to
act in accordance with the law before all in of-
fering the daily sacrifices. The sing. /£) is to
be referred to the one upon whom the offering of
the sacrifice was chiefly incumbent, the priest in
service at the time, — it is the indefinite subject.
Perhaps however the plural of the qeri is more
appropriate. The burnt offerings for the morn-
ing and evening are those belonging to every
morning and evening. Those on the weekly
Sabbath and feast days were required to be of-
fered in various numbers. Comp. Ex. xxix. 38
sq. ; Numb, xxviii. 3 sq. The prominence given
to the burnt offering alone is to be explained
from the fact that these chiefly came into consi-
deration, 6ince the daily sacrifices, as well as
those of the feasts, were chiefly burnt offerings,
as then the burnt offering was regarded in ge-
neral as the principal sacrifice. But at any rate
they were entirely appropriate, in as much as
they were the sacrifices of homage, through which
the congregation might best express what they
now above all had to confess, that they had Je-
hovah for their Lord, and prayed to Him as such.
In vers. 4, 5 the congregation attests its sacred
zeal by the celebration of the feast of taberna-
cles, and by other ceremonies of worship. The
burnt offering of the "day by day," or "every
day" is that prescribed for the various days of
the feast of tabernacles. 13l)D3 = numbered,
T : ■
pro numero in singulos dies definito (J. H. Mich.),
comp. 1 Chron. ix. 28 ; xxiii. 31 ; Ezra viii. 34.
!33t?D3 = according to law ; in Num. xxix. 18,
21, 24, 27, 30, 33, to which passages there is a re-
ference here, it is somewhat more definite, in their
number, according to the law ODE?D3 D13D03.
° T t • - T I • :
TOV3 DV 131 's *a apposition = the matter of
the day in its day, opus dies in die suo (Vulg.
and J. H. Michaelis), comp. Nehem. xi. 23.
Bertheau explains this expression as in accord-
ance with DV3 DV (vi. 9) as the duty to be done
day by day, but this is opposed by the fact that
toV3 has the suffix. Compare for these pre-
scribed sacrifices Nam. xxviii. and xxix., in ac-
cordance with which there must be offered on the
first day of the feast of tabernacles thirteen bul-
locks, on the second day twelve, and so on.
Ver. 5. And afterward (they offered) the
daily burnt offering. — Here we must supply the
verb, they offered. Since according to ver. 6 they
began to offer burnt offerings on the first day of
the seventh month, the meaning cannot be that
they did not begin with the daily burnt offerings
until after the feast of tabernacles (against
Berth.), as if on the first day they had merely
offered the offerings of the new moon, and on
the feast of tabernacles the offerings of the feast;
but had not yet on the ordinary days offered the
daily sacrifices. That is inconceivable, or at
least highly improbable. Moreover, the words
do not imply that until the feast of tabernacles
only the chief offerings had been offered, but not
the offerings of the new moon, and as little the
offerings of the atonement day (against Keil).
Rather it is merely said, that after the sacrifices
of the feast of tabernacles the usual order of
offerings was again continued, which included
the daily offerings, and then also those of the
new moon and other feasts. — And of the new
moons, is briefly, what was proper for the new
moons, etc. — And of every one that will-
ingly offered a free-will offering unto the
Lord. — These word3 refer to all the other free-
will offerings brought by the people which were
offered, especially on the feast-days (comp. Deut.
xvi. 2, 10, 16, 17), but also on other occasions.
Moreover, among these offerings the sin offering
is certainly included, as it belonged to the new
moons, etc., and was necessarily attached to
the burnt offerings (comp. Num. xxviii. 15 sq. ).
Wo are to supply to D'tfirn first of all nVy,
instead of TDfi n^jy. Even the 7\T\i might
also be a burnt offering, Lev. xxii. 18, aud espe-
cially Ez. xlvi. 12 ; it only depended upon the
form of the offering, namely, whether the gift
was entirely consecrated to the Lord, or a festival
meal was taken from it for the offerer and his
family. Perhaps, however, we are to think finally
of the offerings in general, instead of the burnt
offering, also of the bloody offering, of which the
H313 was usually a subordinate class (Lev.
vii.T±6).
Vers. 6, 7. Here begins the anxiety for the
building of the temple. Prom the first day of
the seventh month on, they did not lack in zeal
in offering burnt offerings, although the founda-
tion of the temple had not yet been laid, — this
for an introduction. They now, however, did
their best (ver. 7) henceforth towards laying the
foundation of the temple. They gave money to
the D^Vn, who hewed stones, or even cut tim-
ber, and to the D'tfin, who prepared the stones
and the timber, accordingly the workmen, with-
out doubt, from the contributions mentioned in
ii. 68 sq. To the Sidonians and Tyrians, how-
ever, who are always referred to in connection
with the products of Canaan, they gave in return
for their cedar wood, food and drink, that is,
grain, wine, and oil, just as Solomon also had
paid them with the produce of the earth, 1 Kings
v. 21-25; 2 Chron. ii. 10-15. Accordingly they
had already found or cultivated something in
the land which they practically had taken pos-
session of in the spring, from which they had
been able to secure a harvest.— To bring cedar
trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa =
to Joppa on the sea, as 1 Kings v. 23 and 2 Chron.
ii. 15. Bertheau understands by it not exactly
Joppa itself, but merely the vicinity, hut there
certainly was nothing in tho way of their landing
at Joppa itself. The sand drifts which now ren-
der it impossible for ships to approach nearer the
coast than half an hour's sail, and the earthquake
that seems to have occurred, were probably then
not in the way, and by no means hindered the
landing from rafts. At other points of that coast
the difficulties would have been still greater. —
According to the grant, etc. The permission
CHAP. III. 1-13.
39
given them by Cyrus, which to a certain extent
rendered the work obligatory to them, was the
general permission to build the temple ; implicite
it involved also special permission to put them-
selves in connection with the Phoenicians for the
accomplishment of this purpose. |V jy"1 is an air.
Tity., whose meaning is derived from the Aramaic
and Rabbinical iW~), 'tyi_, facultatem habere, and
W\ facullas.
Vers. 8-13. The sacred zeal of the congrega-
tion showed itself above all at the laying of the
foundation of the temple. In the next year the
preparation previously necessary had been so far
completed, that now they could think of the
building itself. When Theophilus (ad. Antol.,
Lib. III.), according to Berosus, designates this
second year after the return as the second year
of Cyrus, it is perhaps only in consequence of a
sort of carelessness. Cyrus had, it is true, given
the permission to return already in his first year,
but before the return itself could have taken
place the necessary consultations and prepara-
tions required a considerable time, during which
Cyrus' second year already approached. After
that ihey had first allowed the passover feast to
pass by, and perhaps also already the grain har-
vest had been quite well advanced ; they pro-
ceeded in the second month to lay the founda-
tion.— Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rem-
nant of their brethren. By these we must
understand the entire congregation, at least so
far as they were settled in Jerusalem; the rem-
nant of their brethren are brethren in the wider
sense, who are immediately more closely defined
on the one side as priests and Levites, who at
once follow after the high-priest Jeshua, and on
the other side all who had come out of the cap-
tivity to Jerusalem, having joined Zerubbabel.
Accordingly the entire congregation, as well in
their leaders as in th eir mult itude, took part in the
work. — Began and appointed the Levites,
who were twenty years old and upward.
This might mean, they began to appoint, accord-
ing to Gesen., \ 142, 3 a. But according to the
context the sense is : they began the building of the
temple, in that they appointed the Levite. Tn^n i3
used, especially by our author, in the sense of
"appointing to an office.'' Comp. 1 Chron. xv. 17.
etc. That they also appointed the Levites at the
age of twenty years with the rest, was in accord-
ance with the rule of David, 1 Chron. xxiii. 24 eq.,
and after the example of Moses (Numb. viii. 24).
T1SJ, in the sense of "direct," with 7J?, is, with
the exception of the titles of the Psalms and
Hab. iii. 19, peculiar to our author. Gusset
improperly asserts, with reference to 1 Chron.
xxiii. 4, that n-S3 may also mean "unite with
one in a work," but it can only mean to preside
over an affair, sometimes also accomplish it.
Ver. 9. The Levites at once gladly did their
part in the work entrusted to them by the con-
gregation. The sing. "1DJT1 is here hardly to be
explained from the fact that the verb, when it
precedes, is not so strongly bound to the number
of the subject. The sense is rather: Jeshua
through his sons and brethren stood. VJ3 and
also l'ns are not merely used without connec-
tives, which would here be unusual, but are in
explanatory apposition with Jeshua. The names
designating the fathers' houses are the names
of ancient, and, for the most part, fathers of the
times before the exile, who now existed only in
their sons and brethren ; that is, as well in their
own posterity as also in that of their younger
brothers. Comp. notes on ii. 3. Jeshua and
also Kadmiel are, according to ii. 40, two such
names, comp. also Neh. x. 10, according to which
even in the time of Nehemiah, Jeshua and Kad-
miel still existed. This view is not opposed by
the fact that "and his sons" is connected by
conjunction with Kadmiel. We may understand
thereby the older men of this family and their
sons. Instead of JVWT '33 we are to read, ac-
t : "t .
cording to ii. 40, without doubt, STVTin ~ 'JS-
Whether this is in apposition with the two fami-
lies of Jeshua and Kadmiel, or merely refers to
the latter, is as doubtlul here as in ii. 40. Pro-
bably it is the latter (with Keil against Ber-
theau). That both, however, had a common an-
cestor, who was not Hodaviah, but Henadad, may
be regarded as resulting from the last words of
our verse. It is highly improbable that the
clause as one (so united and entirely one were
they) to set forward the workman in the
house of God should be followed by the last
words of the verse: the sons of Henadad,
their sons and their brethren, the Levites
with the intention of naming Etili another third
alditional family; for they would not have been
added on here without connection and without
any predicate. Probably they are in apposition
to both, to Jeshua and Kadmiel, with their sons.
The relationship and connection of both would
thus be indicated. In favor of this view is the
comprehensive conclusion: their sons and bre-
thren, the Levites, which does not suit a third
particular class, but only the Levites in question
as a whole. This also explains the reason why
in chap. ii. 40 Henadad is not mentioned among
the returned exiles alongside of Jeshua and Kad-
miel. That in Neh. iii. 24 and x. 10 Binnui is at
once designated as a son of Henadad, may rest
upon the fact that he belonged neither to Jeshua
nor to Kadmiel, but to Henadad, constituting a
family of his own, which was sufficiently well re-
presented, and hence not eepecially named.
That no force is to be given to Esdras v. 66
(against Bertheau), where the sons of He-
nadad are adduced as a special class and
are placed before the predicate, is sufficiently
clear from the fact that there the sons of Judah
(Hodaviah) are likewise treated as a special olass
(viol 'Iwda rem 'WliaSovd). Moreover TVt>$ is a
rare form, which is peculiar to our author for
'KjjJ. Comp. 1 Chron. xxiii. 24, etc.
Vers. 10, 11. The laying of the foundation was
accomplished with solemnity and festivity. The
perf. with the simple copula HD'l does not in it-
self carry on the narrative, but serves, as if the
subject preceded and the preterite followed, to
give the circumstances of the subsequent state-
ment, so that the sense is: And when the
builders laid the foundations of the tern-
40
THE BOOK OP EZEA.
pie, they appointed the priests, e'c. — The
Bubjecta of VTDV^_are Zerubbabel and Jesb.ua
and the congregation with them. The Kal., the
priests stood, which is in Esdras, Sept., and
Vulg., instead of the Hiphil, would not be better
(Bertheau), unless we should regard this Terse
as well as the ninth, as carrying on the eighth
verse; in other words, if it were parallel with
the ninth, which is not the case. Rather it is
parallel with the eighth Terse, and contains a
new appointment, that of the priests and musi-
cians, and then ver. 11 parallel with Ter. 9 nar-
rates the activity of those who had been ap-
pointed.— In their apparel. — We must supply
V13 (Byssus) with D^Slp, comp. 2 Chron. t. 12;
at any rate, the sense is: clothed wi(h official
robes. The following "with trumpets" does
depend upon it. The trumpets, which do not
properly have music in Tiew, were entrusted to
the priests (Num. x. 10). The music proper was
from the time of David incumbent upon particu-
lar families of the Levites, especially that of
Asaph (1 Chron. xiii. 8; xv. 16, 19). 'T"^ is,
according to the appointment, institution, 1
Chron. xxv. 2.
Ver. 11. And they sang together by
course in praising, etc. — We may take 'Ji^in
the usual sense: they began with praising, etc.;
but may likewise, with the older interpreters,
as Clericus and J. II. Michaelis, explain: they
responded to one another in responsive songs.
Whilst the one choir sang: "Praise the Lord, for
Ho is good," the other answered: "For His
mercy endureth forever." They were songs of
praise, as Ps. cvi. and cvii., cxviii. and exxxvi.,
that they struck up, comp. 1 Chron. xvi. 34, 41 ;
2 Chron. v. 13; vii. 3, etc. IDIH 7J?, "oTer the
being fojnded"=on account of the laying of the
foundation. Comp. 2 Chron. iii. 3.
Vers. 12, 13. It is true that strong expressions
of sorrow mingled with the joy, yet both sorrow
and joy showed equally well the sacred zeal of
the congregation in the worship of God. If the
exile had begun in the fourth year of Jchoiakim,
and the temple had not been destroyed till eight-
een years later in 588 B. C, there might now Tery
well be old men present, — since only seventy-two
years had passed since that beginning of the ex-
ile,— who had seen the old temple, and had still a
lively remembrance of it. Even Haggai, in the
second year of Darius, when some seventy years
(more accurately sixty-six) had passed since the
destruction of the temple itself presupposes that
one and another had still a remembrance of the old
temple. Comp. Hag. ii. 3. 'Hp,3 is attached by
the accents to the previous words, as if ID' were
a noun, which meant founding, then permanence.
But this noun nowhere elso occurs; besides,
llD'S, as an intin., seems to be connected with
: t:
the words that follow thus: 'When the foun-
dation of this house 'was laid before their
eyes. — With this interpretation, it is true, the
suffix is pleonastic, but in other passages of this
author the suffix anticipates with emphasis the
subject following it in apposition, comp. chap.
ix. 1; 2 Chron. xxvi. 14, etc.; Ewald, J 209 c.
[This is a late Hebrew usage, an Aramaism; so
also HI without the article and before its noun
is emph'atie=thissame, thisvery. — Tr.] — Many
old people wept with a loud voice. — Not,
as it were, tears of joy, because they could now
again see the house of God arise; so also not
merely with tears of emotion, because they on this
occasion were again vividly reminded of the
evils they had passed through. The relative
clause : that had seen the first house give3
the sense very decidedly': they wept tears of sor-
row, because they could not conceal from them-
selves the fact that the new work, in accordance
with all the prevailing circumstances, promised
but little to attain unto the glory of the old. In
favor of this is also Hag. ii. 3 and Zech. iv. 10.
These tears were thus a proof that if only it had
been in any way possible, they would gladly
have made the new house as glorious as the old.
The second clause is then antithetical: but
many shouted aloud for joy — that is, were
in such a joyful condition that they could not but
be loud in their expression of joy.
Vor. 13. The meaning of the words: the people
could not discern the noise of the shouts
of joy from the noise of the weeping of
the people, can only be that both those who
rejoiced and those who wept were alike zealous
to express their feelings — so much so indeed that
the words which were sung could not be under-
stood.— For the people shouted with a
loud shout and the noise was heard afar
off. — fljtJnfl and Tip in this clause in distinction
from nnipfcyn JTynri in the first clause, can only
mean the cry in general. This confused cry
would be to the blame of the new congregation,
if the confusion itself had not been the result of
sacred enthusiasm for the cause of the Lord.
pirPD/'lj; stands for the more simple p'lrPO/
as in 2 Chron. xxvi. 15.
THOUGHTS TJPON THE HISTORY OP REDEMPTION.
Our chapter presents a beautiful picture of
the sacred enthusiasm of the new congregation
for the glory of God, and especially of their
commendable zeal for the restoration of the tem-
ple. In former times pious kings had provided
in this way for the worthy worship of God ; but
now here for the first time we see the congrega-
tion as a whole of their own accord stepping
forward in this manner. Such an inspiration
of heart had without doubt from the first been
rendered possible and brought about by the
severe judgment which God had sent upon them,
and by the hard oppression connected therewith.
It was like the break of a lovely spring day, full
of new life, after a storm. It did not by any
means secure them a result that must be secured
by them, without trials and hinderances ; but
yet they were finally to have a noble and great
success, yea, they gained a great importance for
the entire subsequent development of the con-
gregation and of the kingdom of God.
Vers. 1-3. That the congregation, as soon as
tbey could be assembled together as such, should
CHAP. III. 1-13.
41
feel above all impelled to build the Lord an altar
and offer burnt- offerings, was in accordance
with the command which Moses had once given
to the people to set up on Ebal, the navel of the
land, stones and inscribe thereon the law of the
Lord (Deut. xxvii. 1-8), and even so with the
other command to proclaim on this mountain
the curse for the transgressor, and on Gerizim
the blessing for the obedient, Deut. xi. 29-32 ;
xxvii. 9-26. If the ancient congregation had
by that act placed the land under the divine
commandment, and marked it as under the
Lord's jurisdiction, and put it under the obliga-
tion to obey Him, so the new congregation con-
secrated themselves by this worship unto Him,
aa entirely belonging to Him ; they confessed by
the burnt-offering in a symbolical manner, that
what they have, they have from the Lord, and
what they are, they are through Him, that thus
they must be entirely devoted to Him. As of-
ferings of homage, the burnt-offerings were bet-
ter calculated than others to inaugurate the new
beginning, the spring, which now broke forth
for the congregation after the long night of
winter.
Ver. 4. It was because of the season of the
year in which the congregation had arrived in
Canaan that the first feast which they could
again celebrate in accordance with the law was
the feast of tabernacles. At the same time,
however, we may see therein » special provi-
dence of God, which was at once lovely and sig-
nificant to the congregation. The booths adorned
with foliage and fruits had previously represented
as well the gracious help in the times of the
wilderness as also the gracious blessings of har-
vest in the present (not the tent-life in the wil-
derness as such, comp. my Abh. in der dcutschf.n
Zeitschrift, 1857, and my Komm. sit V. Mos.
XVI., and Keil's Archdol. I., S. 412 sqq.); cor-
responding with this, the booths now gained of
themselves a reference, on the one side, to the
exhibition of grace during the new prolonged
wilderness-time of the exile, which had entered
with so much gloom into the midst of the history
of Israel ; so to speak to the booths of protec-
tion and defiance which had arisen for the peo-
ple by the grace of the Lord even in the heathen
world, and on the other side to the new regain-
ing of Canaan, which, to a certain extent, was a
security and a pledge of all the further blessings
in store for them in this land. They expressed
the thanks which they owed to the Lord for both
of these blessings in an especially lively and
internal manner. This feast of tabernacles was
a festal and joyous conclusion of all the preser-
vations, consolations and blessings that were
behind them, connected with a joyous glance
into the future ; it was an evidence that a height
had been reached upon which finally even the
last height might be attained, an indication that
some day, after all their struggles and all their
labors, a still more glorious feast of tabernacles,
the Messianic, the eternal and truly blessed one,
would come. Comp. Zech. xiv.
Vers. 6, 7. The celebration of the feast of
tabernacles was followed by the preparation for
building the temple in an especially appropriate
and beiutiful manner. If the Lord had pro-
vided His congregation with booths of preserva-
tion, of consolation, and of joy, not only now in
Canaan, but even also in the times of the wil-
derness of the exile, how ought they now to
have felt impelled from the heart to build Him
a tabernacle also, in which His honor might
dwell, a tabernacle of God with men, at least
with and among His people ! The communion
with the Lord, which they had already enjoyed,
would have been no true one, if it had not been
connected with the desire that it should become
strengthened and made more intimate, and if
this desire had not now engaged in building the
temple. That is the great end of all providen-
tial guidances, that communion between Himself
and men, as it was prepared on His part by His
condescension, should become established and
enlivened more and more also on the part of
men; for the most part naturally through the
communion of the heart with Him, but also in
order that it might be cherished in the heart, by
the establishment, enlargement and completion
of the external means and institutions which
have been provided by God Himself for the pur-
pose. The blessings and gifts with which He
has blessed us should always be employed first
and chiefly for this purpose. And how greatly
are we shamed iu this respect by this weak con-
gregation of returned exiles, who were scarcely
able to sow and reap, and who yet had so much
left for the building of the temple.
Ver. 7. It was significant also that at this
building of the temple again it was not Canaan
proper, but the Phoenician Lebanon, that pro-
vided the building-material and that correspond-
ing with this heathen workmen and artists also
took part in erecting the house of God. It
indicates that the rest of the earth also, and cor-
responding thereto, the rest of mankind, are to
render their gifts and capacities, which are
more and more to take part in the complete and
true worship of the Lord, that the Lord by no
means regards them as profane. The rest of
the earth and mankind became thereby, to a
certain extent, consecrated in advance and de-
signated as one who, if now already in the Old
Testament economy, yet still more some day in
the fulness of time, would take part in the high-
est destiny of Israel. Comp. the beautiful re-
marks of Biihr on 1 Kings v.
Vers. 8, 9. It was not a single head, as ones
with Solomon, from whom now the building of
the temple proceeded ; with Zerubbabel and
Jeshua, at the same time all the returned exile3
equally took part, as it is expressly said. That
the entire congregation should take part freely
in the highest work of humanity is the great
object in view in all the divine providential gui-
dances. Connected with this, however, the con-
gregation gave a Levitical family the charge
of conducting the work of building, accord-
ingly in their choice of officers fell in with tho
regulations made and sanctified by God already
long before, and thus certainly took the best
action, Bince indeed in the tribe of Levi the
interest in the house of God was still cherished
in the most lively manner, and the understand-
ing of what was necessary or appropriate was
most surely preserved. That is always the
most salutary and beautiful when the free re-
cognition or choice on the part of the congrega-
3
42
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
tiou and the arrangements objectively present
ou the part of God harmoniously combine.
Vers. 12, 13. With respect to the expressions
of joy and sorrow at the laying of the founda-
tion of the temple, every step by which we
at.cuipt to draw near to our highest end, the
confirmation of our communion with God, should
become a joyous feast. For the nearer we
approach this end, the more there comes into
view not only the true reverence of the Lord,
but also the fulness of redemption and life, of
righteousness, of peace, and of joy, involved
therein. The farther off we remain therefrom,
the more do unrighteousness, discord and mis-
chief threaten to prevail. In fact nothing is so
•well calculated to exalt the hearts of the chil-
dren of God from within outward, to fill them
with sacred joy and attune them to festivity, as
the coming of the kingdom of God. Ewald
properly conjectures that at the time of the lay-
ing of the foundation (we must understand the
times of the building of the temple and those
that immediately followed as included therein),
many a grand song resounded afresh, as the
118th Ppalm, a song of festivity and sacrifice
expressing the feelings of that period with such
wonderful depth ; and that they soon, as they
again made pilgrimages to the ancient Beat of
true religion and the Davidic sovereignty, as
well as the sanctuary itself (so Psalm lxxxvii.),
as also on the joyous pilgrim-march, sang a rich
Abundance of new songs of great power and en-
chanting inwardness, such as had hardly arisen
since the time of David in such streaming full-
ness and creative life (so Ps. cxx.— exxxiv. ).
Comp. Ewald, Gesch. IV., S. 131, 133. In the
profound llGth Psalm: "I love the Lord be-
cause he hath heard my voice and my supplica-
tions," the voice of joy mingled with sorrow,
then so general, has found an appropriate and
particular expression, which is so beautiful, that
the pious king Fred. William IV. of Prussia, in
his last severe affliction, chose it for his prayer.
In the cxiii. Psalm, however, "Praise, 0 ye
servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord
— the Lord is high above all nations, and His
glory above the heavens," there is combined,
in the same characteristic manner, the thought
of the lowliness and poverty that they then so
severely felt, and the praise for the exaltation
which had now taken place. Especially, how-
ever, Psalm cvii. belongs here wilh its remem-
brance of all the different afflictions and dangers
through which they had passed with God's help
and with its constantly recurring refrain: ''0
that men would praise the Lord for Ilia good-
ness, and for His wonderful works to the chil-
dren of men;" and probably also Psalm cvi., with
ils prayer that the Lord would still further ga-
ther them from among the heathen and redeem
them from trouble. If we still so often, on our
part, have a lack of joy and suffer from depres-
sion of spirits, and if even in better hours a pres-
sure remains upon the soul, of which we are at
times scarcely clearly conscious, then even this
sadness may redound to the glory of God, that is,
be a divine sorrow, which has ils ground in the
f.ict that we cannot serve God as we would wish,
and as would be really worthy of Him. Under
such circumstances we should not lack beams of
hope, or rather of promise, that would be able to
transfigure them.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-6. The feast of the redeemed: 1) They
present their offerings to God ; 0) for the redemp-
tion for which they are thankful to the Lord, and
for which they owe all to Him ; b) notwithstand-
ing the hostility of the world, which indeed
grieves them and hinders them in many ways ex-
ternally, but cannot hold them back from that
which is essential ; c) they consecrate themselves
by a daily dedication of themselves. 2) They
celebrate especially a feast of tabernacles ; a) as
preserved in the desert of the world and deli-
vered therefrom ; b) as richly blessed in the land
of the Lord ; c) as called to the eternal taberna-
cles of joy. 3) They advance the building of
the house and kingdom of God ; a) they conse-
crate for this purpose their possessions and gifts ;
b) they seek therefore also to add thereto that
which is Euitable in the world — all (1, 2 and 3) on
the ground of and according to the prescriptions
of the word of God. — Brentius: Nobis quotidie
hoc festum celebrandum est, quod turn celebratur,
dum docemus et sentimus, nos esse peregrinos in hoc
mundo et in tabernaeulis corporis nostri brevi duran-
tibus, nostrum politeuma esse in ccelo. Starke :
How lovely and necessary is brotherly love among
the children of God ! Especially in the building
of the spiritual temple under Christ should there
be one heart and one soul, and each one should
stand as all and all as one man, Acts ii. 44; iv.
32 ; Ps. exxxiii. 2. If we would again properly
reform and re-establish the worship of God, God's
word must be the law, rule, lamp, and guiding
star, Ps. xix. 6 ; xxiii. 4 ; cxix. 105. Although
believers have the commandment and promise of
God before them, yet the human heart is often so
weak that it is easily frightened; but we should
here be at the same time blind and dumb, and
not look to the present state of affairs, but rely
upon God's word alone, Prov. xviii. 10.
Vers. 6-10. How the house (kingdom) of God
is built: 1) by the offerings of men; a) by the
possessions and gifts of the congregation ; 6) by
appropriating and using that which is useful in
the world ; c) under the protection of the civil
authorities (" according to the permission of
Cyrus"). 2) By the activity not only of the
heads but also of the other members. The heads
have their work to do as leaders, but the rest
have freely to co-operate, they have to assist
those who according to the divine arrangement
have the charge of affairs, encourage them and
strengthen them. 3) By the faithfulness of of-
ficers to their duties. God has ordained officers
for the sake of order. There is not only the of-
fice of priests, but also that of their helpers, the
teachers, and especially also fathers and mothers.
— Starke : God distributes His gifts in many
ways ; to one He gives talents for one work, to
another for another, 1 Cor. xii. 7 sq. The spi-
ritual temple should also be urged ou in all ranks
of society with all energy, in order that the peo-
ple may be built up into an holy temple in the
Lord, Ez. ii. 22. Preachers and magistrates, in-
structors also, and parents, thus build a temple
when they properly teach and preach, preserv*
CHAP. TV. 1-24.
43
discipline and honesty, and bring up the youth
to piety.
Vers. 11-13. The joy of the congregation of
the Lord : 1) Its ground — the laying of the foun-
dation of the house of God ; God on Ilia part would
have a dwelling among men, for this He has accom-
complished the work of redemption, especially the
incarnation, the atonement, and the establishment
of the Church; the congregation on their part
constitute ever some part of the beginning of the
house of God. 2) Its kind — it is a fe3tive joy,
and expresses itself accordingly in music and
songs in praise of the Lord, but is still saddened,
because the house of God still continues to lack
the true glory. 3) Its significance, — its incom-
pleteness of itself, points to its fulfilment. —
Starke : Christ is the true foundation and cor-
ner-stone of His church (Ps. cxviii. 22 ; Isa.
xxviii. 1G ; 1 Cor. iii. 11), in whom wo highly
rejoice, and on whose account we have to praise
God. Experience of previous times often gives
an impulse to correct judgment ; sometimes how-
ever unbelief derives an evil example and sup-
port therefrom. The inward joy of the Spirit
should suppress all temporal sorrows, so that we
should not hear the weeping for the joy.
[Scott: The greater difficulties and the more
formidable enemies we are exposed to, the more we
need th e friendship and assistance of God. — In this
world joys and sorrows will be blended, for it is a
mixed state ; hereafter there will be a complete
separation. — Henry: Let worldly business be
postponed to the business of religion and it will
prosper the better. — They that do not work them-
selves may yet do good service by quickening
and encouraging those that do work. — Tr.]
B.— THE INTERRUPTION AND AN ORIGINAL DOCUMENT RESPECTING THE MACHI-
NATIONS OF THE ENEMIES.
Chapter IV. 1-24.
I. The Interruption of the Building of the Temple. Vers. 1-5.
1 Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of
2 the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel ; Then they came to
Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with
you : for we seek your God, as ye do ; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days
3 of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and
Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have
nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God ; but we ourselves together
will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath com-
4 manded us. Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Ju-
5 dah, and troubled them in building, And hired counsellors against them, to frus-
trate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of
Darius king of Persia.
II. An Original Document respecting the Hostile Machinations. Vers. 6-24.
6 And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him
7 an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. And in the days
of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions,
unto Artaxerxes king of Persia ; and the writing of the letter was written in the
8 Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue. Rehum the chancellor and
Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this
9 sort : Then wrote Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of
their companions ; the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Aphar-
sites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the
10 Elamites, And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnapper brought
over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river,
11 and at such a time. This is the copy of the letter that they sent unto him, even
unto Artaxerxes the king ; Thy servants the men on this side the river, and at such
12 a time. Be it known unto the king, that the Jews which came up from thee to us
are come unto Jerusalem, building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up
44
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
13 the walls thereof, and joined the foundations. Be it known now unto the king, that
if this city be builded, and the walls set up again, then will they not pay toll,
14 tribute, and custom, and so thou shalt endamage the revenue of the kings. Now
because we have maintenance from the king's palace, and it was not meet for us to
15 see the king's dishonour, therefore have we sent and certified the king ; That search
may be made in the book of the records of thy fathers : so shalt thou find iu the
book of the records, and kuow that this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful unto
kings and provinces, and that they have moved sedition within the same of old
16 time : for which cause was this city destroyed. We certify the king that, if this
city be builded again, and the walls thereof set up, by this means thou shalt have
17 no portion on this sida the river. Then sent the king an answer unto Rehum the
chancellor, and to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their companions that
dwell in Samaria, and unto the rest beyond the river, Peace, and at such a tim?.
18, 19 The letter which ye sent unto us hath been plainly read before me. And I
commanded, and search hath been made, and it is found that this city of old time
hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been
20 made therein. There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, which have
ruled over all countries beyond the river ; and toll, tribute, and custom was paid
21 unto them. Give ye now commandment to cause these men to cease, and that this
22 city be not builded, until another commandment shall be given from me. Take
heed now that ye fail not to do this : why should damage grow to the hurt of the
23 kings? Now when the copy of king Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum,
and Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem
24 unto the Jews, and made them to cease by force and power. Then ceased the work
of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of
the reign of Darius king of Persia.
EXEGETICAL AND CSITICAL.
Vers. 1—5. The interruption. Vers. 1-3 first
give its occasion. When the enemies of Judah
and Benjamin heard of the undertaking in Jeru-
salem, they wished to unite with them in build-
ing. They are called the adversaries, not of
the children of the captivity, but of Judah and
Benjamin, because their opposition and hos-
tility had arisen already in pre-exile times, and
indeed against the southern kingdom, which was
then most suitably called that of Judah and Ben-
jamin. nVtjn '33 — children or members of the
T _ ...
captivity, i3 the name given to (he returned ex-
iles in chap. vi. 19 sq. ; viii. 35; x. 7, 16, etc.;
so also briefly !T7Un — e. g., chap. i. 11. In or-
der to establish their claim they maintain: We
seek your God as ye (do). — EHT with h or
7N, also with the simple accusative, is the con-
stant expression for our somewhat colorless ex-
pression worship God ; properly it is to turn to
God with petition or questions, or with desires
in general, to apply to Him. — And sacrifice
unto him since the days of E3arhaddon,
etc.— The Kelhib: "we do not offer" cannot well
mean: we do not off^r to oihcr gods, for then it
would be necessary to mention expressly these
other gods. If it were original to the text it
might perhaps simply have the sense we did not
offer at all, not even to Jehovah, since we well
knew that Jehovah would accept offering only at
the one legitimate place of worship at Jerusalem.
Then it would involve the meaning that they
would gladly sacrifice to Jehovah, and on this
very account desired to take part in building tho
temple at Jerusalem. But this view is opposed
by the fact that they then would without doubt
have too openly and boldly gone in the face of
all truth, since they certainly had very many
altars and sacrificed often enough. Moreover the
emphatic position of UrUX does not accord with
this view ; besides, in such a case we would ex-
pect the pcrf. IJrD! instead of the part. D'HUt.
It is very probable that «7 here, as in fifteen
other passages (comp. e. g. Ex. xxi. 8 ; 1 Sam. ii.
3 ; 2 Sam. xvi. 18 ; 2 Kings viii. 10) is for "iS,
in consequence of a mistake, or of design, in that
they would state that their sacrifices did not pro-
perly deserve the name of sacrifices, as then u
likewise is found iu Qeri, and is read by Esdras
(oiru), by Sept., Syriac, and also indeed by the
Vulg., which at least does not have the nega-
tive. Since the speakers designate themselves
as those whom Esar-haddon had brought into
their present abode (comp. B'ahr on 2 Kings xiv.
37), we have to identify them beyond question
with those colonists referred to in 2 Kings xvii.,
with the Samaritans so-called, whom the king
of Assyria, 2 Kings xvii. 24, had brought up out
of Babylon, Cutha, and other eastern countries,
into the cities of Samaria. These colonists, when
they first settled in Canaan, it is true, did not
fear Jehovah ; it was not till a considerable later
period that they asked for an Israelite priest out
of Assyria, in order to be instructed by him in
tho worship of Jehovah ; but the word3 : since
the days when Esar-haddon brought us up, are
either a somewhat inexact statement, or are to
bo explained from their efforts to date their wor-
CHAP. IV. 1-24.
45
ship of Jehovah as far back as possible. Kno-
bel (Zur Geschichte der Samaritaner, Denkschr. der
Gesellsch. fiir Wissensch. und Kunst in Giessen, I.
1, 8. 147 sqq.), on account of these wordB, impro-
perly holds them for those who had emigrated
from Assyria with the Israelite priests. It is clear
from our passage that the colonization spoken of
in 2 Kings xvii., if it perhaps had already begun
under Sargon and Sennacherib, yet chiefly took
place under Bsar-haddon. With this agree the
cuneiform inscriptions, in accordance with which
Esar-haddon had despoiled, not expressly, it is
true, the land of the ten tribes, but yet Syria and
Phoenicia of their ancient inhabitants, and pro-
vided them with new ones, comp. Schrader, I. c,
upon our passage.* The occasion of this request
of the Samaritans, was the correct recognition
of the fact that those who should have the tem-
ple at Jerusalem, would be regarded as the lead-
ing nation, whilst those who should be excluded
from this central point of the worship of the
land would appear as less authorized, as intru-
sive; they likewise no doubt expected, if they
were admitted to participation in the building
of the temple, as well as to consultation with
reference to it, to gain thereby influence in
shaping the affairs of the congregation in gene-
ral. If in addition to this they had also a reli-
gious interest in the matter, it was only in order
to secure for themselves the favor of tlie God of
the land, whom they recognised as Jehovah, and
then therewith also the same possessions and
blessings in their new home as the Jews designed
for themselves. We cannot regard them as actu-
ated by any higher and purer motive, — for their
entire subsequent behaviour, which makes thera
appear as quite indifferent to religious affairs, and
also that which we elsewhere learn of their reli-
gion, is opposed to that view. That which is
Baid in 2 Kings xvii. on this subject cannot be
understood (as Ba.hr on that chap.) as stating
that they only in part retained their heathen
gods, that many had already worshipped Jehovah
only, that these latter had worshipped Him, if
indeed in the form of a bull, yet, as the only
God. There is no distinction between the differ-
ent classes; for ver. 33 is not, as Ba.hr translates,
"there were also worshippers of Jehovah," — but
it is said of all ; they feared Jehovah, and served
their own gods, and of all it is then likewise said
in ver. 34: "they feared not Jehovah;" they
prayed to Jehovah only as one of many, only as
a limited being, only as an idol, not as the only
true God. It is true the question then arises
whether this syncretistic stand-point that in no
respect can be regarded as even an approxima-
tive worship of Jehovah, that in truth was only
ordinary heathenism, was still maintained by
• [Also Smith, the Assyrian Canon, p. 138, and Rawlin-
BOn in loco, who aays : " There appear to have been at
least three colonizations of Samaria by the Assyrian
kings. Sargon, soon after his conquest, replaced the
captives whom he had carried off by colonists from Ba-
bylonia and from Hamath (2 Kings xvii. 24). Later in
his reign he added to these first settlers an Arabian ele-
ment (Ancient Monarchies, II., p. 415). Some thirty or
forty years afterwards, Esar-haddon, his grandson,
largely augmented the population of colonists drawn
from various parts of the empire, but especially from
the southeast, Susiana, Elymais, and Persia. Thus the
later Samaritans were an exceedingly mixed race."—
Tb.J
them in the times subsequent to the exile, whe-
ther they had not made an advance in religion
beyond it. The question is, how the remnant
of the ten tribes, who had maintained themselves
in their habitations in the midst of the colonists,
especially according to Jer. xli. 4 sq. ; and 2
Chron. xxxiv. 9, 1U (comp. B'ahr on 2 Kings
xvii., S. 401, and N'dgelsbach on Jer. xli. 4sq.),
acted both with reference to these colonists in
general, and to the claim here made by them.
But if the long prevailing opinion were correct
that the Samaritans for the most part consisted
of the Israelites who remained in the land at the
exile, so that they might be regarded as an actual
continuation of the people of the ten tribes, and
the heathen elements umong them had become
more and more conformed to the Israelites, we
cannot conceive why they did not. maintain al-
ready now this their external and internal con-
nection with Israel as well as on later occasions
whenit suited them so to do. That would have been
the strongest reason that could have influenced
the Jews to admit their claim. For great and
rcspeoted predecessors, as Hezekiah, 2 Chron.
xxx.; and Josiah, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 66, had ex-
pressly occupied themselves in attracting the
remnants of Israel to the worship of Jehovah at
Jerusalem. At first the remnant may have kept
themselves concealed from the new comers and
the masters of the land, by contenting themselves
with the more distant regions and lurking-
places of the mountains. They certainly consti-
tuted merely despised and scattered bands, which
neither sought nor offered any communication,
whom therefore the colonists could not trust.
Otherwise they would not have had a priest
sent to them from Assyria, when they wished to
worship Jehovah as the god of the land, comp.
2 Kings xvii. 2. Very soon, it is true, many of
them approached the colonists, and mixed with
them by marriage; but instead of exerting any
influence in shaping them, they rather subordi-
nated themselves — of themselves having quite a
strong inclination to heathenism — to the colonists
as the more powerful and more favored on the part
of the government and united with them in their
manners and customs, and also in their religion,
so that they more and more disappeared among
them. This is very clear partly from the way in
which the Samaritans here speak of themselves,
partly from their subsequent actions, in that
they in contrast to the Jews still preferred to be
the representatives of the royal prerogatives of
Persia, and designate themselves after their As-
syrian places of origin (comp. ver. 7 sq. ), but
give not the slightest hint of a connection with
the ancient Israelites, or of having been in any
way modified by them.* Therefore it is impro-
bable that they should have been influenced by
these latter in making their claim upon the new
congregation, as Berth, and after him Keil sup-
poses. If they subsequently more and more deci-
dedly went over to monotheism and the observa-
* It was not until very late that their historians in-
vented a return of three hundred thousand men from
the Assyrian banishment, and a new establishment of
ancient Israel in the midst of the land by this great
band, and especially on Mt. Gerizim. (Comp. Abulfatah's
Arab. Chronik. in Paulns' Memorabilien, II., S. 54-100,
and in the Samaritan hook of Joshua, published at Ley-
den, in 1848. Vid. Ewald IV., S. 125.)
46
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
tion of the Mosaic law, they were moved thereto,
not by the remnants of Israel, which had blended
with them, but by the Jews themselves. They
would not remain behind the new congregation
in Jerusalem, for they could not conceal from
themselves on reflection that the stand-point of
the religion of Jehovah, as it was represeuted in
Jerusalem, was higher than their own. And it
was for this reason that they then accepted the
first Manasseh, and under his direction built
the temple on Qerizim, by which circumstance
the transformation was as a matter of course still
further favored. Besides this there was the en-
tire tendency of those times that was decidedly
towards a higher and more spiritual worship of
God. Moreover, in addition to such fragments
of Israel as were lost among the Samaritans,
others still were left in the land who sought to
preserve their independence. It is probable
that these, who were of themselves more devoted
to the religiou of Jehovah, let themselves be di-
rected by the judgments that passed over their
kingdom, and the contrast that was exhibited
between themselves and the colonists, still more
decidedly to Jerusalem and the worship there
conducted. In favor of this view is the fact that
some of them already in the time of Josiah
contributed to the restoration of the temple in
Jerusalem (2 Chron. xxxiv. 9, 10), and that
still after the destruction of the temple eighty
men of Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria came
in mourning to bring their gifts to the place
where up to this time they had worshipped,
Jer. xli. 5, 6. In accordance with some other
evidence, there were still at the time such better
elements in the northern region of the land.
Among those who hail separated themselves
from the impurities of the nations to unite with
the returned exiles in seeking Jehovah (ch. vi. 21)
belonged probably at least remnants of Israel
as well as of Judah. And this sheds light upou
the obscure question, how we are to account for
the origin of the Jewish population in Galilee.
Bertheau properly remarks with reference to
such better elements: "They are the ancestors
of a great part of the Jews whom we meet in
subsequent times in northern Palestine." There
in northern Palestine they had not been dis-
lodged by the colonists, who occupied the cities
of Samaria. There, as to their old ancestral
abodes, and to their kindred, must those return
who now and subsequently gradually returned
from aDy of the ten tribes. It is possible, in-
deed, that this better remnant of the northern
kingdom soon still more decidedly than the
Samaritans directed their attention to the tem-
ple at Jerusalem. But perhaps they had not
yet concluded what relation they should assume
to the congregation at Jerusalem ; we may sup-
pose that it was in consequence of the impulse
that went forth from Jerusalem for them cer-
tainly much more than for the Samaritans, that
they reflected more deeply upon themselves, and
finally attached themselves to the worship at
Jerusalem.
Ver. 3. The Jews refused the Samaritans.
The Bing. "inN,l is used not only because the
number of the verb is freer when it precedes
the subject, but because Zerubbabel was the
chief person who gave the answer; e. g. Zerub-
babel spake in agreement with Jeshua, etc.
Jeshua and the heads of the fathers of Israel
had united in the answer. vSOtJ^ is used with
7, and accordingly is not the slat. abs. of the fore-
going ni'3Nn, for otherwise this would not have the
article, according to the usual combination with
'^K"). — Ye have nothing to do -with us to
build, that is, it is not for you and us in common ;
comp. the expression " what is to me and thee,"
namely, in common, Jos. n. 24; Judges xi. 12;
2 Kings iii. 13. In that they say : house — not
unto God, as chap. i. 4, but unto our God, they
mean that Jehovah belongs to them more than
to the Samaritans, yea, to them alone. — But
we ourselves together=we as a compact
unity, excluding others. They might appeal to
the decree of Cyrus in this refusal, since if they
were obliged to admit the Samaritans, they
would not have gained, according to their feel-
ings and knowledge, that which they had the
right to expect from it, namely, an undisturbed
worship of Jehovah in all its tiuth, free from all
dangers. It is true it could not escape the con-
gregation, that it was a very serious matter to
make those their enemies who had probably
connections, consideration and influence at the
seat of government, and who naturally regarded
themselves as the outposts and guardians of the
sovereignty of Persia in Canaan. But never-
theless the dangers to which they would have
exposed themselves by a union with these Sa-
maritans who appeared so objectionable, espe-
cially in a religious point of view, would have
been far greater, and they should not be
charged with too great anxiety, or one that
cannot be entirely approved (against Ewald,
Gcsch. IV., S. 125, 135). Those who gradually
imitated them when they kept themselves pure
from their mixed religion, and through them
were impelled to a monotheistic development,
would, if they had gained an influence and
rightful position in Jerusalem from the begin-
ning, have involved them in their heathen doubt
and obscurity. Their renunciation of the exter-
nal advantages which were set before them by
the proffered alliance was the result, on the one
side, of a correct appreciation of that which
they must regard as of the most importance,
and on the other side of a candid and humble
recognition of their weakness. As a matter of
course they were obliged to take an entirely
different course with reference to the remnants
of the northern kingdom, when these in another
way began to seek Jehovah again in sincerity,
and on this account desired to be admitted into
Jerusalem. That they did not fail in this par-
ticular we see in the circumstance that the Gali-
lean ever had an undisputed admission.
Vers. 4, 5. The consequence of this refusal
was the interruption of the building of the tem-
ple. The Samaritans are called the people of
the land in ver. 4 because they, at least until
this time had been the proper inhabitants of the
land, and at all events constituted the chief part
of the population. As such they were strong
enough to slacken the hands of the people of
Judah, that is, the people now inhabiting Judah.
CHAP. IV. 1-24.
47
iTfliT, already in pre-exile times the name of
the southern kingdom is used here also as the
name of the country (comp. ver. 6). HTl with
the part, (slackening and affrighting) expresses
the oontinuance of the action; the second parti-
ciple is explanatory of the first, fVljy? DTwDO,
affrighting with reference to building=from
building. The Kethib DTI75O is sufficiently
established by the noun nrH3 (Isa. xvii. 14)
and by the Syriac ; the Qeri, D'/HDIp, prefers the
usual form 7H3. — Without doubt they threat-
ened the Jews with violence, and with punishment
on the part of the government, as sooni as they
had frustrated the edict of Cyrus. — They hired
counsellors against them — for a cancelling
of the edict according to ver. 5, in that they
were able to influence probably the ministers to
whom chap. vii. 28 and viii. 25 refer, or other
influential persons, to give advice to Cyrus un-
favorable to the Jews. At court they naturally
did not understand how it could be that those
who were as much the inhabitants of the land
as the returned exiles, and therefore seemed
entitled to the God of the land, should be ex-
cluded. If Cyrus had seen in Jehovah his own
supreme God, it must have been all the more an-
noying to him that those who apparently had the
best intentions of worshipping Him, should be
rejected. It would seem as if the reason why
the Jews opposed the union could only be a na-
tional and political one, and the suspicion was
quite natural, that they already designed to form
not merely a religious community, but also had
national and political designs, that they thus gave
an entirely false interpretation to the decree of
Cyrus. The part. 0'^?^ is in continuation of
the part, of the previous verse ; 133 is a later
form of ~\3V). The time during which they suc-
ceeded in frustrating the purposes of the Jews,
(for which liin is to a certain extext the term,
teehn.), consisted of about fourteen years — from
about the third year of Cyrus in Babylon (comp.
Dan. x. 2 sq. ) until the second of Darius, comp.
Hag. i. 1.
Vers. 6-22 contains the original document re-
specting the hostile efforts of the Samaritans.
The author adds what the Samaritans did and
accomplished in the time of Ahasuerus and Ar-
taxerxes, and the question arises first of all, what
kings were meant under these names ?* Most
ancient and modern interpreters, (comp. J. H.
Michaelis, in loco.) had supposed that the au-
thor from ver. G onward would explain why the
building of the temple was discontinued for so
long a time, as stated in ver. 5, that he then en-
tered into the period between Cyrus and Darius.
They were led to this opinion by ver. 24, which
leads over to Darius, and what happened under
him, in such a manner that it seems certainly, at
* Kleinert already in the Beitragen der Dorp. Profes-
toren Theol., 1832, Bd. 1, had to a certain extent pointed
to the correct opinion, which has been commonly re-
cognized, as in my article " Cyrus der Grosse" Stud. u.
Krlt. 1S53, S. 624 sqq. ; by Baihihger. Stud. u. Krit. 1857,
S. 87 sqq. ; by Hengst., Christologie II., S. 143 ; by Berth,
and Keil in their Commentaries, et al..
first, as if the kings mentioned here in vers. 6
and 7 had ruled before him. Luther, from this
point of view, united this 6th verse by "for" to
the previous verse, instead of by the conjunction
"and," and some, as Hartmann in the Chron.
bibl., have appealed to this " for " as if it stood
in the original text. Ahasuerus must, accord-
ingly, have been Cambyses, Artaxerxes, Pseudo-
Smerdis (so still Ewald, Gesch. IV., S. 137, and
Kohler in Komm. zu. den. nachexil. Proph.*).
Cut the strongest objections at once arise against
this view. How is it that these two kings should
have names given them that they bear no where
else ? How can we suppose that whilst all other
Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian kings bear es-
sentially the same names among the Israelites
with which they elsewhere appear, these two
kings on one occasion should have had entirely
different names among the Jews from those
among their own people ; for among the Persians
Cambyses, so far as we know, only bore the name
of Cambyses (old Persian Kambudschja), Sraerdia
however, after whom the Ps. Smerdis named him-
self, had only that of Tanyoxares or Tanyoxarkea
{Cyrop. VIII. 7, and Ctesias, Pers. fr. 8-13), or
also Orapastes (Justin. Hist. I. 9), which name
cannot be identified with NjTOK/nrnK. This
supposition is still less admissible, in that both
these names every where elie in the Old Test,
designate other kings, and the same as those who
had the corresponding names among the Per-
sians. Ahasuerus, in the book of Esther, as is
now generally recognized, is Xerxes ; in Dan. ix.
1, the Median king Cyaxares. These two Greek
terms, Xerxes and Cyaxares, may be readily de-
rived from the Persian fundamental forms of
these names, which we find in the cuneiform in-
scriptions, Khsay or Khsay-arsa, by modification
of vowels. So also the Hebrew term K'niK'nK,
However NflOUTiniX is in Ezra vii. and viii.
and so also in the book of Nehemiah, without
question, Artaxerxes (Machrochir). It is true that
it is there written KilOE'rimx (with DW), in our
passage, however, NHE'iSnnin (with K't?) ; but
a different person cannot be inferred from this
difference in writing. This is clear from vi. 14,
where the name is written as it is here, and yet
must be referred to a Persian king ruling subse-
quently to Darius — certainly, therefore, to Ar-
taxerxes Machrochir. In connection with these
names that are used in our section, some other
marks beside which point beyond Darius, gain
importance. If the sixth verse really came as is
supposed to speak explanatory of the previous
interval of time, it would at least have been more
natural to connect with the conjunct, "for," as
indeed Luther, without reason, has supplied it,
rather than by "and." At the outset it is im-
probable that Pseudo-Smerdis should have had
time during his brief reign (only seven months)
to reply to his officers in the manner narrated in
vers. 7-23; namely, after an accurate investiga-
tion with reference to the previous conduct of
the Jews. In the letter of the Samaritans, or
rather of the Persian officers among them, to the
king, it no longer has to do with the building
* [So also Rawlinson in loco, who refers to the "well-
known fact of history," that Persian kings had often
two names. — Ta.]
43
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
of the temple, hut only with that of the city and
its walls, which is all the more remarkable, as in
the letter to Darius in chap. v. 6sq. the temple
throughout is in the foreground Furthermore
Bertheau properly reminds us in notes on ver.
4 that if the transaction with these kings had
already previously transpired, the question of
the Persian officers in the time of Darius, who
had given Ihe Jews commandment to build the
house of God, would not have been very appro-
priate. Moreover the Jews would have spoken
of the steps of the Samaritans and the prohibition
of KHEJlJnrnX when it must have been obliga-
tory upon them to explain to the Persian officers
in chap. v. 16 why the building already begun
under Cyrus had not been completed. By all
these circumstances we are compelled to under-
stand by Bmiunx really Xerxes, and by
X/WBTtrnX really Artaxerxes, and to refer our
section accordingly to the period subsequent to
Darius. If it is objected to this view that the
answer of NfltyBTiniN does not accord with the
sending of Ezra under Artaxerxes in chap, vii.;
so far as the one was unfavorable to the Jews and
the other favorable, the fact is overlooked that in
his answer (ver. 21) the king expressly reserves
another coiuman I, which possibly would ordain
the building of the city and its walls. When,
however, Ewald (Gesch. IV. S. 138) asserts that
in the time of Artaxerxes no intelligent person
could any longer speak thus of the building of
the city and its walls, as is the case in the letter
of the Samaritans, the book of Nehemiah shows
how very necessary it still was that the city
should be built up, and the walls re-established
even after Ezra. That which really appears to
be against, the view here advocated, is the man-
ner in which ver. 24 passes over from this king
to Darius. By the use of one and the same verb
in ver. 21 (give ye now commandment to cause
these men to cease), in ver. 23 (they went up to
Jerusalem and made them cease) and in ver. 24
(then ceased the work) and apparently also by
the use of VI^S at the beginning of ver. 24. the
twenty-fourth verse is so closely united to the
previous context, that it in fact seems to contain
the result of that which immediately precedes.
Hence then Herzfeld also [Gesch. Israels I., S.
303) and Schrader (Smd. u. Krit., 1867, S. 469)
have supposed that our section, if it indeed ori-
ginally extended to the time of Xerxes and Ar-
taxerxes, must be referred by the author of our
book, notwithstanding all, to Cambyses and
Pseudo Smerdis, who placed it here under an
error. But no real necessity for such a doubtful
supposition can be found. The verb 7Q3 might
be written by the author again, in ver. 24, after
that he had used it in vers. 21-23, notwithstand-
ing he was here treating of a previous time.
The temporal particle J'^^3, moreover, which in
itself has the indefinite meaning of "illo tem-
pore" can just as well refer to the beginning as
to the middle or the end of the time spoken of
before. If the twenty-fourth verse had been
placed at the beginning nf the fifth chapter in-
stead of at the end of the fourth chapter, it would
apparently occasion us no difficulty at all in giving
it its proper reference. Should it be objected
that such an anticipation of later events as the
view here advocated involves in vers. 6—23, is in
itself improbable, this objection is removed to a
certain extent by chap. vi. 14, from which it re-
sults that our author was readily iuclined to con-
nect together in the closest way Artaxerxes and
his time with Darius and the previous times. In
this passage, where the elders of Judah in the
time of Darius are spoken of, and where it is
said of them, they built and completed in con-
sequence of the prophecies of Haggai and Zecha-
riah, and on the commandment of the God of Is-
rael, and on the commandment of Cyrus and
Darius, the additional clause -'and Artaxerxes"
is still more singular than in our passage. As
the author there would embrace all who had af-
forded the congregation justice, protection, and
help up to the time of Ezra, so here he might
have very well had the intention of at once put-
ting together summarily all the interruptions that
were occasioned by the Samaritans. In as much
as here the narrative was "f their operations, it
was really the best place for this purpose. Be-
sides, another reason probably co-operated. The
author probably had at his command no other
document respecting the machinations of the
Samaritans and their success at the court of Per-
sia than this one of the time of Artaxerxes.
Since now, as we have shown in the introduc-
tion, it was his method to accompany everything
as far as possible with original documents, since
moreover besides it was of the highest impor-
tance to justify by such a document the beha-
viour of the Jewish congregation towards the
Samaritans, which had such great, severe, and
long-lasting consequences, he here inserted it,
after that he had made the transition through
ver. 6 to the latter period, since the disposition
of the Samaritans in the somewhat later period
here meeting us, was, to a certain extent, an evi-
dence likewise of their previous hostility ; and
the disturbinginterference which theyoccasioned
according to the letter of Artaxerxes, was only
the continuation of previous interruptions.
Ver. 6. And in the reign of Ahasuerus in
the beginning of his reign, wrote they an
accusation, etc. — This shows the zeal of the Sa-
maritans; at once and at the very outset they
sought to prejudice this king against the Jews.
If the time of Darius, which had been favorable
to the Jews, during which the Samaritans had
impatiently waited for a change of affairs, had
passed, this zeal can the more readily be ex-
plained. nJOti', hostility (comp. Gen. xxvi: 21)
has here the special meaning of accusation, just as
jtDtJ' readily gains the special meaning of accuser.
Since the author does not enter into particulars
with reference to this writing of accusation, or
even say whether it had any results at all, it
seems here to be mentioned only in order briefly
to show that the Samaritans, even in the subse-
quent period, were still active, and in order thus
to give a transition to the following narrative as
the principal thing.
Ver. 7. And in the days of Artaxerxes
■wrote Bishlam, etc. — The Jewish congregation
probably increased from the time of the building
of the temple onward, and under Artaxerxes
thought more seriously of re-establishing the
walls of the city, which then likewise through
CHAP. IV. 1-24.
49
Nehcraiah actually took place. Bislam, Mithre-
dath, Tabeel, etc., accordingly went to work anew
against them. These names certainly indicate
Samaritans who without being Persian officials,
enjoyed just as Sanballat subsequently, a certain
degree of consequence. The pure Persian name
Mithredath need not astonish us, since even Ze-
rubbabel had a similar one (Sheshbazzar). We
should expect instead of lrVUS, for which the
qeri has the usual form VrfOS, in accordance with
vers. 9, 17, 23; chap. V 3, etc., Dnto. To
whom the sing, suffix properly refers, whether
to the first named Bislam or to the last named
Tabeel is doubtful, is yet without any real im-
portance. DJ3, from which our plural is to be
derived (comp. Ewald, \ 187 d) is contracted
from ni33 as mi), Gen. xlix. 22 from nnl) and
niriN for nnX "from nTIN or fllTIX (comp. Olsh.
$198c). It is notfound elsewhere inHebrew,and
was here without doubt chosen simply with refer-
ence to ver. 9; in Aramaio it is more frequent.
Formed from T123 it designates those qui eodem
cog nomine, sive titulo utitur, sive eodem munere fun-
gitur, according to Gesen., Thea. ; in the Peschito
it is more frequently employed for cvv5ov7mc. —
And the rest of their companions. — This is
according to ver. 9 sq.: the others who were
their companions. — And the •writing of the
letter was written in Aramaic. — 3H3 is no
more here than in Esther iv. 8, to be taken in
the improved meaning of copy, (against Berth.)
as if the author would say, that only the copy
was in Chaldee, but the letter itself in another
language. It means only writing, and the sense
is, that the writers translated into Aramaic what
they had thought in Samaritan or any other lan-
guage, and therefore also at the same time wrote
down in Aramaic, without doubt, for the reason
that in Babylon at court, and among the Persian
officials in anterior Asia the Aramaic language
was the usual one, so to say, the official language,
which otherwise would not have been employed
in the letter of authority given to Ezra in chap.
•vii. 12 sq. X^V} is °f Arian origin, to be com-
pared with the' new Persian nuwischlen, to write,
and means letter. Comp. ver. 18. Di'VlO is
part. pass, of ttPfl, interpret, translate into an-
other language.
Ver. 8. Rehumthe chancellor and Shim-
Bhai the scribe, wrote a letter in this sort.
— Although other authors of a letter are adduced
here, yet it is impossible that another third letter
should be introduced (against Berth.) ; for 1) it
is inconceivable that the author should have left
the contents of the letter referred to in ver. 7 so
entirely undetermined. The contents of the let-
ter mentioned in ver. 6 he has at least character-
ized as an accusation. It is all the more incon-
ceivable since the author has expressly desig-
nated the language of the letter mentioned in
ver. 17. Without doubt he regarded this as
of especial importance. 2) Already the fact that
the remark that the letter in ver. 7 was written
in Aramaic, is immediately followed by a section
in Aramaic, and so also the fact that in accord-
ance with ver. 7, where Samaritans are desig-
nated at the outset as authors of the letter ; again
after the Persian officials in ver. 9, Samaritan
tribes are mentioned as taking part in the letter
— all this is in favor of the view that it is only
the contents of that letter which now follow
(comp. Kb'hler, Nachexil. Proph.S. 21). 3) The
word iniJ3 in ver. 7, which is found nowhere
t t;
else in Hebrew, looks evidently forward to the
same word iu ver. 9. 4) If another letter were
referred to in ver. 8, a connecting copula could
no more be lacking here than at the beginning
of ver. 7, (Keil). Without doubt the Samaritans
mentioned in ver. 7, who had become known to
the author elsewhere, had been the proper insti-
gators of the letter, the Persian officials men-
tioned iu ver. 8 merely their instruments. The
verb 3J"I3 which is likewise used of the former,
"T
does not by any means always mean: to write
with one's own hand. That the Persian officers
had written the letter in combination with the
Samaritans is besides expressly declared in a
Bhort introduction which had been given to it
probably at Jerusalem, when they there added it
to other important documents, in the form of an
explanatory superscription. This introduction,
which so to say had grown together with the do-
cument, the author has for accuracy aud perspi-
cuity taken up in vers. 8-11, leaving it to the
reader to put together correctly the different
statements respecting the authorship in the man-
ner indicated. Other interpreters, as Keil and
Kb'hler (I.e.) suppose that he found the verses 8-11
a, and so also then the follow. ng letter itself in
the history of the building of the temple writ-
ten in Chaldee, which he used in vers. 5 and
6. Whether however he really had before him
such a document is doubtful, as we have shown
in the Introduction, \ 2. Besides the abbrevia-
tion .TUJ'21 and the like, which stands at the end
of ver. 10 is found only in the superscriptions
of letters, where things that are self-understood
may be omitted (comp. vers. 11, 17), not in a his-
torical narrative.— D#0 b#3 = lord of under-
standing, counsellor, 13 not a proper name (Es-
dras, Alex., Syr., Vulg.), but a designation of the
office of Rehum [the title apparently of the Per-
sian governor of the Samaritan province. Raw-
linson in loco.— Te.], as tnflp, scribe, chancellor,
is the designation of the office of Shimshai. ["Ac-
cording to Herodotus (III. 128) every Persian
governor was accompanied to his province by a
'royal scribe' or 'secretary ' (ypa^arevg), who
had a separate andindependent authority," Raw-
linson in loco.— Tr.]. KJiX = iVUK, in later
Hebrew. Kin is used as an indef. article, as in
the later Hebrew "ins. KDJ3 has, according to
Raschi and Ab. Ezra,' arisen from 3 and W21 =
KD'J = 1DKJ, comp. in the Talmud ND'K, I say
Kirn, thousayest; thus literally: as we say,—
then: in the following manner, or also, accord-
ing as has been stated.
Vers. 9, 10 add to the summary statement
of authorship a closer explanation: Then Re-
hum .... and the rest of their compa,
nions— The verb "write" is to be supplied
from the previous verse. Then the sense is, when
50
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
they wrote the letter in question, they were ao-
tivo in common with (heir companions. As their
companions, the communiiies transplanted to
Palestine are then adduced according to their
native lands in Eastern Asia. The Dinaites
were perhaps from the Median city Deinaver,
which still had this name in a quite late period
(Abulf. Geogr. ed. Par., p. 414). Sehrader would
hud it as Da-ya-a-ni, also Da-ya-i-ni in the in-
scription of the older Tiglath Pileser, who reck-
ons them among the Nahiri, that is, to the Ar-
menians, I. c, S. 246. The Apharsathchites,
perhaps identical with the Apharsachites in ch.
T. 6, were compared by Hiller (Onom. p. 655,
745) with the robber Parsetakites (Herod. I. 101 ;
Strabo xv. 3, 12), on the boundary of Media and
Persia ; Rawlinson regards the Apharsachites as
the Afar-Sittaces, according to the inscriptions,
and the Apharsachites as the Afar-Sacae (comp.
Eced. in Gesen. Thes., app. p. 107). [But in his
Com., in loco, Rawlinson regards these two names
as only variations of the third form Apharsites,
all referring to the same people, the Persians. —
Te.]. — The Tarpelites remind us of the t&itov-
doi (Ptol. VI. 2, 6) dwelling on the East of Ely-
mais.* The Apharsites are identified with the
Persians, whose name is here provided with X
prosthetic; Hiller (Onom. p. 655) thought of the
Parrhasians in Eastern Media. The Arche-
vitea had their name probably from TpN (Gen.
x. 10), Arku in the inscriptions, the present
Warka on the left bank of the Euphrates, south-
east of Babylon (comp. Schrad. I. c, S. 18). The
Babylonians are the inhabitants of Babylon,
the Susanchites those of Susa, the Dehavites
(Qeri KTH), the Adoi of the Greeks (Herod. I.
125), the Elamites, those of E!am or Elymais.
Ver. 10. And the rest of the nations
■whom the great and noble Asnapper
brought over. — Since the author adds these
words as a summing up, it is clear that he could
not or would not enumerate all in detail, that he
would represent them as all taking part together,
and indeed not only so far as they dwelt in Sa-
maria, but further than this also those in the
other lands on this side of the river. — Thus
did all these colonists here act in common, even
those who dwelt as it were in Phoenicia and Sy-
ria,because they perhaps underallcircumstances
as foreigners over against the natives felt them-
selves united by the bond of a common situation,
because they perhaps all feared also for their
territory, if the Jews should grow into a power,
upon which the Israelites dwelling at a greater
distance round about might lean. Since here
all the colonists are to be mentioned in entirely
general terms, we cannot regard it as singular
that at this time on the one side entirely differ-
ent names are mentioned from those in 2 Kings
xvii. 24, where only those transported to Sama-
ria are mentioned, that moreover on the other
side the Samaritan nations are not so particu-
larly mentioned as in that passage, where instead
of the Babylonians in general, people from Ba-
bylon, Cuthah, etc., are named. Asnapper here
might be regarded as another name of Esar-had-
* [Rawlinson in loco regards them as colonists from
the nation which the Assyrians called Tuplai, the Greeks
"Tibareni," and the Hebrews generally "Tabal." — Ta.]
don, in ver. 2, and indeed the more as we here
have a Chaldee document ; yet the supposition
of different names for one and the same person
is ever a doubtful one. It is not suitable, how-
ever, to understand thereby the commander-in-
chief of Esar-Haddon [Rawlinson], for the epith.
orn. "great and noble" are in favor of a king,
although the title of king is not expressly added.
It is probable therefore that a mutilation of the
name Esar-Haddon has taken place.* After the
designation of the place: in the city of Sa-
maria, the following "\W\ etc., may also be
merely a designation of place ; accordingly the
2, which is before iTHp is to be supplied before
it and IStJ is to be taken aa neuter of the land
' T :
or places. ninj_"n.V> on that side of the river,
of the land to the west of the Euphrates, is ex-
plained as a now universally prevailing geogra-
phical expression. JUI?;)? contracted into r>j}3
(comp. ver. 17) = etc.\ or "the like." Perhaps
the author himself already placed this expression
of abbreviation at the introduction of the letter,
in order to indicate that still other designations
of lands are to be thought of as a matter of course ;
perhaps, however, it is derived from the author
of our book, who would not copy that which waa
to be understood of itself.
Ver. 11. These are the contents of the
letter which they sent. — Here we have at
once announced in the first half of the verse the
contents of the letter. It seems that already
the beginning of the letter itself was used for
this announcement, since it was certainly the
style for the letter-writer to designate more
closely in a superscription as well himself —
which is now no longer the case here — as also the
receiver of the letter. For only from such
superscriptions can it be explained how at the
beginning of every letter in our book almost the
same formula occurs, comp. ver. 17; v. 6; vii.
11.— \i\0~\2, in the book of Esther thrice JJi^JTS.
which two forms are likewise used interchange-
ably in the Targums, is translated by many
after the Sept., Vulg., which, however, are not
uniform in their usage, and the rabbin, inter-
preters as copy [so A. V.]. But very properly
Benfey (Monatsnamen, p. 193 sq.) rendered thia
meaning doubtful. In ver. 23 it does not suit,
since the Persian officers had not received a
copy, but the letter itself; and it is no more
appropriate to Esther iii. 14; viii. 13, and in
Esther iv. 8 another meaning suits at least as
well. Accordingly the word seems to have
rather the meaning of contents, as then indeed
the Vulg. in Esther iii. 14 has rendered it summa.
Gildermeister (D. M. Zeitschr. IV., S. 210) and
Haug (Ewald's bibl. Jahrb. V., S. 163 sq.) con-
jectures in the syllable 13 the Persian fra, the
Sanscrit pra=np6, pro, the new Persian far, in
the corresponding fl2 the Zend paiti (Sanscrit
prati)=Kpori and 7rori, jrpoj ; in t Jttf a word like
cenghana, old Persian thanhana, from cenghdicere,
priedicare. — In the second half of the verse, the
* According to Hitzig's faithful disciple Egli, it would
be an appellative, that would show us the relationship
of the Assyrian with the German and would be essen-
tially the same as the German " Schnapper."
CHAP. IV. 1-24.
51
letter begins : thy servants, the men on this
Bide of the river, etc. — Here also there has
been left off what usually stands at the begin-
ning of a letter; the sense is: thy servants
wish thee, 0 king, peace, comp. ver. 17.
Alongside of the form of the Qeri, ~]^1L< tnat °t
the Kethib, ^13jt>, is also justified.
Vers. 12-16. The information given to the
king: Be it known unto the king. — KljTw
for Kin', as pnS for piT, and J^nS for j^iri^
vii. 25, 26 ; Dan. ii. 20, 28, 29, 45, etc. b has
in Bib. Chald., occasionally also in the Targums,
more frequently in the Talmuds, vindicated
itself as preformative like 3 in Syriac. Comp.
Zock., Dan. ii. 20* — That the Jews unto
us have come. — 1HX, they have come, is cer-
tainly more closely defined by the following
participle "building." But yet it is singular
that in the time of Artaxerxes there was still
mention made of coming. It seems that the
coming of the Jews, even after the time of Cyrus,
still went on ; with the close connection, which
those who remained behind maintained with the
returned (comp. Zech. vi. 9 sq. ; Neh. i. 2 sq.),
this might indeed have been pre-Bupposed as a
matter of course. — Building the rebellious
and the bad city, and have set up the
walls thereof, and joined the foundations.
NfniD, with metheg in the second syllable, and
so with kametz under 1, is hardly a correct
reading. We should read either XJV1TO (so
Norzi) with short o sound in the second syll.
from the form I'lID, which occurs in the Tar-
T
gums, and is given by the Peschito — an inten-
sive formation like Hebrew N13P; or fcUVl^D
(J. H. Mich.) as stat. emphat. of the stat. abs.,
NT10 (comp. ver. 15). We must certainly pre-
fer the -Qeri ^V???? ifWl to rSSjEW '1101.
A similar false separation of words is found in
2 Sam. xxi. 12. iboti is shaphel of 173, and
means to make ready. That the perf. ?SSpt?
Bhould follow the part., is in historical narrative
not unusual; here, however, it has its special
reason perhaps in the fact that the Samaritans
would co-ordinate this expression: and they
have made the walls ready, to the first and
principal statement (IDN), in order to bring it
into suitable prominence. Besides they may be
charged in all probability with a kind of exag-
geration, even if the perfect was not meant to
be taken strictly. If the Jews had now really
brought the walls so near to completion, Nehe-
miah would not have found them still under this
same king in the condition described in Neh. ii.
Since they yet let an imperfect follow the per-
fect, they indicate of themselves, as it were
involuntarily, that the work still continued ;
otherwise the transition to the imperfect would
be without any reason. ID'TT might be the
_ * [More properly it is the characteristic of the sub-
junctive or optative force of the verb. See Luzatto's
Gram, der bib. Chald., 3 109, and Eigg's Manual of Chal-
dee, p. 65.— Te.]
imperf. Aphel of DDn, dig, dig out, which is
also found in Syriac, since D'lT would be for
®K!1 i to d'g out the foundations would then be
simply=make excavations for the foundations ;
it might, however, still easier be taken as imperf.
Aphel of £3in, properly Bew together, then heal,
improve; alongside of D'jT the sharper form
D'jT is to be maintained, after the analogy of
which under the influence of the guttural we
have D'TV.
•T
Ver. 13. Be it known now unto the
king that they will not pay toll, tribute
and custom. — The three usual kinds of taxes
are here meant, comp. ver. 20 and vii. 24.
mJD, for which vi. 8 has Hin, which expres-
sion is also usual in Syriac, is etymologically=
measure ; here, however, the appointed general
tax. X~>3 after Ty}2 is perhaps the consumption
tax, and ipn the toll for highways. — And that
it finally will prepare damage to the king.
— The meaning of DJ"I2X, which is entirely dis-
regarded by the ancient versions, is entirely
uncertain. The meaning "income" is simply
invented by the Jewish interpreters of the mid-
dle ages, and is not recommended by vers. 15
and 22 in so far as the kings themselves are
those who are there injured. Haug (I. c. ) com-
pares DillX in the Pehlewi language, which=the
last, hindermost, Sanso. apa, superl. apama, and
thus gains for our word the meaning of "finally,
at last," which certainly is entirely appropriate.
DOylD is a Hebraism, or perhaps only a copy-
ist's mistake for V3 7D. PUHfl is tert. fern, in
Aphel, in which conjugation the Bib. Chald. some-
times chooses the prefix i"l, which it preserves even
intheimperf. and part., comp. n^Ii'nn in ver. 15.
The subj. is the city of Jerusalem, or the indef.
subject, referring to the design of Jerusalem.
Ver. 14. Now because we have mainte-
nance from the king's palace. — The writers
would here at any rate state a reason for the
following statement, that it was not meet for
them to see the injury of the king. The rabbi-
nical explanation followed by Luther: "we all,
who have destroyed the temple," is therefore
not recommended; besides we would then have
to expect at least instead of: salt the salt of the
temple, scatter salt on the temple, comp. Judges
ix. 45; Jer. xvii. 6; Isa. Ii. 6. To salt the salt
of any one probably means to live through any
one's bounty, perhaps pay, and therefore be
obligated to him, stand in his service. Syriac
and Persian expressions accord with this, comp.
Gesen., Thes., p. 790. We may also compare
salarium. Whether the writer as an official really
received pay from the palace of the king, or
speaks figuratively, we cannot say.* N37D iT1"!JP
is according to the analogy of the Hob., nr\l'>
the uncovering, not in the sense of deprivation,
but of dishonoring ; the Sept. has properly
aGxvpocbvVi whilst the Vulg. employs Isesiones.
* [''The Persian satraps had no salaries, but taxed
the provinces for the support of themselves and their
courts." Eawlinson in loco. — Tb.]
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
It would be a dishonoring of a great king if the
Jews should throw off their allegiance (refuse to
fulfil their duties), f "IN, also in the Talmud=
appropriate, fitting, is connected with ^J?, ar-
range.— Therefore have we sent, namely,
this letter, and made known to the king,
namely, the following.
Ver. 15. That search may be made in
the book of the records of thy fathers. —
iiubj. of "IPT is he whose duty it is to search,
the keeper of the archives, properly indef. subj. —
nj"OT and nM"OT (comp. vi. 2) is the memo-
rable occurrence from "01="DI. In Esther vi. 1;
this book is called more completely : the book
of the memorable events of the day. The fathers
of Artaxerxea are here his predecessors on the
throne, and indeed including also those not
Medo-Persian, especially the Chaldean, who in
this connection come very particularly into
consideration. For the rebellions tbat follow
must mean above all those under Jehoiachim
and Zedekiah. The manner of expression is
properly explained from an inclination of the
inhabitants of Western Asia to assume a connec-
tion of families between the dynasties that suc-
ceeded one another, but also from figurative
language, which was all the more natural if
Artaxerxes already had had many real ances-
tors for predecessors on the throne. — So shalt
thou find. — These words may be taken as
depending upon the verb make known in the
previous verse, but yet really contains the con-
sequence of the investigation. in/TON is nom.
verb, oflthpaalof the verb "VIK?, uproar; it is
found elsewhere only in ver. 19. j'lpj', they make
(continually) uproar, indefin. subject, they make;
in ver. 19 there is made. H'HIJI TO'l' ]0, from the
days of old. The fern, form fiD'V is also found
in Syriac alongside of the masc. ; otherwise in
Bib. Chald. the masc. 'OV is used, as then in
Heb. likewise the masc. is throughout the usual
form, the fern, only occurring in poetry. With
the clause : For which cause was this city
destroyed, we certainly are to look back to
the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar.
/"O^nn is Hoph., which is used throughout in
Bib. Chaldee for the Ittaphal.
Ver. 16. We certify the king, that if
by this means thou shalt have no portion
on this side the river. — The verse concludes
with this inference and summing up. HJT 73p7
—on this account, in consequence of this cir-
cumstance as in Dan. ii. 12. They supposed
that the fortified Jerusalem would not merely
free itself from taxes, but also appropriate to
itself all the territory on the west of the Eu-
phrates, so that the great king would have
nothing left, comp. Eccl. ix. 6; 2 Chron. x. 16;
Jos. xx. 25, 27.
Vers. 17-22. The writers of the letter had
manifestly desired to obtain by means of their
information authoritative measures, authorizing
them to restrain the Jews. These they obtained.
— The king 3ent an edict. — The abrupt way
in which the letter of the king ia mentioned
may be explained from the fact that the same
address as in ver. 11 is here used, even if with
slight differences. TIDinS from the Zend, pati-
gama (modern Persian paigam, Armenian patt-
kam) is the command, and in this sense has even
passed over into the Hebrew, comp. Eccl. viii.
11 ; Esther i. 20. At its root is the word paiti
(irpoc) and gamz=go, accordingly=the approach-
ing message (comp. Keil on Dan. iii. 16).
Moreover, comp. notes on ver. 10.
Ver. 18. The letter which ye sent unto
us hath been plainly read before me. —
ly^Sn, Pael part, passive, means here, since the
Aramaic without doubt was chosen only because
it. was used at court, not translated, but explained,
or adverbially, plainly, comp. the Pual part, in
this sense in Neh. viii. 8, as then this word has
the same meaning also in the Talmud.*
Ver. 19. And I commanded. — D't? pro-
perly, Kal passive part. ; in Bib. Chaldee is used
instead of a tenia pers. praet. pass, accordingly,
instead of the lthpael (comp. v. 17; Dan. iv. 6);
moreover the Peil part, in Bib. Chald. usually
gives a new preterite passive, and is for this
purpose conjugated throughout with the afforma-
tives of the verb. Alongside of Wilt, the form
OV«? also occurs, in fern r\Dl«P, Dan. vi. 18. —
Search hath been made, and it is found
that this city — hath made insurrection. —
XE-onn is here used as in 1 Kings i. 5 in Hebrew,
of rising up in rebellion. Comp. ver. 15.
Ver. 20. There have been mighty kings
also over Jerusalem which have ruled. —
The reference is to Uzziah, Jotham, and perhaps
David and Solomon, if in any way a rumor
of them had come to Babylon and to the Per-
sians.f Since these kings had Bubjugated the
land to the west of the Euphrates, especially the
territory of the Moabites and Ammonites and
similar tribes, the suspicion was quite natural
that Jerusalem would again strive for such a
supremacy. 3 before 73 depends upon the pre-
vious pETTO : ruling over all on that side of the
river. With reference to the following clause
comp. ver. 13.
Ver. 21. Give ye now commandment,
namely, to those who are building in Jerusalem.
DjJtO is here as in ver. 19, not in the sense of in-
vestigation, observation, as in Dan. iii. 12, in
connection with 7JP DW, but in the sense of de-
cision, command, «7t327 = that vou cause to
' TT - : J
cease by your command. From this infinitive,
as frequently in Hebrew, the construction passes
over into the finite verb : and that this city
be not built. The additional clause : until a
command shall be given from me, namely,
that defined by the context, for building, henoe
the stat. emph. Nn^Q- This is not a mere phrase,
* [" It is doubtful if the Persian monarchs could ordi-
narily read (AncienlMonarchies, Vol. IV., p. 185). At any
rate it was not their habit to read, but to have documents
read to them (comp. Esther vi. 1)." Rawlinson in loco.
-Tr.1
f [Rawlinson in loco doubts the reference to David
and Solomon, and thinks the reference more probable
to Menahem (2 Kings xv. 16), and Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv.
6, 7; xxxv. IS).— Ta.)
CHAP. IV. 1-24.
53
that would make all things dependent upon him-
self and his words, but a product of his prudence,
since he really had in view the possibility of a
change. With this agrees very well the earnest-
ness and severity witli whioh in
Ver. 22 he sharpens the previous oommand:
and be careful — so Trili whioh is especially
frequent in Syriac, — to make a mistake =
that you may not make a mistake with reference
to this matter. DDy properly "to what" =
that not, comp. vii. 23, so also in Syriac. Ao-
oordingly the meaning is, that H/3n, damage,
which easily grows as a, pest, may not become
great.
Ver. 23. The consequences of the royal edict
are now added, probably by the same hand, that
had added the introductory address of the ori-
ginal document. — Now when the contents
of the letter . . . were read. A parenthetical
clause begins with ,rl_|0- It is not until 1TTX
that the principal clause continues. — They
went up to Jerusalem, unto the Jews. —
7IN may be connected with 7 and 74J in the sense
of ''going to or unto" (comp. v. 8 Dan. ii. 24* ;
here both prepositions follow. The subject is
supplied from the parenthetical clause. jniJO,
properly, "with arm," or "the power of the
arm," but this could not be the meaning here,
were it not for /Til == troops, which is accord-
ingly added. The Sept. renders freely, but not
incorrectly (against Keil) : iv "ittkoiq km dwd/iu,
comp. the Hebrew J^lIT, Ezra xvii. 9, and jVl^'nr,
or D'y'nj, Dan. xi. 16, 31, where also Keil ex-
plains the meaning as warlike powers. Instead
of ,jmx> almost always JJTI occurs without the
prosthetic N-
Ver. 24. Then ceased the work of the
house of God. — This verse already begins the
continuation of vers. 1-5, the further history of
the building of the temple ; at least it is intro-
ductory thereto. Our author himself (comp.
notes on ver. 6) here gives the results of the hos-
tile effort, but not those of the last struggle, but
those of the first under Cyrus, which already
results from the idea of 7133, if it is taken in the
strict sense. The author would not have gone
back to the cessation, were it not that he would
oome to something that had already connected
itself with the first intimation which had occa-
sioned the cessation.*
THOUGHTS UPON THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.
Vers. 1-3. (1) The release of Israel and the
re-establishment of Jerusalem and the temple
connected therewith was a beginning of the ful-
filment of the great prophetic promises. Among
these promises were those that said that the
* f" The stoppage of the building by the Pseudo Smer-
dia is in complete harmony with his character. He was
a Magus, devoted to the Magian elemental worship, and
opposed to belief in a personal god. His religion did
not approve of temples (Herod. I., 130); and as he perse-
cuted the Zoroastnan (Behist. Inscr., col. i., par. 14), so
would he naturally be inimical to the Jewish faith
(comp. Ancient Monarehui, Vol. IV., pp. 347, 398) " Raw-
liuson in loco. — Ta.]
heathen would oome near, to walk in the light of
the Lord (especially Mic. iv. 1 sq.; Isa. ii. 2, 24;
lx. 1 sq.) ; they were to take part in the commu-
nion with Him, and accordingly in His worship
and kingdom, and rejoice in His blessings.
When now the Samaritans drew nigh with the
request that they might help in building the tem-
ple, was not their claim sustained by these pro-
phets? Should not Israel have been ready
gladly to contribute their part for the accom-
plishment of the prophecy, even if it should for
the moment be burdensome to them? Did they
not have to fear lest they should by a refusal
strive against God's own great thoughts and de-
signs which had been expressed long before?
If the one prophecy is compared and explained
by the other, then it follows, certainly, that this
conversion of the heathen was not to be expected
until the appearance of the Messiah. But if the
Lord had given the one thing that was to come
with the better and Messianic times, namely the
return to the land of their fathers, could lie not
then very soon also afford them the other, the
appearance of the Messiah itself? At present,
indeed, Israel had no other prince than Zerub-
babel, who did not even have the majesty of an
ordinary king, not to speak of Messianic majesty
and glory. But if now the congregation had
gained in strength and numbers by the reception
of the Samaritans, would it not thereby have also
gradually advanced an important stage, and would
not other tribes and families also have gradually
followed the Samaritans? The congregation
was obliged in those times, when so much was
but feeble, and began to have but little prospect
of improvement (comp. Zeeh. iv. 10), to look at
so many things with the eye of faith, if they
would make no mistakes; and grasp them in faith,
if they would not lack courage for them from the
outset — should they not then have seen here also in
faith a beginning, thatwouldhave its continuation
and completion ; should they not have covered over
with the veil of mildness and forbearance the many
weaknesses which might still adhere to the Sama-
ritans, and have excused them with the hope of
better things? They felt themselves too weak to
overcome the heathen elements that were natural
to them, and to meet the influences which they
would exert in case of a union. But should they
not have overcome their feeling of weakness in
the power of the enthusiasm of their faith ? They
were obliged to recognise likewise that some-
thing of good was in the Samaritans, and were
in duty bound to God to trust in Him that He
would make the good to prevail over the evil and
Becure the victory to the truth. Was it not, if
they rejected the Samaritans, looking deeper, a
lack of faith, unnecessary anxiety, and was not
national narrow-mindedness, and uncharitable-
ness mingled therewith? There are many who
take this view of it, and are very much inclined
to make use of such thoughts with reference to si-
milar things, which are not entirely lacking at
present. But however difficult it may appear to
take a safe course in such a state of affairs, one
thing is sure: The Samaritans had no right to
an entrance into the congregation on their asser-
tion that they had already always and from the be-
ginning worshipped the Lord, for on the contrary
this could have been the case only in that they
54
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
could have shown at some period of their history
a decisive break with their previous heathenism
and a real conversion to Jehovah. Such a con-
version, however, of a true and hearty charac-
ter, such as the prophets had prophesied as
taking place in the Messianic time (comp. Isa.
xix. 16 sq ) was not at all possible on their part.
They needed first for this a turning unto them,
a change on the part of the Lord. Israel was
what it was in consequence of the divine elec-
tion. The Samaritans also, and indeed all other
nations, can become God's people only when God
extends His election clearly and effectually unto
them likewise. They cannot choose Him, but
He must choose them. It was His prerogative
in this as in all other things, to take the initia-
tive, if indeed He was the God of revelation, and
was to be honored as such. It was necessary
that He should reveal Himself in some manner,
that He should draw near them and become ap-
prehensible ; He must send a mediator, under
whom they likewise might find themselves, and in
whom there shouldbe a righteousness, aperfection
and glory which would be undoubtedly for them,
yea, overpowering them, and above all, likewise
rendering satisfaction for them, and of a suffi-
ciently representative character; He must do a re-
demptive act, by which He should purchase and
take them to Himself. It was necessary that there
should first be a new manifestation, which should
lay anew foundation, and even on this account also
another instrument than Zerubbabel and Jeshua,
coming from heaven, the appearance of the Sun
of righteousness itself, with healing in its beams
even for the heathen. That the congregation in
Jerusalem rightly judged the Samaritans has
been attested by the Lord Himself in John iv.
22, as Hengstenberg has well shown in his Gesch.
des Seiches Gottes ("ye worship ye know not
what") and the history itself has shown that
they justly estimated that the hour of God had
not yet come. This hour did not strike until
Christ the Lord authoritatively removed the
fence that had been erected between Israel and
the heathen.
(2) The congregation had at first for their own
sake as well as for the sake of the Samaritans,
to adopt an exclusive policy. Whilst, if they
bad taken the Samaritans into their membership
they would have been ruined by the latterthrougli
their worldly conformity, now they remained a
salt, that in good time might become useful even
to them, yea, they became already in advance a
warning and an impulse to them, inconsequence
of which they gradually turned to better things.
The good Samaritan in the gospel makes it pro-
bable that the Lord found here and there among
them, hearts that were less hard than those of
the priests and Levites in Jerusalem. The Btory
of the Samaritan who was healed of leprosy, who
alone rendered thanks to the Lord, is an evi-
dence that the noblest virtue might easily thrive
among them better than among the Jews. The
Samaritan woman at Jacob's well and the people
of Sychar, then those in Samaria itself (Acts
viii.) show a susceptibility for the Saviour, by
which they might become true members of the
people of God before many in the ancient con-
gregation. Would that those, who as the Sama-
ritans do not worship the true and holy God who
does not allow His people to be put to shame,
but only their own idols who are easily satisfied,
might have a clearer and stronger conception of
the chasm that separates them from the true con-
gregation of the Lord ! It would be a help for
them that they need first of all.
(3) The congregation had to do without an
increase such as would have come through the
Samaritan element; they must rather remain
small and suffer persecutions than abandon unto
corruption the blessings entrusted to them.
But after that Jesus Christ has come into the
world and redemption has been made for all, so
that only the innermost inclination of the heart
need be brought into consideration, it is much
more difficult to properly recognize the Samari-
tan influence that would press into the Church,
and there is need in this respect of a very great
and especial care. Above all we must take this
to heart, that no one has to be converted to us,
to our opinions and methods, but that every one
is to be converted to Jesus Christ alone. The
two do not coincide as long as we are still in an
imperfect state. But at all events conversion
is the decisive thing. How necessary this is and
how fundamental it must be has now become
still clearer in the light of Jesus Christ. He who
now without conversion thinks that he can take
part in the kingdom of God, who disputes the
necessity of conversion, the depth of human sin-
fulness, the strictness of the divine holiness, in
that he sets before him the grand aim of human-
izing Christianity, reconciling it with culture,
would set aside the opposition of the world
against the Church, the Church's rigor, narrow-
ness, lack of culture, whilst in truth he seeks to
make the Church conformable unto the world —
such an one is in fact to be placed on a par with
the Samaritans: he is, indeed, because he is
more accountable, worse than a Samaritan. —
The state of affairs, however, to-day is an en-
tirely different one, inasmuch as Samaritanism
is not without, but within the congregation
[that is, in the State Churches especially ; to a
limited extent in the free evangelical churches
— Tb,.], yea, at times indeed is to be found in
those who govern the congregation, where then
at any rate the parable of the wheat and tares
comes into consideration with reference to the
way of judging it and treating it.
Vers. 4, 5. The Samaritans were able for a
time to prevent the building of the house of God.
But what God would have, must finally come to
pass. Just as at a previous time when David
could not at once and himself execute his design
of building a temple to the Lord (2 Sam. vii.),
eo the Lord now showed that He did not require
under all circumstances that which the world
was still able to take away from Him and His
people. Thus then the Church should never be
discouraged when their enemies triumph for a
season, and when it is as if they accomplished
nothing, as if they lacked the most necessary
things, and walked in a way that is not good.
When the progress of their work is rendered
more difficult by » thousand persecutions, by
the spread of many calumnies and the like, then
is the time, as Starke says, to pray the third
petition that God would prevent all and every
wicked counsel and purpose. But we should
CHAP. IV. 1-24.
65
not judge by success whether we have chosen
the right or the wrong way, but only by God's
word and truth. We should not find it too hard
to be miserable and poor so long as it pleases
God. It so easily happens, as it is elsewhere
said, that the better the work, the greater hin-
drances are found, and (hat where God proposes
something good, the devil does not rest, but
sows tares with it (Starke).
Vers. 7-16. It was calumniation when the
Samaritans charged the Jews behind their back
at the Persian court with pursuing political ends,
although in Artaxerxes' time the question was
no longer of the temple, but of the city and its
walls. The Jews had nothing to do with politi-
cal deliverance and independence, but with se-
curing their existence and freedom of worship
which could hardly be refused them by the Per-
sians. But such slanders were almost a neces-
sity. The Church must ever be prepared for
them. The world knows only worldly motives,
worldly aim3, and cannot but ascribe them also
to the Church ; wilh all things that they allow
themselves, they make a crime for the Church.
But all the more care must the Church take that
suoh calumniations may not gain ground ; all the
more carefully accordingly must it hold itself
aloof from the world and its aims. Otherwise
it not only injures itself for the present, but
also for the future; it makes itself suspected.
For their accusers already, to gain credence
for their word, refer to the fact that the Jews
had already in former times snatched to them-
selves a great worldly power. 0 that the con-
gregation might not be so much defiled by their
own and their forefathers' sins ! how much
more irreproachably, powerfully and charmingly
would they be able to carry out their work of
missions in the world.
Vers. 17-23. The Persian king Artaxerxes
commanded that the building of the walls of
Jerusalem should cease. We might ask how it
was possible that the only true God, the Lord
of heaven and earth, should make the lot of His
people, and accordingly the history of His king-
dom dependent upon the command of the king
of Persia; that He should allow His people, and
indeed His cause in general, to fall into such
dependence upon men, and indeed heathen?
But this is indeed Hi3 method. Even the indi-
vidual is allowed a free and determining influ-
ence upon his action. And in the very fact that
He limits Himself, makes Himself dependent,
lets Himself be satisfied, so that the world may
enjoy an independent, true existence, and men
may have a real freedom, He shows His highest
and best greatness. Only the false God, the
one merely conceived, is the entirely unlimited
one who takes away every freedom of the crea-
ture, who wills and does everything himself,
and thereby becomes of the nature of the crea-
ture and sinful. It is shown here so truly how
that which is truly great and important may be
externally weak and inversely.
Ver. 24. When Cyrus had given the congre-
gation permission to return and build the tem-
ple of the Lord, it almost appeared as if already
heathenism was capable and ready under the
circumstances to establish a free church in a
free state. But when afterwards the building [
was obliged to stop and remain so long unfi-
nished, when so to speak the Church must lie
down in chains, the saying of the free church in
the free state became a fable, and as such must it
ever anew prove itself to be. The interests and
also the callings of the State and theChurch are in-
volved in too mauy ways and in too close relations
for the former not to claim when it has the power
an oversight of the latter and an influence upon
it. The most favorable thing for the Church ia
ever the Christian State, which really wishes
the Church well and ministers to it; as the last
thing, however, it has to expect the antichris-
tian state, which restrains it, persecutes it, and
where it is possible, enchains and destroys it.
[The author's view of the relations between
Church and State are the usual ones prevailing
on the continent of Europe and among State-
church men in Great Britain. It has been suffi-
ciently proved, however, in the United States
and the British colonies that a free Church in a
free State is no fable, but a historical fact, and
a condition in which the Church is purest,
strongest and most dominant in the land through
the Christianizing influence that it freely exerts
on all classes of the community. And whilst
Church and State are closely related in many
questions of morals and religion, in education, in
marriage and divorce, the observance of the
Sabbath, questions of property, individual
rights, etc., and conflict will more or less arise,
yet the relations will become more and more
accurately defined without interfering with the
prerogatives of either. Comp. the section on
Church and State in the Evangelical Alliance
proceedings, N. Y., 1873. — Tr.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-3. The Church cannot receive every
one into her communion or suffer all to remain
therein. Her duty to excommunicate is shown:
1) From what would happen if she excluded
none — they would be made to conform to the
world by the worldly-minded ; 2) From what
happens when they do exclude them — they ma-
nifest the worldly disposition in their hearts,
and do much damage by their hostility; but
they cannot ruin the congregation: the possi-
bility remains that they themselves may be the
subjects of saving influences. — Starke: Ho one
should enter into communion in religious mat-
ters with strange and false religious opinions,
2 Cor. vi. 14; Tit. iii. 10. Tale-bearers and
false and wicked talkers are cursed; for they
perplex those who enjoy good peace (Sir. xxviii.
15), and invent villany, Ps. lxiv. 7; cxl. 4.
The Church of God and its members suffer
greater injury by false friends than by open
enemies, Ps. xli. 10; 2 Cor. xi. 26.
Vers. 1-5. The duty of the congregation to be
apparently intolerant: 1) Towards whom — even
against many who would enjoy its communion;
2) how — excluding that which is excluded by
its entire character and then bearing whatever
evil is ascribed to them on account of this ;
3) for what purpose — in order to preserve its
best things and thereby at the proper time like-
wise offer salvation to their enemies. — Bren-
tius : Ejusdem farinse sunt, qui nunc hujus nunc
56
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
illius religionis sunt. Injustum est ; qui fides est
persuasio certa de divinis promissionibus. Hi
autem, cum hinc inde Jluctuent, non habent fidem.
— The foolish behaviour of the world towards
the Lord's people: 1) The world would belong
to the Lord's people, and yet not be converted
unto God; 2) They seek to set aside the wor-
ship of the true God, and yet can prosper only
in the light that streams forth from it.
Vers. 7-10. The charges raised by the world
against the people of God; their apparent jus-
tice and their lack of grounds. 1) The congre-
gation builds itself at present not with peaceful,
but rebellious disposition: in fact, it must obey
God rather than men; but they know also how
falsely this word is applied by those who have
forgotten that the kingdom of the Lord is not
of this world. 2) They have in past times con-
stantly sought after worldly power, and have
been guilty of manifold encroachments ; in fact,
the Church has at first more and more taken a
political form and equipped itBelf with external
worldly power ; but the consciousness that accord-
ing to its own idea something different was more
appropriate has never been able to he entirely sup-
pressed. 3) The church will, if it have its own way,
in future endanger the existence of the state; in
fact, it cannot acquiesce in the state as it is; the
church must seek to gain power over the king,
but in a spiritual sense; not with power, but
kindness; not from without, but from within.
It would not oppress, but change, transform,
glorify. — Brentius : Vide, mirabilem piorum sor-
tem in hoc szeculo. Pii sunt, propter quos omnia
bona hominibus hujus seeuli eveniunt. Attamen ac-
cusantur, quod soli hi sint, propter quos omnia mala,
bella, fames et seditiones eveniant. — Starke: God's
church has at all times been subjected to false
accusations. Christ and His apostles could
give sufficient witness of this. Let us only
avoid the doing, the lie is good counsel, Acts
xxiv. 5 sq.
Vers. 14-24. The church's independence of the
state. God makes His church dependent on the
world: 1) on its own account to glorify its faith
and to exercise its patience; 2) for His own sake
in order to bring it to a proper conception of the
fact that it does not need external majesty and
power, a magnificent cultus, etc.; 3) for the sake
of the world — that it may learn to see that the
church cannot be suppressed by it, that there is
something higher than it can reach with all its
power. — Starke: God often lets it happen
that a good intention is interrupted by the
craft of enemies, in order to try His believers.
Magistrates are God's officers. If, however, they
do not properly fulfil their office, a severe judg-
ment will pass over them, Wisd. vi. 5, 6. God is
a long-suffering God who allows Himself to be
interfered with and presents Himself as a hero
who is faint-hearted (Jer. xiv. 9), but He will
wake up some time, Sir. xvii. 19.
[Scott: Every vigorous and successful attempt
to revive true religion will excite the opposition of
Satan and of the children of disobedience in whom
he worketh. — Henry: The worst enemies Judah
and Benjamin had were those that said they were
Jews and were not, Rev. iii. 9. — Take hoed who
we go partners with, and on whose hand we
lean. While we trust God with a pious confi-
dence, we must trust men with a prudent jea-
lousy and caution. — See how watchful the church's
enemies are to take the first opportunity of doing
it a mischief. Let not its friends be less careful
to do it a kindness. — A secret enmity to Christ
and His gospel is oft gilded over with a pre-
tended affection to Caesar and his power. — At
some times the church has suffered more by the
coldness of its friends than by the heat of its
enemies; but both together commonly make
church work slow work. — Tr.]
THIRD SECTION.
The Resumption of the Work of Building the Temple and its completion.
Chapters V. VI.
A. — THE RESUMPTION OF THE WORK AND THE REPORT OF THE OFFICIALS TO
DARIUS.
Chapter V. 1-17.
I. The Resumption of the Work of Building the Temple, Vers. 1-5.
1 Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophe-
sied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of
2 Israel, even unto them. Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua
son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem : and
3 with them were the prophets of G id helping them. At the same time came to them
Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar-boznai, and their companions,
CHAP. V. 1-17.
57
and said thus unto them, Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to
4 make up this wall ? Then said we unto them after this manner, What are the
5 names of the men that make this building ? But the eye of their God was upon
the elders of the Jews, that they could not cause them to cease, till the matter came
to Darius : and then they returned answer by letter concerning this matter.
II. The Report of the officials. Vera. 6-17.
6 The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar-
boznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on this side the river,
7 sent unto Darius the king : They sent a letter unto him, wherein was written thus ;
8 Unto Darius the king, all peace. Be it known unto the king, that we went into the
province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones,
and timber is laid in the walls, and this work goeth fast on, and prospereth in their
9 hands. Then asked we those elders, and said unto them thus, Who commanded
10 you to build this house, and to make up these walls ? We asked their names also,
to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of
11 them. And thus they returned us answer, saying, We are the servants of the God
of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago,
12 which a great king of Israel builded and set up. But after that our fathers had
provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchad-
nezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried
13 the people away into Babylon. But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon,
14 the same king Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God. And the vessels
also of gold and silver of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the
temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought them into the temple of Babylon, those
did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of B ibylon, and they were delivered unto
15 one, whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor ; And said unto
him, Take these vessels, go, carry them into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and
16 let the house of God be builded in his place. Then came the same Sheshbazzar,
and laid the foundation of the house of God which is in Jerusalem : and since that
17 time even until now hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished. Now there-
fore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure
house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus
the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem, and let the king send his plea-
sure to us concerning this matter.
yet been called prophet, is in favor of this view.
The preposition 7J£ after "prophesied," does
not denote hostility, but simply the direction of
the address, "unto" (comp. 2 Chron. xx. 37; 1
Kings xxii. 8, etc.), as is sufficiently clear from
the contents of the prophecies. — The Jews that
•were in Judah and Jerusalem. —Thus they
are designated to distinguish them from those
who remained behind in Chaldea. At the same
time it indicates those who had undertaken the
task of building the temple, pflwjj is a closer
designation of the name of God, so that the rela-
tive might be supplied before it: Who was
over them (comp. chap. iii. 3, etc.). which cha-
racterizes them as those who belonged to God.
(Isa. iv. 1 and Jer. iv. 16), who leads them, urges
them on and encourages them.*
Ver. 2. Then rose up Zerubbabel. — They
now had an express commaud of God, which al-
ready in itself was an advantage ; now moreover
they could no longer doubt that the building
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-5. The author now narrates in the
closest connection with the last verse of the pre-
vious chapter how it came to pass that the work
of building, which had been interrupted, was re-
sumed.
Ver. 1. Then the prophets, Haggai, the
prophet and Zechariah. — We learn also from
Haggai himself that the congregation at that
time needed prophetic admonition. At first the
most of them had, without doubt, with great re-
luctance allowed the building to remain unfi-
nished, but gradually had lost the desire thereto,
caring only for their own interests, such as the
erection of their own houses in as beautiful a
manner as possible. Notwithstanding this, bow-
ever, some of them had still such devotion to the
Lord and zeal for His worship, that the prophetic
office was possible, and there was relatively a
great susceptibility for it. n&C3J in Hebrew
N'3Jn, seems to have been almost a surname of
Haggai, chap. vi. 14; Hag. i. 1. The plural
" the prophets," which in the Hebrew text fol-
lows Zechariah sou of Iddo, as if Haggai had not
* [Rawlinson in loco more properly renders in accord-
ance with the current Hebrew phrase " which was upon
them." that is, having God's name called upon them.
-T»J " A
68
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
would succeed. — And begaa to build. — Pro-
per y it should have beeu : They re-commenced,
but we might disregard the fact taat HJ3 readily
—rebuild, for the first beginning was so long
before, and had had such little success, that it no
longer came into consideration.
Ver. 3.% At the same time. — Now again they
were threatened with interruption. NJDI T\2,
at it, the time, = at the same time. Comp. Dan.
iii. 7, 9 ; iv. 33.* Again Persian officials arrive,
but at this time only do tbeir duty. — Tatnai,
governor on this side the river, of the en-
tire province to the west of the Euphrates, out-
ranked Zerubbabel, whom Cyrus had appointed
governor of Judah (comp. ver. 14). He was
perhaps unacquainted wiih the mission of Ze-
rubbabel, because he had come into his office at
a substquent period to him. — Shethar Boznai
who accompanied him, is not designated indeed
as Shimshai (chap. iv. 8 sq.), e. g., as scribe or
chancellor, but the entire appearance is in favor
of his being likewise a magistrate. — Their com-
panions, however, who in ver. 6 are especially
called his companions, that is, Shethar-Boznai's
companions, and are named the Apharsachites,
are according to ver. 6 likewise government offi-
cials, probably of a lower grade. At this time
also the Samaritans may have been at work in
that they had called attention to the building of
the temple in Jerusalem, but now they were no
longer able to fill the officials with hostile senti-
ments. They simply inquire who hath com-
manded you to build this house ? — NJ37
here and in ver. 13 is a singular form, since the
infin. in Chald. is NJ3D (comp. vers. 2, 17 ; ch.
vi. 8), or HUDD, comp. chapter v. 9. R. Norzi
has here and in ver. 13 a dagesh in the 3, but
there cannot be an assimilation of the D because
it has a vowel. It may be that the language was
not entirely fixed in its usage of D in the infin.,
as it is here absent from the infin. in Peal., to
which elsewhere it is peculiar, so it has been at
times prefixed to the Pael and Aphel, before
which it is usually absent, and always to the
infinitive of the passive conjugations in the later
Targums. Comp. Winer, Oram., \ 12. [Luz-
zatto Gram., $ 88. — Trt.j. [Rawlinson, in loco.
" There was no doubt a formal illegality in the
conduct of Zerubbabel and Jeshua ; since all
ediots of Persian kings continued in force unless
revoked by their successors. But they felt jus-
tified in disobeying the decree of the Pseudo-
Smerdis, because the opposition between his re-
ligious views and those of his successors was a
matter of notoriety. (See Ancient Monarchies,
IV. p. 405)."— Ta.]. KJ")»K a word of doubtful
etymology, is in Esdras rendered by rrjv artyrjv
Tabrrjv mi. ra akXa ncivra (the beams and all the
rest), in the Sept. on the other hand by ryv x°P1-
yiav Tavrr/v (this sacred service = this building).
These derivations in the versions makes it pro-
bable that there was no fixed tradition respecting
the meaning; the one rendering being as much
guess work as the other. The Vulg., Syriac and
* ["Suffix with prep, before its noun has this force in
Aramaic, Biggs' Manual. g 49, 3. Comp. Cowper, Syrian.
Oram., J 20:3, 6.— Tn.]
the Rabbins have explained it. as " walls," which
might well he the most suitable and correct, ha-
ving as its root not "1E/X (Gesen.), but tiffX more
properly pt?K (firm, strong).
Ver. 4. Then said we unto them. — Here
the Masoretic text gives at once the answer of
the Jews. But this text is in more than one re-
spect singular. The first person might be ex-
plained, it is true, very well as having come from
the use of an ancient document, whose author
had taken part in the building. But TDK should
be followed by the direct discourse, whilst the
indirect is used, so that we must translate, not,
then we said, but then said we to them, what the
names of the men were. Besides, if the Jews here
spake, that is, answered to the question in ver.
3, instead of referring to the names of the men,
we should expect another answer. It is natural
therefore with Bertheau to conjecture that the
text has been corrupted in some way, that is to
say that the first, person is incorrect, as it were,
has come over from ver. 9, instead of which we
must read here the third person, so that the Per-
sian officials still continue: then said they to them,
what are the names of the men, etc., as from the
start we might expect, according to vers. 9 and
10. It is possible then that likewise J'TX, which
would separate almost too much the second part
of the address from the first in ver. 3, is a mis-
take likewise. The Sept. and Esdras already
have regarded the verse as a question of the Per-
sian officials, the former translating: r<Sre ravra
eiTrocav, the latter, in that it passes over entirely
the first four words. It is true that the ob-
jection might be raised, that then there is no an-
swer on the part of the Jews. But this might
have been omitted with reference to ver. 11. The
names of the men were important to the officials,
for they had to know whom the king was to hold
responsible. Instead of nriDty the more accu-
rate editions have finDE/.
t t :
Ver. 5. The eye of their God was upon
the elders of the Jews. — This is the prelimi-
minary result, producing for them mildness on
the part of the officials, and securing them from
interruption. The eye is used instead of the
hand, because the Providence and Wisdom of
God above all came into consideration. Comp.
Ps. xxxiv. 16 ; Zech. iv. 10 ; 1 Peter iii. 2. The
J'Jfe', corresponding with the O'Jpt in Hebrew,
are at the same time the By~\fct chap. x. 8. — Un-
til the report came to Darius, and they
then brought back a letter concerning
the matter. — Bertheau understood it as: Un-
til a command arrived from Darius, etc. But
D^a need not be the royal decree. Although
this word does not assume the wider sense of
causa (Keil), it yet has the meaning of ratio, and
indeed also in the sense of account (or likewise
of consideration) ND^B ^"l\ Dan. vi. 3 = give
aooount. Thus it may be used here for a report,
by which officers would give their king an ao-
count of an important occurrence, and their ob-
servation of it. The 7 before Darius cannot be
a circumlocution of the genitive — it is thus used
only in designations of time. On the other hand
CHAP. V. 1-17.
59
its use with ^|7n to give the end, is entirely as-
sured. Comp. chap. vii. 13, etc. Finally, if it
did not mean " to Darius,'' the 1]7n alone would
be too indefinite. As well Esdras as the Sep-
tuagint also has, therefore, although rendering
freely, properly understood it as a report to Da-
rius. Naturally, however, these words are only
preparatory for the following olausc: " Until
they bring back a letter, etc.", which really for
the first expresses the limit of time meant. }iT
imperf. of]1?!! (comp. chap. vi. 6; vii. 13) is re
ferred by Winer, \ 25, to a special root ^ilil. It
is possible, however, that as usually the D is
absorbed at the beginning, so here the 7 of "pH
and thus we have ^TT for }7iT.* The letter to
be brought back, was certainly to come from Da-
rius, there is no occasion to think of one from
Tatnai, etc., unless it is already supposed that
there is a royal command in D^Q. The subject
of JO'JT is indefinite " they."
Vers. 6-17. The report of the officers to Cyrus
in vers. 6, 7, at first, precisely like chap. iv. 8-11,
has the superscription which this letter probably
reoeived already in the collection of documents
at Jerusalem. — These are the contents of
the letter that Tatnai. — Shethar-boznai
and his companions the Apharsachites. —
We must leave in doubt the question why the
Apharsachites (comp. iv. 9) are especially men-
tioned as the companions of Shethar-boznai,
which here means either lower officials or as it
were men of the same race, or else people espe-
cially attached to him.f
Ver. 7. They sent a report. — XDJOS ac-
cording to its etymology (comp. iv. 17) is used
in the same sense as D.pt3 in ver. 5, c. g., report,
message. S03 is loosely connected with XD72?
= peace, hence peaoe universally = peace in its
fulness.
Ver. 8. Be it known unto the king. — The
letter in iv. 12 began in the same way. The pre-
sent letter however is distinguished by the fact
that it gives first of all a simple objective report.
Judah is called a i"U*1D (see ii. 1), the god of the
Jews, the great God. — It is not probable how-
ever that they, like the Samaritans (iv. 1) actually
paid a certain degree of reverence to him, rather
the deep reverence of the Jews made such an im-
pression upon them that they supposed He must
be an especially great God (namely, for His wor-
shippers). What they say respecting the building,
is manifestly to show that the work was well-
done, in a strong, stately manner. — Of great
atones. — 773 13N here the accusative of mate-
ri tvv
rial is the stone which was too heavy to lift, and
which could only be rolled along; thus very heavy
and large stones (as chap. vi. 4), which were only
taken for great buildings, designed to last a very
long time. The Sept. emphasizes by its translation
Xi&ot li&EKToi, the excellence of the material ; Es-
* [So Luzatto Oram., ? 104. This is the better inter-
pretation of the form. — Tit.]
t [Rawlinson, in loco, regards them as Persians or fo-
reign settlers in Samaria generally.— Tb.]
dras vi. 9, by its translation Vifroi tteorbi 7ro?LVTe-
/UZc at the same time the labor applied to them,
as well as their costliness. — And timber is laid
in the ■walls. — Berth, understands by this the
placing of beams in the walls, that is, in the par-
titions, [Rawlinson, in loco, " party walls "], or
likewise the erection of the scaffolding on the
outer walls. But the expressions indicate ra-
ther the inlaying of the walls with wood work ar-
tistioally finished (comp. ITnini) Ps. lxxiv. 6),
thus according to the view of the writer represent
the building as one erected with great care. It
is true the work had not made such progress, in
fact that the walls, which themselves were first
built of the great stones, could have been already
inlaid. But it is probable that the zeal, which
is clearly enough attested by Haggai, manifested
itself likewise in this way, that those skilled in
wainscoting went at once to work, since more-
over it was necessary to make as great has'e as
possible on account of the threatened interrup-
tion. The haste is expressly referred to by the
oflicials in the last words — and this work go-
eth fast on— DJ"13pK (comp. vi. 8, 12, 13 ; vii.
17, 21, 26) is explained from the Persian, and
means properly, very active. DS is probably the
ancient Persian us or os, Sanscrit ut, which ex-
presses intensity; as our "very" and parna
is an adjective from the ancient Persian par,
Zend pere = do, complete. Comp. Haug. a. a. 0.
The subject of 117X0, it prospereth is not the
form nJW3.J> (comp. vi. 14 ; Dan. vi. 29), but
"it."
Vers. 9, 10 then give an account at first of
their question. — Then asked we those el-
ders.— }7X, those who, as a matter of course,
were in Jerusalem at the head, ver. 10, at their
head.— 0fWiO3 is more naturally explained as
at their head (comp. 2 Chron. xx. 2), than: in
their capacity as their heads (Berth., Keil). [A.
V., "that were the chief of them "]. The latter in-
terpretation of 3 is in itself doubtful, especially
moreover, since no verb is given with it. The
plural, expressed by the vowels, may be explained
by the fact that they worked in different groupB,
namely, by families (comp. Neh. iii.)
Ver. 11 sq. gives the answer of the heads of
the Jews.— And thus they made us the re-
port, namely, the one required. "TOB7 = 1DK7
— We are the servants of the God of hea-
ven.— The pleonastic Buffix of "ni"t3j/ empha-
sizes very strongly the fact, not that they above
all others and alone are servants of God (Berth.)
but that they above all others are servants of the
God of heaven, and not of any lower being.
They therefore expressly designate God as the
God of heaven and earth, that is, the highest ;
yea, properly the only true God. They would
without doubt show the officers that they had
good grounds and were very well entitled to
build their temple, and that those would do wrong
who should oppose their undertaking. On this
account therefore they add that their God had
had this house long ago, and in it bad long ago
possessed a worthy place of worship. — And we
60
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
build the house that was built. — not tttSnn,
it was once built, but &U3 K1H, it was built and
continued to be a place of worship — these many-
years ago. — iUT np"lpp = before this (present)
t i me. — A great king of Israel built and com-
pleted it. — It would have been an evidence
against their God if He had not provided Him-
self with a worthy place of worship in ancient
times, and had not made the king of his people
great and mighty. They say intentionally not the
great king Solomon, but a great king (the geni-
tive relation being expressed by 7); tney thus
emphasize better the idea itself, that the king
was a great one.
Ver. 12. It is true the temple has been de-
stroyed, but this does not show any weakness in
their God, but rather His holiness. — On this
account, because our fathers provoked. —
JilS does not refer to that which precedes, but to
what follows, for it is used in its usual sense of
" on this account," and is here really — only
on this account. It does not follow from the fact
that it sometimes has the sense of ''but" after ne-
gative expressions, that it may also be an adver-
sative particle, and mean "nevertheless," "how-
ever," "yet." lr|_[D' however, is here not in
the temporal sense, [A. V. after that'], for then it
would express very vaguely the idea: since that
the fathers had already provoked God long be-
fore He abandoned His temple; but it is here in
its usual causal sense "because." |D may be
very properly used in this sense, comp. Hebrew
"liy.-O, Isa. xliii. 4. "1JF1D = to conceal, then like
the Hebrew Tron, to destroy. It is true it is
only used here in the Bible in this sense, but in
the Targums occurs quite frequently. !"1DJ£
might, if it had the suffix, that is, if the 71 were
pointed with mappiq, mean simply, "the people
of the land;" JHN is often to be supplied. Yet
the Massora remarks, that mappiq is not to be
written, and B. Norzai and J. fl. Mich, have left
it out, so that the H is to be taken as a represen-
tative of the N, as is often the case in this book.
Ver. 13. But in the first year of Cyrus. —
When the predestined time of chastisement had
passed the Lord Himself was able to gain recog-
nition from Cyrus, so that now the restoration
of His temple has a good and assured founda-
tion. Comp. chaps, i. 2; vi. 3. N23 7, as ohap.
y. 3.
Ver. 14. And the vessels also — did Cyrus
the king take. — So great was the recognition
that CyruB gave to the true God, that he not only
allowed His veneration, butfurthered it with offer-
ings, so that the building of the temple, unless the
vessels were to remain without a suitable place,
became so much the more necessary. N^'H
is here used as at the first, so naturally also the
second and third time in the sense of temple.
Comp. VflS.X TV% chap. ii. 7. W'iT] is probably
the conjugated passive participle — and they
were given, not the active preterite = they gave,
for the indefin. subject with sing, (against Berth.).
In the last case we would expect IBH after the
object, which is not elsewhere in such cases
omitted: moreover, the yod in the second sylla-
ble has usually only an intrans. or passive signi-
fication.— Whose name is Sheshbazzar —
thus indefinitely, as we would say, to Sheshbaz-
zar, as he is called. For this name see chap. i. 8.
As in Hag. i. 1, etc., so here Zerubbabel is desig-
nated as Pechah, whilst in chap. i. 8 as prince
of Judah, *<?'W1-
• T
Ver. 15. And he said unto him, Take
these vessels. — In connection with giving out
the vessels Cyrus expressly ordained the build-
ing of the temple. Instead of i"l7X, the Qeri is
here as in 1 Chron. xx. 8, 7N. The three un-
connected imperatives, " take, go forth, lay
down," comprehend the three acts, to a certain
extent, in one, thus expressing likewise the zeal
of Cyrus, and the zeal that Sheshbazzar was ex-
pected to exhibit. fnX, notwithstanding the
Chateph Pathah, may be merely the imper.
Aphel of nnj, of which we have the part, in
chap. vi. 1, and the imperf. in chap. vi. 5. — And
let the house of God be built. — These words
are connected with the words lay them down
in the temple as a necessary complement,
by the copula ).
Ver. 16. Then came this Sheshbazzar,
namely from Babylon to Jerusalem, and laid the
foundations, etc. — The copula is also lacking
before 3!T, because the two acts are connected
together in the closest way. STtSfK, as in chap,
iv. 12. Here it can only mean the laying of the
foundations in chap. iii. 8-10. — Since that time
even until now hath it been in building,
and is not yet finished. — These words were
probably designed to let the present activity
■appear as a simple continuation of the building,
ordained by Cyrus, thus also as something en-
tirely justified. At any rate it was entirely in
the interest of the Jews to be silent respecting
the fact that Cyrus had allowed an interruption
to take place, and there is nothiDg in our repre-
sentation of the subject opposed to its reality.
But had the express prohibition of the Arta-
xerxes in chap. iv. 17 sq. already preceded, yet
the Jews might well have said that it had been
occasioned only by the entirely groundless slan-
ders of the Samaritans. Hence they must regard
it as their absolute duty to contradict these slan-
ders. Dip occurs only here in Bib. Chaldee,
yet often enough in the Targums and Syriac, and
indeed in the sense of "complete and ready."
Ver. 17. And now, if it seem good to the
king, let there be search made in the trea-
sure-house.— 7j?3t3, comp. vii. 18; Dan. vi.
24, as in later Hebrew, 7# 3iB, Esther i. 19,
good according to any one's judgment. NVJJ,
Heb. D'UJ (Esth. iii. 9; iv. 7), are the treasures,
probably from IJJ — DJ3, collect, and dshanasa,
conceal, but at the same time in accordance with
the Arian gaza, comp. "I3U, Ezr. i. 8; on the
other hand, TJTJJ, 1 Chron. xxviii. 11. It is clear
from this passage and chap. vi. 1, that written
CHAP. V. 1-17
61
documents were likewise preserved in the trea-
sure-house. — Whether a command 'was
given by king Cyrus. — ]il = whether, as
likewise Jer. ii. 10. For D1^, vid. chap. iv. 19.
W\ comp. chap. vii. 18, from H^l = fl^l, vo-
luntas, cpinion.
THOUGHTS TJPON THE H1STOEY OF REDEMPTION.
Ver. 1. Notwithstanding the great readiness
which distinguished the new congregation at
first (comp. notes upon chap, iii.), they yet fell
into indolence and worldliness as soon as difficul-
ties were placed in the way of their work, comp.
Haggai's prophecy. It was even necessary that
again God's word should arouse, encourage,
strengthen them, and fill them with joy. And
indeed the Lord does not fail on His part :
wherever any powers whatever are present; if
slumbering, He awakens them. The more we
need His all-awakening call, and the more that is
the result of undeserved grace and faithfulness
that shames us, the more willing should we be
to hear and follow Him.
Vers. 1-5. Although the new congregation,
when they were called upon by the prophets and
strengthened by their prophecies, might have
readily supposed that the building of the temple
would now be finished without stumbling upon
difficulties, they were yet obliged presently to
submit, to an inquiry on the part of the Persian
officials, that might again easily result in an in-
terruption. Such trials the Lord Himself sends
at the time, — and then often very properly, — when
His own word has given the impulse to an under-
taking or action. Even then, and then particu-
larly, faith must be strengthened by trials. The
congregation at this time did not allow the inter-
ference of the Persian officials to surprise them
too much; they were not faint-hearted on this
account, and did not allow themselves to be de-
terred thereby from building; in the careful
hesitancy of the officials they saw rather the in-
fluence and protection of God. Thus is it ever
for the church, so long as it is in covenant with
the Lord, to regard the hinderances, even if they
seem threatening, and easily might be destruc-
tive, as yet trifling; and things favorable, even,
if they seem at first insignificant, as great and
important. We must be inclined thereto by the
contentment with which one feels impelled to
thankfulness for the little, and the faith in Him
who has all things in His hand. It is the very
reverse with the world.
Vers. 6-17. The magistracy often, as is clear
from chap, iv., allows itself to use calumniators
as its instruments. But without regard to the
fact that they are obliged to help in realizing
the design of God even in such a case, they
are easily preserved by their office and their du-
ties from such errors, even if they are worldly and
heathen in their character. In our present chap-
ter they act as true magistrates; they quietly
listen to the report of the Jews, and bring it
without misrepresentation before the king. Bren-
tius rightly remarks: "vides differentiam inter
calumniatores et bonos ac probos viros. Una ea-
demque causa erat sedificii tempH, unus idemque
populus Judmorum: attamen hvjus populi causa |
aliter refertur ab impiis calumniatoribus aliter a
bonis viris. How much worse off the Jewish
congregation would have been, if the Samaritans
had had to do with them without the Persian
officials ! Hence the church should never forget,
even if at times it has had to suffer injustice from
worldly authorities, to be t hankful from the heart
to God that there are magistrates after all, comp.
Rom. xiii. 1 sq., etc.
Vers. 11, 12. The congregation did not keep
back their faith, when it came to the point of
rendering account of their designs before the
magistrates, Vather did they lay down an open
confession, even before the heathen, without
fearing to be laughed at for their assertion that
they served the only true God. In order to ward
off the objection that their Lord had been with-
out power, they confessed the sinfulness of their
fathers, and praised the holiness of God. God's
honor was for th«-m more important than the
honor of their fathers or of the nation. Well for
the church, when the world itself is obliged f.o
give testimony to it, as it here gives to the Jewish
congregation, that it has made such a good confes-
sion as this. If with such a confession heart and
hand accord, it has the power that overcomes the
world.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-6. How does the Lord prevent our
being conformed to the world ? 1) By His warn-
ing word. — Starke : It is the office of faithful
teachers to strengthen the faint hands and feeble
knees (Isa. xxxv. 3). 2) By the trials that He
sends, especially by making the accomplishment
of His own word difficult. 3) By providential
care and preservation (ver. 5). — Brentius :
Multa hie notanda. Primum, quod Deus ssepenu-
mero nos a bono proposito impedit, non ut non exe-
quomur, sed ut clarius et illustrius exequamur.
Deinde, quod sit ingenium vulgi: mox enim putat,
numquam fore, ut promoveat (sc. Deus opus suum,
si aliquamdiu intermittatur). — The movements that
the development and advance of the kingdom of
God call forth: 1) The congregation is agitated
by the overwhelming voice of God ; it gives new
courage, and lays hold of the work of building
obligatory upon it with new joy. — Starke: Al-
though it involves not a little danger for awhile
to accomplish with obedience that which God
commands in His word, yet we should obey not-
withstanding, and not allow ourselves to be
frightened off by any danger. 2) The world is
agitated, for it cannot quietly see the events in
the kingdom of God, especially when the congre-
gation is subordinated to its civil authority, but
it is obliged to assist in furthering the cause of
God in its own way. 3) God Himself is agitated.
He directs His eye with especial care and wisdom
upon the leaders of the congregation, and stretches
forth His hand to give protection and help.
Vers. 11, 12. The true confession. 1) The oc-
casion of it — the magistrates call to account, — 2)
its contents, God's grace and truth and our own
sins, — 3) its aim, the establishment of a taber-
nacle of God among men. The true contents of
a believing confession. 1) God's gracious acts —
He has by them from the most ancient times ob-
tained worship. Starke : If we purify the doc-
62
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
trines with which Christ and His apostles have
erected a spiritual temple to God, from human
ordinances, we start no new doctrine, but erect
again the marred temple of God. 2) Exhibition
of the divine holiness. He has imposed upon
His church dependence and deficiencies on ac-
count of its sins. — Starke: Even the sins of our
forefathers we should not cloak, but where they
have erred, confess it. 3) God's assertions of
power. — He has wrung a recognilion from even
a Cyrus, even the mightiest worldly power, and
made them serviceable for the re-establishment
of His worship.
[Scott: Whilst we continue in this world, we
shall always have to confess that our sins have
provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, and that
all our sufferings spring from this source, and
all our comforts from His unmerited mercy. —
Henry: Our eye upon God, observing His eye
upon us, will keep us to our duty, and encourage
us in it when difficulties are never so discouraging.
Let the cause of God, and Truth, be fairly stated,
and fairly heard, and it will keep its ground.— Tr. ]
B.— THE ANSWER OF DARIDS, THE COMPLETION OF THE TEMPLE, AND THE FIRST
CELEBRATION OF THE PASSOVER.
Chapter VI. 1-22.
I. Darius' Answer. Vers. 1-12.
1 Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the
2 rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. And there was found at Ach-
metha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a
3 record thus written : In the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king
made a decree concerning the hou^e of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded,
the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly
laid ; the height thereof three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof three-score
4 cubits ; With three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber : and let the ex-
5 penses be given out of the king's house : And also let the golden and silver vessels
of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the temple which is
at Jerusalem, and brought unto Babylon, be restored, and brought again unto the
temple which is at Jerusalem, every one to his place, and place them in the house
6 of God. Now therefore, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and
your companions the Apharsachites, which are beyond the river, be ye far from
7 thence : Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and
8 the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place. Moreover I make a
decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house
of God : that of the king's goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith
9 expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered. And that which
they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt-offer-
ings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine and oil, according to the appointment
of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail :
10 That they may offer sacrifices of sweet savors unto the God of heaven, and pray
11 for the life of the king, and of his sons. Also I have made a decree that whosoever
shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up,
12 let him be hanged thereon; and let his house be made a dunghill for this. And
the God that hath caused his name to dwell there destroy all kings and people,
that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at
Jerusalem. I Darius have made a decree ; let it be done with speed.
II. The Completion and Dedication of the Temple. Vers. 13-18.
13 Then Tatnai, governor on this side the river, Shethar-boznai, and their compa-
nions, according to that which Darius the king had sent, so they did speedily.
14 And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through, the prophesying
CHAP. VI. 1-22.
63
of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and
finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to
15 the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. And
this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth
16 year of the reign of Darius the king. And the children of Israel, the priests, and
the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of
17 this house of God with joy. And offered at the dedication of this house of God
a hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs ; and for a sin-offering
for all Israel, twelve he-goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.
18 And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the
service of God, which is at Jerusalem ; as it is written in the book of Moses.
III. Celebration of the First Passover- Feast, Vers. 19-22.
19 And the children of the captivity kept the passover upon the fourteenth day of
20 the first month. For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them
were pure, and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for
21 their brethren the priests, and for themselves. And the children of Israel, which
were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto
them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel,
22 did eat. And kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy : for the
Lord had made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto
them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of
Israel.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-12. The answer of Darius. Notwith-
standing the great importance of the decision
that Darius gave in reply to the letter of his
officers and the greatness of its results, in that
after so long a waiting it finally introduced a
new and significant turn of affairs, its introduc-
tion is quite brief.- — Then Darius the king
made a decree. — These words seem to refer
only to the command to make an investigation;
but in reality they serve as an introduction to
the decree which was promulgated to Tatnai,
etc. ; comp. v. 6. It is as if the subsequent nar-
rative: and search ■was made, were taken
up merely as an explanation of the decree fol-
lowing in ver. 6 sq. Without doubt it was con-
tained in the decree of Darius to Tatnai, as its
basis or introduction.— The house of ■wri-
tings.— Comp. v. 17.* Here the treasures like-
wise were laid up. J'finnp is participle Aphel
of nnj. Comp. chap. v. 15.
Ver. 2. And there was found at Achme-
tha. — Search was made for the writing in Ba-
bylon; but it was found in Achmetha, affer that
there was probably found in the archives at
Babylon a reference to the archives of Achmetha
for the documents of the time of Cyrus. The
letters DF1N engraved on coins seem to designate
* [Rawlinson in loco: "A house of writings was dis-
covered at Koyunjik the ancient Nineveh by Mr. La-
yard in the year 1850 — a set of chambers, i. e. in the
palace devoted exclusively to the storing of public
documents. These were in baked clay, and covered
the floors to the depth of more than a foot." Many of
these writings were removed to the British Museum,
where they have been partially arranged and translated
by Rawlinson, Smith, Talbot and others. The library
was again visited, and many of its treasures removed
by Smith in 1873 and '4 and again in 1876. See Assyrian
Discoveries of Geo. Smith, New York, 1875.— Te.)
this city. Comp. Mordtmann, D. M. Zeitschrift,
VIII., 8. 14. In ancient Persian, however,
Achmetha probably was Hagamatha. — [Rawlin-
son in loco : " in the Behistun inscription Hagma-
tana." — Te.] — In Greek it is 'Ay/jdrava (Herod.
I. 88) or 'JZiift&Tava (Judith i. 14), the summer-
residence of the Persian and Parthian kings,
built by Deiokes, the capital of Media the great,
in the vicinity of the present Hamadan. — In
the palace. — The archives were especially in
the citadel, nV3=s) j3apic, which embraced the
palace and likewise the other prominent build-
ings.— A roll and therein was a record.* —
We Bhould expect directly after TOJ3 (there is
less authority for a kamefz in the last syll.) the
contents of the writing; indeed rUilD^st. emp k.
of p"1?^) may have been a superscription in the
writing itself about equivalent to : memoran-
dum; nevertheless it is here connected with the
previous clause as a memorandum was written
therein. The contents do not follow until vers.
3-5.
Ver. 3 contains first probably stereotype in-
troductory forms; at first the date: In the
first year of king Cyrus (as in chap. v. 13) ;
then the short preamble: Cyrus the king
made a decree ; then a statement of the con-
tents; then the following words: the house
of God at Jerusalem, stand alone by them-
selves, and constitute to a certain extent a title.
Then the command: Let the house be built
as a place -where offerings are brought
and whose foundations are capable of
supporting (namely, the structure). — "IfJN is
placed before the relative clause in slat, constr.
* rKawlinson in loco: ''The ancient Persians used
parchment for their records as appears from Ctesias
(cap. Diod., Sec. II. 32)."— Te.]
ei
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
as Dl'pip, Hos. ii. 1, etc. \")?iO? 'ilWW is
hardly to be explained as: "its foundation they
may setup" (Keil), or " may be erected (Qes. in
his Thesaurus). In this Bense the additional
clause would be superfluous. We would expect
an optative instead of a participle. It is made
co-ordinate with the previous relative clause by
the participle, and not with the principal clause
" let the house of God be built." 730, which only
in very detached passages is like the Heb. NJM,
in the Targum of Dent. xxiv. 15 and in the Sa-
maritan translation of Gen. xiii. 10, means, as
in Hebrew, without doubt also in Chald, first
and chiefly, to drag, bear a burden. Accord-
ingly we regard as the safest explanation : whose
foundations are burden-bearing, that is, capable
of carrying, durable for the buildings erected
upon them. Cyrus might have been present to
state briefly in his own way the very reason
why the house of God in Jerusalem was to bo
built. It is a place wherein they from ancient
times offer offerings, thus a place long ago sanc-
tified, and besides the foundations are still pre-
sent and in a condition capable of bearing a
building upon them. The two participles, thus
viewed, are used without regard to tense. The
Vulgate and the Rabbins likewise let this con-
ception betray itself since they render: ponant
fundamenta support antia. Although it is more
natural to suppose that this second relative
clause should be synonymous with the first, yet
there is no change in the text that could be at all
proposed (e. g., j'EfN for J'tSfX) that would throw
any light. Whilst indeed Esdras had Sia Trvpdc
ivdeXexovc, the Sept seems, although rendering
very freely (/ca; iOrjnav faapfia) to have followed
our text.
In order that the house might be large and
elevated enough, Cyrus at once fixed its height
and breadth (comp. Dan. iii. 1 for ivnfl), and in
deed both, sixty cubits, double that of the tem-
ple of Solomon. Comp. 1 Kings vi. 2. Even if
in this passage the cubit of commerce of the exile
times were meant, whilst in 1 Kings vi. 2, on the
other hand, the ancient Mosaic or holy cubit. (2
Chron. iii. 3), which according to Ezek. xl. 5;
xliii. 13, was a hand's breadth longer than the
former, namely, eighteen and a half Rhenish
inches, the difference would still be significant
enough. But it is probable that the reference
here is to the Mosaic cubit. The measurements
for the new temple appear, since they were just
double, to have been chosen with reference to
those of the old temple, and on their basis. It
is probable that Cyrus thought he could not make
the matter of the temple his own affair without
at least surpassing Solomon to the extent of dou-
ble. Perhaps this explains why he fixes nothing
at all respecting the length. Probably he knew
that a greater length than that of the temple of
Solomon was not desirable, since otherwise the
temple buildings would have taken relatively too
much space, and the extent of the courts, which
needed much space, be too limited. Since now
he could not well go beyond dolomon in this re-
spect, he rather makes no standard at all. The
building of Solomon's temple had a length of
sixty cubits, twenty for the most holy place, forty
for the holy place, and besides a vestibule of ten
cubits. This was besides surrounded on the two
long side3 and in the rear, by wings of five cu-
bits breadth. The length of the temple of He-
rod was limited to essentially the same measure-
ments. But if they did not wish to exceed these
measurements, the sixty cubits breadth could only
be applied to measure the outer breadth, em-
bracing likewise the wings, unless they would
entirely abandon the relations rendered sacred
by the tabernacle, and almost throughout re-
tained by the temple of Solomon. The holiest
of all had been a cube in both the tabernacle and
the temple of Solomon and the holy place again
had had double the length of this cube, and this
arrangement of the parts seems to have been re-
gardedasthemost essential. The internal breadth
of the second temple could not well amount to
more than that of the first temple, or than that
which it subsequently had in the temple of He-
rod, namely, twenty cubits (with Keil and against
Merxin Herz.'s Real-Enc. XV. S. 513 and Berth.)
Thus there remained to the side buildings a con-
siderable space. If we reckon ten cubits for each
side, whilst in the temple of Solomon only five
cubits had been applied to that purpose, since
the breadth in that case would have amounted to
twenty cubits in the clear, in all thirty cubits,
there still remain twenty cubits for the four walls,
which in the temple of Herod likewise took up
the same amount of space. Whether accordingly
the internal height was likewise limited, whether
it at least in t.he holiest of all was diminished to
the measure of the length and breadth, as it were,
by the addition of upper chambers, such as had
been in the temple of Solomon likewise, these
taking up ten cubits in height, we know not. In
the temple of Herod there was assigned to the
holiest of all, as well as to the holy place, an in-
ternal height of sixty cubits, whilst still forty to
sixty cubits in height were applied to the upper
chambers. And it is possible that Zerubbabel
and Jeshua likewise already acted with more free-
dom with reference to the height, an internal
height of only twenty cubits in connection with
an external height of sixty cubits, would have
been almost too much out of proportion. That
they really carried the external height to sixty
cubits, seems to follow from Josephus Arch. xv.
11, 1*
Ver. 4 gives still further directions, but it is
difficult to understand them. — Three rows of
great stones. — ^|3"U is used in the Targ. for the
Hebrew "11D, which is from 11D = circumire, and
means the surrounding wall or walls (Ezek. xlvi.
23), but also the rows (Ex. xxviii. 17, etc. ; so
also indeed 1 Kings vii. 3, 4). Fritzsche on Es-
dras vi. 25, Keil and Merx (I. c), regard its
meaning as row or course, and accordingly uu-
derstand it to be = the walls, whether of the
temple (Fritzsche) or of the inner porch (Keil
and Merx) — of the latter it is very appropriately
* When Josephus here lets Herod say that the sec-
ond temple fell sixty cubits in height below the tem-
ple of Solomon, ho accords to the second a height of
sixty cubits, and to that of Solomon of one hundred
and twenty cubits, the latter without doubt on the
basis of 2 Chron. iii. 4, where in consequence of an
error or copyist's mistake there is given to the hall of
the temple of Solomon a height of one hundred and
twenty cubits.
CHAP. VI. 1-22.
G5
said in 1 Kings vi. 36, that Solomon built them:
d'Pn Fihi2 iiDi rrta niB rxvht, they
•T-: '-. : : 'T T I
Bliould have below three layers of hewn stone and
a row of cedar beams. But that the walls of the
temple building itself, of which alone we can
think according to ver. 3, should be built of four
such courses is highly improbable, for suoh au
unfinished massive method of building has no
where been found in the Orient. But if the walls
of the inner court were meant, these would cer-
tainly have been mentioned, or if something had
been left out that was originally contained in the
edict of Cyrus for explanation (Merx), these
words would most suitably have been omitted
likewise. Moreover 11Q in the above mentioned
passage, 1 Kings vi. 36, very probably has a dif-
ferent meaning. It is very worthy of remark,
that *WB as well here as also immediately after-
wards, 1 Kings vii. 2, so also in Ezek. xlvi. 23,
occurs with reference to four-sided rooms, which
were enclosed round about, just as D'D3~U is used
in our passage. Nothing is more appropriate
then than to understand thereby the four side
enclosures which enclosed the room ; whether
walls, as in the inner court, 1 Kings vi. 36; Ezek.
xlvi. 23, or side buildings that surrounded a four-
cornered room, as 1 Kings vii. 2. The sense of
1 Kings vii. 36 is, then, that Solomon provided
the inner court on three sides with walls of quar-
ried stone, on the one other side, without doubt
the front side, where the chief entrance was,
where then there was probably a larger door,
with an enclosure of hewu cedar. Our passage,
however, then says that three of the temple walls
— for it can only refer to these according to ver.
3 — were of hewn stone, the other, namely, the
front, which must for the most part be composed
of a large entrance, was to be made of wood. In
confirmation of this view it is sufficient that in
the temple of Herod also, the entrance side of
the holy place was still composed of one great
folding door, sixteen cubits broad. In the same
manner then, moreover, was the inner court en-
closed, as we conclude from 1 Kings vi. 36.* —
And a row of new timber. — Instead of PHPl
= new after ,J?K = timber, it is appropriate to
read mn— one, as then the Sept. already ren-
ders Elf, yet this numeral is absent also in 1
Kings vi. 36. — And let the expenses. — KP1P3 J
from p33 (in Aphel = to give out) is the ex-
pense, and indeed here that which was caused by
the building of the temple. — From the house
of the king is according to ver. 8 sq. = from
the royal revenues on this side of the river.
Ver. 5 adds the order for the restoration of
the temple vessels, that was so important. The
sing. IJiT (respecting the form vid. V. 5) is ex-
plained after the previous plural from the con-
ception of the different vessels as one sum total.
^Df i 'hus written and pointed, is 2d pers. im-
perf. Aph. with transitive meaning = cause to
be delivered, comp. v. 15. If this meaning is
* "Ferguson accepts the Sept. So/no?, and understands
three stories of stone, with a fourth story of wood-work
on the summit. Rawlinson thinks that Cyrus would
limit the thickness of the walls to three rows of stone
with an inner wooden wainscotting.— Ta.]
to be retained, we must suppose that the edict of
Cyrus was addressed to some individual, perhaps
Zerubbabel himself, and that Cyrus now turns
immediately to him. Yet the transition to the
direct address is here somewhat singular and ab-
rupt, and it seems best to take Dn.PI as 3d pers.
fern, imperf. Kal, which indeed should be pointed
rfinfl or at least Hn.PI with the indefinite sub-
ject.
Ver. 6. The previous edict of Cyrus is now
followed by the order of Darius, so favorable and
careful in its provisions for the Jews, that it is
as if the latter would not only confirm the for-
mer's action out of reverence, but even surpass
him. If it should be difficult for the little con-
gregation of Jews to conduct the worship in Je-
rusalem in accordance with the prescriptions of
the law, in that a great expense was especially
necessary for the offerings, Darius helped them
to bear the burden by his great liberality. He
at first in vers. 6, 7 arranged that his governor
should not hinder the work. — Now therefore
Tatnai, etc. — For the connection with previous
context see notes on ver. 1.— And your com-
panions, your Apharsachites = those who
are your companions, etc. For an explanation
of the terms comp. v. 3, 6. — Be (or keep your-
self) far from thence, e. g., interfere not with
the imposition of burdens or hindrances.
Ver. 7. Let alone. — P2C' c.aceus. = to give
way to or permit something. — The work of this
house of God, namely, that brought in question
by you. — Let the governor and the el-
ders build. — "3^7' is here after PIPIS clearly a
second subject to pM\ / is hence used here to
introduce a subject which is quite unusual. Comp.
perchance Isa. xxxii. 1, and Dan. iv. 33, and in-
deed without exactly making '3E? more promi-
nent than PinS.
Ver. 8. Then Darius directs his officers to de-
fray the cost of the building. — Moreover I
make a decree what ye shall do. — Comp. iv.
19 • KdS = in reference to that which ye are to
do, comp. ~7X with 7\VS, Isa. xxiii. 11 ; Ps. xci.
11 ; 2 Kings xx. 1. 0$ is used here with 13£
in no other way than with 7W$ in Heb., comp.
Gen. xxiv. 12 sq. It corresponds to some extent
with the German "an," but expresses still fur-
ther " in favor of . ' ' — For the building.— N.^pV
= in order that they may build. The second
half of the verse : that of the king's goods,
even of the tribute, contains the principal
thing that the royal officers were to do, so that
1=and indeed— With expenses— that they be
not hindered.— ruiSDX as in ver. 8. nS-H
t : ~ : T T
xSl33S cannot well mean that there be no stop-
ping, or that it may not come to a stopping of
the work (Keil after the Vulgate: ne impediatur
opus), since no object such as work is mentioned
here as in chap. iv. 21 and 23; but it means:
which (prescribed action) is not to be brought to
an end, or discontinued (Bertheau). Comp. Dan.
60
THE BOOK OP EZRA.
vi. 9. This additional clause is to sharpen the
previous one.
In vers. 9 and 10 Darius further adds: that
his officers shall provide the material of the offer-
ings in order that prayer may be offered for him,
and the welfare of his empire in the Jewish man-
ner, in Jerusalem likewise. — And whatever i3
necessary — intyn isfem.pl. (necessary things)
from HOT! for ]ni?n, comp. J'nit'n Dan. iii. 16,
and Tp^S Dan. v. 25, according to Winer's Gr.,
I 34, ill. [Biggs' Gr., <S 32— Ta.]. the vocaliza-
tion varies. — Both young bullocks and. —
The following 1 — 1 is properly = as well — as,
or also, whether — or. Darius names here vari-
ous animals and other materials, which may in
any way come into consideration, since he leaves
the more particular designation of what would
be required to the priests at Jerusalem. — Let it
be given them without fail. — The singular
3tTna NirO (comp. Nlif7 iv. 12) is explained
perhaps from the fact that Darius goes back upon
HO and embraces every individual in an indefi-
T
nite " it." 172? N/-'! means : that there be no
T T
interruption, namely, in providing what is neces-
sary, or indeed in the worship. In the transla-
tion of the LXS. o £av airijaovai, which overlooks
the K? and in that of the Vulgate ne sit in aliquo
guxrimonia, i?t? seems to have been derived from
Ver. 10. In order that they may be offer-
ing (continually) sacrifices of sweet savour
for the life of the king and his sous.' —
rnirVJ are (comp. Dan. ii. 46) sacrifices which
afford God a niiTJ ITT (Lev. i. 9, 13, etc.), and
thereby gain his good will, comp. Jer. xxix. 7 ;
1 Mac. vil. 87; xii. 11, etc.; Josephus, Arch.
XII. 2, 5 ; c. Ap. II. 6. Darius thereby indi-
cates the same recognition of the Lord to be wor-
shipped in Jerusalem, as Cyrus, without doubt,
from the same Btand-point. Comp. i. 2.
Vers. 11, 12. Darius here shows as an addi-
tional sign, how earnest ho was that his will
should be carried out, sealing what has been said
with a penalty. — 'Whosoever shall alter this
word. — The nom. absol. represents a protasis:
if any man whatever W'Jrr as in ver. 12 ; Dan.
vi. 9 and 16, change by transgression or also
(comp. ver. 12) by doing away with it. — Let a
timber (beam) be torn from his house, let
him be fastened thereon and crucified. —
•jpl in itself = raise on high, can just as well
mean " empale " or "pierce through,'' as also,
like the Syriac "crucify." Empalement or the
piercing through of delinquents on a pointed
wooden stake, was the usual punishment among
the Assyrians and Persians, comp. Layard, Ni-
neveh and Babylon, p. 355, and Nineveh and its re-
mains, p. 379, with the plate fig. 58 * Of Darius
it is said avtoaoUiriae (Herod. III. 159). Yet the
fastening on a cross likewise occurred among the
Persians, yet so that the head of the one to be
* [Rawlinson says, that crucifixion was the most
common form of punishment among the Persians.
Vid. Com. in toco and Ancient Monarchies IV., p. 208; He-
rod, lit. 159 ; IV. 53. Beh. Ins., col. II., par. H, etc.— Ta.]
crucified was first cut off. Vid. the passages
of Herodotus in Brisonii de rcgni Persarum
princip., II., c. 215.— And let his house be
made a dunghill for this, that is, let it
be torn down and changed into a common
sewer, comp. 2 Kings x. 27, and Havernick,
Com. on Dan. II. 5. 6jJ as nSlJ Dan. ii. 5*
Ver. 12. And the God that hath caused
his name to dwell there, destroy all kings,
etc. — "UO' corresponds with the Heb. "U'p, Ps.
lxxxix. 45. The expression, who has caused His
name to dwell there, is so decidedly Hebrew in
style (comp. Deut. xii. 11, 14, 23; Jer. vii. 12;
Neh. i. 9), that we must suppose the author does
not impart the decree verbally, or that Darius
made use of Jewish help in this entire affair.
Even the entire conception that God confined His
especial presence to a temple building was en-
tirely unlike the Persian conception, so that the
entire proceedings toward the Jews with refe-
rence to the temple on the part of Darius, and
already on the part of Cyrus, must be referred
back to an accommodation of views. — Who
stretches forth his hand to change, to de-
stroy.— VCydTy) for which we would expect
N'^nS is explained by 7172717, which indicates
what kind of change of the decree is here thought
of. The threat itself, as we have it here, is ge-
nuine Persian ; it reminds us of the conclusion
of the inscription of Darius at Behistun, where
the punishment of Ahuramazada is desired to
descend upon him who ventures to violate the
image and inscription, his blessing on the one
who holds them in honor (Berth.). [Rawlinson
in loco. See Beh. Ins., col. IV., part 17. — Te.]
Ver. 13. This happy turn of affairs is followed
by the completion of the work, on which, as a
matter of course, all depended. It is character-
istic of the book that this fact should also be nar-
rated in the Chaldee. It is as if the continued
use of this language should express the accom-
panying fact of their dependence upon Persia,
which still continued. Yet this was not so de-
pressing in its influence as encouraging, for, ac-
cording to divine providence, even the mighty
princes of Persia co-operated on their part and
in their way in the worship of Jehovah. The
author first lets the Persian officers take part in
the recognition of Jehovah : According to that
which Darius the king had sent so they
did speedily. — X3J3, according to the word (of
the king) oomp. iv. 18, in consequence of the fact
that Darius had sent, namely, answer and com-
mand. ,rT '3p/ properly, over against the fact
that == considering that, as usually irl./3p "73.
Ver. 14. The author here reminds us of all
those to whom the congregation were especially
indebted for the new temple. They were encou-
raged by (3) the prophesying of the prophets;
but it was the command of God, and then
that of Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, that had been
the source or origin (|0) of all that happened.
* [Houbigant and Dathe prefer the Vulgate render-
ing : domus ejus publicetitr, " let his house be confiscated."
But the balance of authority is in favor of the transla-
tion given above. Rawlinson, in loco. — Ta.]
CHAP. VI. 1-22.
67
God is mentioned here, and indeed before Cyrus
and Darius, since the author goes forth from the
fact, that there would have been no command
of Cyrus and Darius without God's oommand.
If we had here a simple account of the final com-
pletion of the building, it would seem strange that
here the author should go back even to Cyrus,
Still more that the much later Artaxerxes is taken
into consideration, who had nothing to do with the
building here under consideration. The author,
however, instead of giving a simple narrative,
would rather express recognition and thanks,
and hence could forget none who were deserving
of mention. Artaxerxes came into consideration
only on account of the gifts which he caused to
be brought to Jerusalem by Ezra, vii. 15, 19.
Ver. 15. For a work of such importance the
date is properly given. X'S'Iij, for which the
Qeri gives 'S'tJf, is the Shaphel of IKS\ [so Lu-
zatto, Gram., \ 45. — Tk.] ; in the Targum 'X'ltf
has mostly an active sense, yet at times also an
intransitive sense, so that it corresponds with
our "end;" now transitive and then intransitive.
Thus it is hardly necessary to regard N'S1^ as a
Hebraistic passive formation of the Shaphel
(Berth, and Keil). By the third day of the month
Adar, that is the last mouth of the year, was the
temple finished, since it is probable that they
made haste to have time left in this year for a
worthy dedication; whilst the Sept. agrees with
our text in respect to the third day, Esdras vii.
6 has instead of it the twenty-third day, but pro-
bably, only because the author held that the
dedication immediately followed the completion,
and that it lasted eight days, after the example
of the temple of Solomou, 1 Kings viii. 60, and
2 Chron. xxix. 18. and filled up the last eight
days of the year. [The sixth year of Darius,
according to Rawlinson, was B. C. 516-515. —
Te.]
Vers. 16, 17. The great significance of that
which had been attained, and the consciousness
of it in the congregation at the time, the author
very beautifully shows by what he says respect-
ing the dedication. All observed it p9i as HiS'JJi
with H3jn, 2 Chron. vii. 9), with joy, and indeed
with the offering of a number of sacrifices which,
whilst small in comparison with the multitude in
Solomon's time (1 Kings viii. 5, 63), thus in ac-
cordance with the limited relations of the time,
yet might ever be regarded as a glad beginning,
showing by the twelve goats for sin-offerings,
that they would act in the name of entire Israel,
and regain the divine grace fori the whole body
of the people. Comp. ii. 2 ; viii. 35. Whether
then already remnants of the northern tribes
had returned and settled themselves in Juda, or
whether there were from former times represen-
tatives of these tribes, scattered about in the
land, does not come properly into consideration
here. The principal thing is, that the new con-
gregation, without doubt in consequence of former
prophecies, had no other thought than that those
so long separated from them bad retained their
privilege of being the people of God, and would
realize it in some way or other as in olden times.
Besides, the offerings prescribed in Num. vii. 11
sq. were here offered in the manner of the law.
Comp. 1 Kings viii. 63; 2 Chron. xxix. 20 sq.
Ver. 18. Thus there was again a legal wor-
ship, so likewise a legal body of persons to
conduct the worship. — They set up.—Wpni
as 3Tp|rv, iii. 8, namely, to perform the business
of the divine worship. — The priests in their
classes, and the Levites in their divisions
(comp. 2 Chron. xxxv. 5, 12; 1 Chron. xxvii. 4),
since every class and division had its week.
Comp. 2 Kings xi. 9, and 2 Chron. xxiii. 4. That
it is expressly added, as it is written in the
book of Moses (comp. Num. iii. 6; viii. 14),
may be in accordance with the legal disposition,
whioh became very soon characteristic of these
times, comp. iii. 2; 2 Chron. xxiii. 18; but at the
same time this likewise might well come into
consideration, that it was so important, that,
whilst still so many other things might be dis-
pensed with, yet at least they should again have
a worship iu accordance with the law.
Vers. 19-22. It, is very significant that tho
author here at the close of this entire section
adds an account of the first celebration of the
passover after the completion of the temple.
This came into consideration certainly not merely
as an evidence that in the new temple the divine
worship had its regular course with the cycle of
feasts (Keil), but before all as a feast, by which the
congregation might again show itself so appro-
priately as the redeemed and favored people of the
covenant of the Lord, also again more and more
assure itself of the covenant relation, as a conclu-
sion, which at the same time was a beginning assu-
ringanewand glorious continuance and progress.
This is quite clear from the confirmation given in
ver. 22, by which nothing less than the proper end
of the entire previous period of affliction itself is
designated as the foundation of this Passover
feast. So then the circumstance that the author
now returns to the Hebrew language is likewise
appropriate — one might Bay very significant.
If the Chaldee language has been used because
Chaldee documents had to be placed in order —
that is, because the restoration depended first
of all on the world power, and that by it the co-
venant people had been deprived for a while of
their covenant jewels, the temple, and divine
worship — so now, when the congregation was
again constituted a3 such, and also provided
with their temple and their divine worship, and
where the narrative might be occupied with this
exclusively, there was at least nothing in the
way of a return to the Hebrew tongue.
Ver. 20. For the priests and Levites had
purified themselves as one man (without
exception, comp. iii. 9), they -were all clean.
— This has reference not to the cause of the cele-
bration, but its possibility. Priests and Levites
had sufficiently prepared themselves, and were
now in the condition to fulfil the duties devolved
upon them. Defilements, as Lev. xxii.4sq. makes
them especially prominent with reference to the
priests, occurred again and again, and had been
certainly more frequent under previous circum-
stances, where the priests as such had come but
little into consideration, but they must now be
put aside ere they could fulfil their priestly
functions. At any rate, the author means to
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
point out a noble readiness, yea, a holy zeal, on
their part. The subjects of Wnttf' are, as is
clear from the following context, those who were
to do the slaughtering, e.g. of the Levites. Proper-
ly, it is true, every father of a family had himself
to slay the Paschal lamb, Ex. xii. 6 sq.; but after
the time of Hezekiah, when the Levites had un-
dertaken the slaying for all who had not puri-
fied themselves (2 Chron. xxx. 11), it seems to
have been more and more the custom for ihe Le-
vites to do the slaughtering for all (comp. 2 Chr.
xxxv. 4, 14) — for the priests, because they were
so busy elsewhere; and for the rest of the peo-
ple, because it was so easy for a defilement to
happen to them. As in 2 Chron. xxix. 34; xxxv.
15, the priests are designated as their = the Le-
vites' brethren, probably in connection with the
increasing importance of the Levites. DH/l —
"and for themselves,'' as in 2 Chron. xxxv. 14.
Ver. 21. This fair conclusion of the previous
times of trial, and this promising beginning of
the new congregation was all the grander that
the returned did not eat the Passover alone, but
also such persons united with them who would
separate themselves from the impurities of tho
people of the land, and seized with a new and
holy zeal, would henceforth hold to the Lord. — ■
And all such as had separated themselves
unto them from the filthiness of the hea-
then of the land.— pKH 'MJ, as psn 'S£,
x. 2, 11, are the heathen nations dwelling in Pa-
lestine, whilst the heathen in neighboring lands
belong to the n'W^Nn 'BJg, ix. 1,2; iii. 3. Those
Who separated themselves from these heathen
are not proselytes from heathenism (Aben Ezra,
Raschi, Clericus. et al.), but descendants of the
Jews and Israelites who had remained in the
land when the rest of the nation had been car-
ried captive, as all the parallel passages show,
comp. ix. 1, 10; x. 2, 10, 11; Neh. ix. 2; x. 29.
They had without doubt intermarried with the
heathen, and the more they had entered into
communion with them, the less were they in a
positiou to observe the Mosaic laws respecting
food and purification. To separate themselves
from the impurities of the heathen meant for
them to forsake altogether communion with the
heathen, and seek communion with the Jewish
congregation. For EH"!/ comp. iv. 2.
Ver. 22. If eating the passover (namely, in
the narrow sense, not in tho broader sense, which
means to eat the festival offerings in general,
comp. Deut. xvi. 3) as a means of appropriating
the covenant grace, closely combines seriousness
and joy, so the eating of the unleavened bread
ministered exclusively to joy and gave full ex-
pression to their joyous and elevated feelings.
The concluding clause — for then had the Lord
made them joyful, and turned the heart
of the king of Assyria unto them — means
to sny: for after all the hard Bufferings of the
exile, and after all the severe trials which had
come upon them since the time of Cyrus, the
Lord had now, by the re-establishment of the
temple, exactly seventy years after its destruc-
tion, caused a real and great change of affairs to
take place. There was now a new foundation
for the celebration of redemption, a second re-
demption, which was hardly less than the pre-
vious one out of Egypt, a redemption out of tho
firm bonds of Assyria. Darius, the king of Per-
sia, is here called king of Assyria, not only "as
ruler of the territory of the previous Persian
empire (Keil), or because Assyria from ancient
time had been the usual name for all that region
(Clericus),* which cannot be proved from Judith
ii. 1 ; but above all, likewise, because Darius, as
head of the great empire of the world, properly
took the same relative position over against ths
people of God as the Assyrian and Chaldean kings
had once had, because it was properly only a
continuation or renewal of the same, and be-
cause the thought was now to be expressed that
finally that very enemy who had once so fearfully
and destructively oppressed the people of God
had been changed by the grace of God into a
friend, so that he had even himself strengthened
the hands of the congregation in re-establishing
the destroyed temple (as I have already shown
in my article, S/udien und Kritiken, 1858, 8.51).+
T pin with 3 as 1 Sam. xxiii. 16.
THOUUHTS UPON THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.
Vers. 1-5. 1) It was not alone Cyrus who had
previously determined and established in docu-
ments the restoration of the temple and its wor-
ship, even to the deiails of the limits of its
measurements, the kind of material that should
be employed, but also before all God the Lord
Himself, as the great prophecy of Ezekiel re-
specting the new temple (Ezek. xl.— xlvii.) shows.
Cyrus was only an instrument of the Lord, and
had only given expression to His sovereign will.
Thus the congregation, however many hin-
drances might be placed in their way, although
the circumstances might appear different to them,
yet having the eye of faith, they had no suffi-
cient, reason for despondency, but only the more
confidently to look upon the wonderful provi-
dence of God, which makes even opposing forces
to serve His purpose. Is there not then also
with respect to the building of the Christian
Church or of the kingdom of God such a divine
predestination, which has provided beforehand
even to details all and everything that is adapted
to the honor of the Lord and the salvation of
men ; and which in spite of temporary gloom
and struggles and apparent defeat, must yet
more and more prevail, and be carried out more
and more decidedly by princes and peoples
whether they be Christian or not? The pro-
phecy of Ezekiel and even the edict of Cyrus are
evidences to us that there is such a predestina-|
tion, and that likewise there has been prepared,
so to say, a document which can never be lost
or destroyed ; for they prove that the temple of
God can suffer only temporal, properly only
* fTtawlinson in loco mentions as a corresponding fact
that Herodotus, with similar inexactness, calls Cyrus
the. king of the Medes (I. 206).— Tit.)
t [This was in accordance with the constant usage
of prophecy in representing all the enemies of the king-
dom of God by the most prominent enemy of the pro-
phets' time. This enemy having been the Assyrian in
the times of the prophets, it was natural that in think-
ing of the fulfilment of prophecy, the author should U9e
the prophetic term. — Tb.]
CHAP. VI. 1-22.
69
ejoporent losses, that it must grow and increase
and gain one victory after another.
2) It is not enough for the Lord to restore
His kingdom and glory when Bin and judgments
have come in between to disturb them ; He
causes His kingdom to grow, increase, advance.
Where there is life, there is also development,
appropriation, struggle and victory. Here is
the highest and most powerful, here is the divine
life. Cyrus must even surpass a Solomon, with
respect to the size of the temple, in order to
show that the cause and kingdom of God ad-
vances victoriously from century to century
through the history of mankind, and ever achieves
a higher stage towards the highest and most
glorious end. It is true He more and more de-
prives His Church of external power and pomp;
it is to become more and more internal and spi-
ritual, and thus to work. But even this change
is a great advance. If the walls which the
worldly power has drawn around the Church
fall, then we need comfort ournelves with the
words of the Lord through Zechariah (iv. 6) in
these very times of Darius "not by might and
not by power (namely, on the side of men), but by
my Spirit," and as an open country shall Jeru-
salem lie on account of crowds of men and cat-
tle in her. I myself will be to her a wall of fire
round about and for glory I will be in her
(ii. 8).
Vers. 1-12. The worldly authorities have often
lower motives or interests in the steps that they
take; it is often merely to increase their autho-
rity and their power. Thus the Persian officials
when they made inquiry in Jerusalem and re-
ported to Darius would merely prove their
watchfulness. The emperor Augustus, when
he gave the command Luke ii., would merely
accomplish a census of Israel. But the conse-
quences that followed their steps were yet, by
God's will, the advancement of His kingdom.
The Persian governor here must give the occa-
sion thereto in that the ancient decree of Cyrus
is again brought to light, and the new and still
more favorable one of Darius in addition is car-
ried into effect.
Vers. 6-12. Earthly kingdoms must perish to
make room and prepare the way for the king-
dom of God. Thus had the Lord spoken in the
second year of Darius, accordingly four years
before t.he completion of the temple, through
Hagg. ii. 20 sq. I will shake the heavens and
the earth, and overthrow the throne of king-
doms, and destroy the strength of the kingdoms
of the heathen, and overthrow the chariots and
those that ride in them, that the horses and
their riders shall come down, every one by the
sword of his brother — and indeed all this in
order to erect the promised kingdom of the Mes-
Biah. And the angel of the Lord who stood
between the myrtle trees (Zech. i. 11, 12), when
his messenger announced to him that the whole
earth sitteth still, and is at rest, cried out in
intercession: Jehovah Sabaoth, how long wilt
Thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and the oities
of Judah, against which Thou hast had indigna-
tion these seventy years, imploring the shaking
and destroying of the heathen kingdoms. But
these latter must parish only in so far as they
stand entirely in the way of the kingdom of God,
and will not let that kingdom come at all. At
the bottom the interests of the earthly powers
and rulers agree very well with those of the
kingdom of God. Darius rightly laid great
value upon the execution of his edict with refer-
ence to the furtherance and support of the wor-
ship in Jerusalem. His wish that they should
offer sacrifices of sweet savor to the God of hea-
ven in Jerusalem, and pray for his life and the
life of his son, not only might, but indeed must
be fulfilled, so Bure as the congregation of the
true God must be grateful, and indeed sincerely
and heartily. Comp. Jer. xxix. 7; 1 Mace. xii.
11; 1 Tim. ii. 2. The congregation could be in
his way only if it sought again for earthly
power and freedom, if it thus had forgotten its
proper nature and its true calling. Let the
church then earnestly examine itself when it
enters into conflict with the State whether it is
not going astray from its proper ways. Woe to
it if instead of permeating the State more and
more with divine thoughts, it itself gives more
and more place for human thoughts and human
nature; if it regards flesh for its arm and seeks
to appropriate to itself that which belongs to
the State. If the salt itself has lost its savor,
wherewith shall we season? The responsibility
of Rome, which would bow the States not under
the kingdom of God, but under its own rule
which is still so carnal, is great, the greater
that thereby bo easily the false view is awakened,
as if State and Church could not avoid in any
way being in conflict with one another. — Al-
ready through Cyrus and Darius there was ft
fulfillment of those great and noble words of
Isai. xlix. 23 : " Kings shall be thy foster-fathers,
and their queens thy nursing-mothers ; they
shall bow down to thee with their faces toward
the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet."
But already now it is manifest that the true ful-
fillment involves neither on the part of kings a
determining influence on the mode of worship,
nor on the side of the congregation an external
sovereignty over kings.
Vers. 13-15. Much was required, and very
many different things must come together from
different sides, in order that the building of the
house of God might be undertaken, and could
be actually finished. Above all it was necessary
that it should be in accordance with the will
of God the Lord Himself, and then that the
rulers of the world should likewise be willing
thereunto. The congregation had brought about
this dependence on the world by their own sins,
and they were now obliged to be satisfied with
it. So also it was necessary that the congrega-
tion itself should be aroused to true readiness,
and be strengthened when wearied by the hin-
drances that placed themselves in their way.
It was therefore necessary that suitable pro-
phetio organs should be found, who might work
upon the congregation through the divine word
and in the power of the divine Spirit. But
much more than this was still, if not exactly
necessary, yet highly important, so, for exam-
ple, that the nearest authorities in Palestine
should be distinguished by righteousness or im-
partiality. And so it finally came to pass, and
at last all things worked well together in cor-
respondence with the divine purpose of redemp!
70
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
tion. We say " finally " and "at last;" but it
was now for the first the exactly right time.
The temple was ready just seventy years after its
destruction, so that the prophecy of the seventy
years was now fulfilled exactly thereby. Would
that the congregation, the Church, might have
like patience with respect to the accomplishment
of greater work, (he revival of faith in the un-
believing community, or the Christianizing of
the heathen world. Would that they might
never be over-hasty or attempt to use violence
in accomplishing that which can come to pass
only when it has been sufficiently prepared, and
so to say, is ripe; when likewise it has a real
value. Would that they might never regard the
time that elapses too long, but rather think that
the building of the house of God is the highest
and most glorious, and on this very account the
most difficult work on earth, which can only be
the final result of all other works, arrangements
and developments.
Vers. 16-18. 1) The congregation dedicated
the house of God with joy. They might have
held a fast day instead of a feast of joy. Even
now when the work, after many years of effort,
stood before them finished, lofty and broad
enough, it is true, but far from reaching the
magnificence of the old temple, and besides ac-
complished only through the permission, and
indeed the assistance of a foreign heathen king,
they might have had a specially vivid realiza-
tion of the entire wretchedness of their situation
according to external appearance. How easily
there comes over us men, at the very time when
we reach the aim of long-cherished hopes and
strivings, dissatisfaction, ill-humor, dejection,
instead of joy, because it does not correspond
with our ideas I But it is a matter of humility
and faith, under all circumstances, to recognize
with internal thankfulness that that which has
been gained is much more than we could in any
way expect, that it is super-abundant grace and
mercy ; a child-like heart with reference to
what is still denied us waits patiently on the
Lord, and says to itself that it is perhaps unable
to judge correctly respecting what at present
does not at all please it. With humble, believ-
ing, childlike hearts shall we be able again and
again to ascend from the vale of tears to the
bright peaks of joy, shall again and again be
able to celebrate feasts of dedication and really
enjoy the times of refreshment and grace which
the Lord gives as the very th'ing that should
b". It is notable and edifying for us to see
that those poets of the Psalter, who probably
belong to this period, had sufficient joy of faith
to comfort and encourage above all their people,
the poets of Ps. cxxxv. and cxxxvi., in that they
called upon them to praise the Lord on account
of His revelation of Himself in nature, but espe-
cially for his revelation in history ; the poet of
Pa. cxlvi., in that he strikes up,
" Bless the Lord, O my soul,"
which is sweetly re-echoed in our
"Lobe den Herm, 0 meine Seele, xch will ihn loben bi3
in den Tod."
Without doubt the congregation then sung Ps.
cxviii. with the inmost aocord of the heart, al-
though it was really composed somewhat earlier,
and especially did they appropriate with greatly
agitated hearts the shout of triumph : " The right
hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of
the Lord doeth valiantly — open to me the gates
of righteousness ; I will go in, and I will praise
the Lord — the stone which the builders refused
is become the head of the corner." The poet of
Ps. cxxxvii., whose heart swells with patriotism
and religion, at the same time with freshness and
power, yea, almost with passion, cannot but re-
call, with the most bitter experience, the abode
in exile : " By the rivers of Babylon there we sat
down; yea we wept," and wish Babylon a just
recompense, thus regarding his present situation
as so much better. But already the Lord like-
wise came to the help of their faith, as is clear
from this very Psalm, in that even now, when He
turned the heart of the king of Assyria towards
Israel, and thus brought the period of exile to an
end, He delivered over the ancient enemy Baby-
lon to the destroying judgment. Already the
same Darius, to whom the restoration is very
properly ascribed, had so severely chastised Ba-
bylon, that the poet of Ps. cxxxvii. can designate
it in ver. 8 as overthrown or laid waste.
2) It was still the highest thing for the con-
gregation of the old covenant to dedicate a tem-
ple, in which the Lord would dwell in their
midst, yet separated from them, and indeed in
the midst of a priesthood, which must still stand
to mediate between them and the Lord. To us,
the New Testament congregation, rauoh more is
granted. On the peaks that we Christians may
ascend in humility and faith, we should dedicate
temples to the Lord, since He will dwell among
us, moreover also internally within us, namely,
in our hearts, we should accordingly rejoice
in an entirely immediate communion with Him,
and all the peace and blessing that are involved
therein, and exercise ourselves in a holy priest-
hood, that is, offer sacrifices of praise through
our Lord Jesus Christ, to show forth, etc. 1
Peter ii. 9.
3) Vers. 19-22. The Feast of Passover and un-
leavened bread constituted the conclusion of the
old and the beginning of thenew period. Through
the offering of the Paschal Lamb and the partaking
of the Passover meal connected therewith, the
congregation of the old Covenant appropriated
to itself the forgiveness of God as the God of the
covenant, which forgiveness they ever needed,
and the preservation conditioned thereon. But
through thefeastof unleavened bread they vowed,
in that the strict abstinence from all leaven was
connected therewith, to walk not in the old lea-
ven of wickedness and wantonness, but in the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Well
for us that we also, where we are truly conscious
of our redemption, can oelebrate ever anew the
feast of passover and unleavened bread, since we
also have a paschal lamb, yea, that we oan do
this in a different way from the Old Testament
congregation, since our paschal offering and the
sacred meal connected therewith, imparts in a
much more powerful manner forgiveness and
preservation, since we thus have far more cogent
motives to rise into the new and pure life of sin-
oerity and truth.
CHAP. VI. 1-22.
71
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers 1-12. That which threatens to become a
hindrance must serve for our advantage. 1)
When, — if in our undertakings, looking at the
final aim, it is to be done for the cause and glory
of God. 2) Why, — because the advancement of
the cause of God, long in advance and to the mi-
nutest detail has been once for all provided for
and ordained. 3) How, — the example of prede-
cessors, who have previously taken part in this
work, comes into mind and gives their successors
a favorable disposition towards the work. —
Starke: It is easy to conceive, moreover, how
it must have grieved the Samaritans that they
were not only obliged to let the temple be en-,
tirely brought to completion, but that also their
tribute should be applied to the promotion
of the building, and the observation of the
divine service with sacrifices. — How import-
ant and thankworthy the favorable conduct
of even heathen princes has been toward the
people of God. 1) That of Cyrus — a, He gave
to the congregation again their liberty to wor-
ship the Lord, and ordered the restoration of the
temple; b, he thereby gave an example, which
determined the conduct of his successors. —
Starke: Great lords should be diligent in the
practice of virtue, in order that their successors
after their death may have a good example, and
that they thereby may gain an everlasting name.
Ecei. vii. 1 ; Prov. xxii. 1. The richest persons
should be the first to open their liberal hands
when something is to be given for the building
of churches and the support of the ministry. —
God has the heart of kings also in His hand and
can incline them so that they are obliged to have
good-will to His children, Dan. ii. 48. 2) The
favorable conduct of Darius : a) he lets himself
be guided by a noble example, yea seeks to sur-
pass it; b) he desires the prayers of the congre-
gation ; c) he used his power in a good and pro-
per manner to help the pious and threaten the
wicked. — Starke : Respecting the duty of sub-
jects to pray for their rulers, even if they are
heathen, see 1 Tim. ii. 2; comp. Jer. xxix. 7; 1
Mace. xii. 11. Magistrates should act in their
government so as to comfort themselves with the
general prayers of their subjects. Regents
should make arrangements that prayers should
be made to God for their welfare and successful
government; for the devil lays many snares for
them, but a devout prayer will help them much.
The sword, intrusted by God to magistrates,
must afford protection to the pious, Rom.xiii. 4.
Vers. 13-15. The building of the temple or
kingdom of God is the final result of all the di-
vine guidance: 1) It needs the willingness of
the congregation, and on this account also the
activity of prophets and preachers; 2) it needs,
moreover, kings and their representatives, and
on this account also a direction of history, by
which God works on their hearts; 3) it need«
above all the good and gracious will of God.—
Starke: The Lord has a kingdom and He rules
among the heathen, Ps. xxii. 29. He brings the
counsel of the he:ithen to nought, and turns the
thoughts of the nations, He disposes their hearts.
Ps. xxxiii. 10, 15.
Vers. 16-18. The true joy of dedication. 1)
Upon what it is founded : Starke : My Chris-
lian friend, has the spiritualbuildingof the house
of God been established in thy soul, then forget
not to praise and give thanks. 2) How it is estab-
lished,— by our taking to ourselves, with humi-
lity and gratitude, what the Lord grants, as truly
good and salutary, and putting our trust in Him
with respect to all that is still lacking. 3) How
it expresses itself by true sacrifices, thus by
setting to work in the universal priesthood.
Starke: Our redemption from thekingdom of the
devil and the deliverance of the church is the
work of God alone; for His hand helps power-
fully, Ps. xx. 7. And then for the first will our
mouth be full of laughter, and our tongue full
with singing, Ps. exxvi. 2.
Vers. 19-22. The life of him who has conse-
crated his heart to be a temple of the Lord is a
continual passover feast, for he feels himself
compelled, 1 ) ever to take anew grace for grace
fleeing from the death of the curse ; 2) ever anew
to let himself be sanctified unto sincerity and
truth, so that he rises from the death of sin ; 3)
to rejoice with the holy passover joy of redemp-
tion, which God has accomplished in Jesus Christ,
and which He will likewise fulfil in Him at last.
— [Henry: Let not the greatest princes despise
the prayers of the meanest saints ; 'tis desirable
to have them for us, and dreadful to have them
against us. — Whatever we dedicate to God, let it
be done with joy, that He will please to accept
of it. — The purity of ministers adds much to the
beauty of their ministrations, so doth their
unity.— Te.]
72 THE BOOE OF EZRA.
PART SECOND.
The Congregation as the People of the Lord. Negative Strengthening of their
Life in the Law (Ezra's Activity).
Chaps. VII.-X.
FIRST SECTION.
Ezra's Emigration to Jerusalem.
Chaps. VII. -VIII.
A.— EZRA'S JOURNEY AND PURPOSE, AND ARTAXERXES' LETTER OP COMMISSION.
Ceiap. VII. 1-27.
I. Ezra's Journey and Purpose. Vers. 1-10.
1 Now after the?e things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son
2 of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, The son of Shallum, the son of
3 Zadok, the son of Ahitub, The son of Araariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Ma-
4, 5 rioth, The son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki, The son of Abishua,
6 the sou of Phinehas, the sod of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest : This
Ezra went up from Babylon ; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which
the Loed God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, accord-
7 ing to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. Aud there went up some of the
children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the por-
ters, aud the Nethinim, unto Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king.
8 And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which ivas in the seventh year of the
9 kmg. For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon,
and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good
10 hand of his God upon him. For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of
the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
II. Artaxerxes' Letter of Commission.
11 Now this is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave unto Ezra the
priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord, and
12 of his statutes to Israel. Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest, a scribe
13 of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace, and at such a time. I make a de-
cree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm,
14 which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee. For-
asmuch as thou art sent of the king, and of his seven counsellors, to inquire concern-
ing Judah and Jerusalem, according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand ;
15 And to carry the silver and gold, which the king and his counsellors have freely
16 offered unto the God of Israel, whose habitation is in Jerusalem, And all the silver
and gold that thou canst find in all the province of Babylon, with the freewill
offering of the people, and of the priests, offering willingly for the house of their
17 God which is in Jerusalem : That thou mayest buy speedily with this money bul-
locks, rams, lambs, with their meat-offerings and their drink-offerings, and offer them
18 upon the altar of th3 house of your God which is in Jerusalem. And whatsoever
shall seem good to thee, and to thy brethren, to do with the rest of the silver and
CHAP. VII. 1-27.
73
19 the gold, that do after the will of your God. The vessels a'so that are given thee
for the service of the house of thy God, those deliver thou before the God of Jerusa-
20 lem. And whatsoever more shall be needful for the house of thy God, which thou
shalt have occasion to bestow, bestow it out of the king's treasure-house. And I,
even I Aitaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are
beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God
22 of heaven, shall require of you, it be done speedily, Unto a hundred talents of silver,
and to a hundred measures of wheat, and to a hundred baths of wine, and to a hun-
23 dred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. Whatsoever is com-
manded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of
heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons?
24 Also we certify you, that, touching any of the priests and Levites, singers, porters,
Nethinim, or ministers of this house of God, it sball not be lawful to impose toil,
25 tribute, or custom, upon them. And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that
is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that
are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that
26 know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the
king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to
banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
III. Ezra! $ Thanksgiving.
27 Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in
the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem: And
hath extended mercy unto me before the king, and his counsellors, and before all
the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of my Lord my
God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Our author has no scruples in simply leaping
over a period of fully fifty-seven years, in the
use of the loose connecting formula : And after
these things (comp. Gen. xv. 1 ; xxii. 1, etc.).
Such gaps the ancient sacred history has agaia
and again; it is silent respecting the time be-
tween Joseph and Moses, respecting the time
passed by the generation rejected of God in the
wilderness, respecting the time of the exile.
There was lacking in these times useful material
calculated for the edification of the congregation,
so much the more then must this have failed in
the time subsequent to the building of the tem-
ple, when the congregation of Jehovah had been
excused from the task of giving their life a civil
organization, and accordingly was referred to
a quiet life, in which there could be no longer
expected, as in former times, new and important
manifestations of God. Nevertheless the new be-
ginning of the congregation after the exile, which
the book of Ezra would describe, had not been
entirely completed by that which had already
transpired. It is true the temple and its wor-
ship had been re-established by Zerubbabel and
Jesbua, but the law was only thereby secured at
the basis, an objective validity. With the new
and holy zeal that inspired all, at the beginning,
it was their earnest endeavor, as we can hardly
doubt, to carry the law out likewise subjectively
in the domestic and personal life, with more and
more completeness and thoroughness. But the
vicinity of the heathen, their dependence upon
their superior authorities, the manifold inter-
course with many of them, which could hardly
be avoided, made the temptation easy to be
brought into closer association with them, even
to intermarry with them, and thereby there was
necessarily involved a neglect of the law, espe-
cially in its prescription as to food and purity.
Besides, the descendants of Zerubbabel, if we
may refer Neh. v. 15 to them, were not calcu-
lated to offer the congregation a higher support,
they ratber, in all probability, soon enough en-
tirely withdrew. Thus notwithstanding the tem-
ple and its worship, that which was properly the
principal thing, the life of the congregation in
accordance with the law, yea the congregation
itself as such, was soon again brought into ques-
tion. The thorough subordination to the divine
law, on the part of all, was now all the more ne-
cessary that it alone could hold the individuals
together. What previously had been accom-
plished by the kingdom in Israel, must now be
done by the law. It was necessary that the law,
as never before, should be exalted on the throne.
And only when a real strengthening of the life
in the law had taken place could there be said
to be such a new establishment of the congrega-
tion as really promised to be the beginning of a
new and permanent existence. This re-estab-
lishment was now for the first the work of Ezra,
and is rightly ascribed to him by a thankful
posterity which honored him as a second Moses.
Certainly if we look upon the letter of commis-
sion which Artaxerxes gave him to take along
with him upon his first appearance in chap. viii.
it seems as if for him likewise the worship of the
temple and its furtherance stood in the fore-
ground. And surely he took great pains in this
direction likewise. But both of these, the eleva-
tion of the temple worship, that perhaps again
5
74
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
threatened to fall into decay, and the strength-
ening of the congregation in the life in the law,
"were too closely connected together, that Ezra
should have thought the one possible without the
other. And his real design was from the begin-
ning very well given in chap. vii. 10: to teach
in Israel statutes and judgments ; and the letter
of commission of Artaxerxes authorized him, in
a manner worthy of attention (vii. 25), to set up
magistrates and judges, who should provide for
the enforcement of the law. In our book he ac-
complishes the re-establishment at least in a ne-
gative way, by the separation of heathen women,
in general by the doing away with intermarriage
with the heathen; in Neh. (viii. — x.) likewise in
a positive way, that is, by renewing the cove-
nant with God on the basis of those prescriptions
of the law that were then most important.
Vers. 1—10. Artachshasta, which is here writ-
ten NfipE/nrnX, as in ver. 11, and viii. 1 ; Neh.
ii. 1 ; v. 14 ; xiii. 6, is surely the same, who in
vi. 14 is called NfltI>$nFnx (so also chap. iv. 8,
11, 23), and in iv.' 7 NflE/tfnrnN, namely, Ar-
taxerxes Longimanus. In Neh. xiii. 6, where
the same person is certainly meant, since there
is no doubt that Ezra and Nehemiah were cotem-
poraries according to Neh. xii. 36, the reference
is to the thirty-second year of his reign. This
does not properly refer to Xerxes, whom Jose-
phus [Arch. XI. 5, 1) and recently even Fritzsche
(comp. Esdras viii. 1), would understand, be-
cause it is most natural to think of him after the
Darius of the previous chapter, but only to Ar-
taxerxes Longimanus, to whom indeed the name
itself refers with sufficient clearness. Ezra
sprang, according to the accompanying gene-
alogy from the family of the high-priest through
Seraiah. For all the names from Seraiah up to
Aaron are of the line of the high-priest (comp.
1 Chron. v. 30^0) ; only in ver. 3 six members
of the line are passed over between Azariah and
Meraioth (according to 1 Chron. vi. 7-10), with-
out doubt only for the sake of brevity, as is fre-
quently the case in the longer genealogies. Se-
raiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah.
was the high-priest whom Nebuchadnezzar had
commanded to be slain at Eiblah (2 Kings xxv.
18-21), was thus the father of the high-priest
Jehozadak, who was carried into exile (1 Chro-
nicles vi. 14 sq.). It is very notable, however,
that Ezra did not spring from Jehozadak in
whose line the high-priesthood was inherited,
but from a younger son ; for else the interve-
ning member between him and Seraiah would
not have been left unmentioned. Ezra was
probably the great great-grandson of Seraiah ;
for the high-priest Jeshua who had gone to
Jerusalem seventy-eight years before with Ze-
rubbabel, was a grandson of Seraiah. One hun-
dred and thirty years had already passed since
the execution of the latter in the year 588.
Ver. 6. This Ezra went up from Baby-
lon.— This renews the subject and gives the
predicate of ver. 1. — A ready scribe. — Since
Ezra is designated already at the beginning as
a skillful or learned scholar, that talent is
ascribed to him, upon which under the present
circumstances, tho fostering of the life of the
congregation most depended. 131D, in the an-
cient writings, writer or secretary, has already-
obtained the meaning of ypafiaarevc in Jer. viii.
8, where it is parallel and synonymous with
D'COn. If it became the official name of the
chancellor in the sense of scribe, it has in the
Bense of scholar, as is clear especially from ver.
11, already almost the character of a title of
honor for the man of learning. The additional
clause : the king granted him all his re-
quest, indicates that his journey was no pri-
vate undertaking, that he rather wa3 provided
with a certain authority, and journeyed as an
official personage. Yet we must not think of
him as governor of Judah ; he is nowhere given
this title. He had simply the authority to teach
as a teacher his knowledge of the law, and at
the same time as a superior judge — according to
ver. 25, likewise by the setting up of suitably
subordinate judg;s — to vindicate the law. —
n'Jp3, the request, the petition, except here, is
only found in the book of Esther, chap. v. 3, 6.
The question how this favoring of Ezra is related
to the writing of Artaxerxes given in chap, iv.,
is best answered by the fact that Ezra's jour-
ney occurred somewhat later, that Artaxerxes,
since he had been moved to that writing by his
officials, had paid more attention to the Jews,
and that he furthered Ezra's journey in order to
strengthen the Jewish congregation ; perhaps
also in order to show thereby that he actually
was ready to be as just as possible, notwith-
standing the prohibition issued respecting the
walls of the city. It is shown then by this ap-
proval that he would perhaps recall at a suita-
ble time even that prohibition which indeed had
been issued at first only provisionally. — Ac-
cording to the hand of the Lord his God
upon him — This language which occurs else-
where only in vers. 9, 28 ; viii. 18 ; Neh. ii. 8,
18, and whose foundation is contained in viii.
22, 31, means so much as this, namely: "ac-
cording to the goodbeas, providence and graco
which ruled over him," namely Ezra, as then
this band of God sometimes is expressly desig-
nated as mi'On (ver. 9 and viii. 18) or mitt1?
(viii. 22).
Vers. 7, 8, mentions in addition that Ezra at
the same time led to Jerusalem a new increase
of the population. — And there went up
some. — This, in the view of the historian, so
involves "with him" that he continues in ver.
8 without any further ceremony with he came
to Jerusalem. Comp. vers. 13 and 28 and
viii. 1. ID is used partitively in the sense
"some of" as chap. ii. 70, etc. The Levites in
distinction from the priests on the one side, and
from the Levites in the broader sense, from tho
singers and porters on the other side, are those
who performed the proper servioe of the Levites.
Ver. 9. For upon the first day of the first
month he had fixed the departure from
Babylon, and on the first of the fifth
month came he to Jerusalem. — This would
state the duration of the journey. Instead of
~\p] we are probably to read "ID\ and indeed in
the sense of constiluo, prsscipio, in whioh it oc-
curs, especially in Esther i. 8. Probably the
CHAP. VII. 1-27.
75
punctators had scruples about admitting this
unusual sense, especially as they supposed that
they could better give the force of K1H by un-
derstanding it as: on the first of the first month
ipsum erat fundamentum profcctionis, as R. Solo-
mon and J. H. Mich, translate ; VXT\ would thus
serve to emphasize the " fundamentum" or the
beginning in distinction from the completion.
But we should expect "rtD' instead of Hp'>
moreover the following X3 would not connect
itself therewith. Besides, on the first of the
first month they began to betake themselves to
the common place of assembly, whence then the
entire company entered upon the proper jour-
ney to Palestine on the 12th of the month.
Comp. chap. viii. 31.*
Ver. 10. For Ezra had prepared bis heart
to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it,
and to teach in Israel statutes and judg-
ments.—This is not to explain the last subor-
dinate clause of ver. 9 : according to the good
hand of God upon him ; but the entire under-
taking of the journey. EOT is here in connec-
tion with mrP rnin~nX in the same sense as
usual in connection with niiT_nX, " adhere to
t :
the law as to a Lord and Benefactor." This
" adhere to the law" comes into consideration
with respeot to the following "doctrines" as a
necessary foundation, without which the in-
struction can never be carried on with success.
Ezra's design was to bring again to the con-
sciousness of the Jewish congregation, the law
which they had in part neglected and conse-
quently likewise forgotten, to direct their life
according to it and strengthen their relations
thereto.
Ver. 11. Now follows the documentary basis
for the summary representation in the forego-
ing, and indeed first of all the letter of commis-
sion given to Ezra by Artaxerxes. — And these
are the contents of the letter. — For JJBhfl,
comp. iv. 11, and for jlfltjj, iv. 7. Ezra is
called here and in vers. 12 and 21 : Neh. viii. 9 ;
xii. 26, first the priest, and then afterwards the
scribe ; in x. 10, 16 ; and Neh. viii. 2 even, only
the priest; hence he is then in Esdras likewise
constantly designated merely as 6 Upevc. — The
scribe of the words of the command-
ments of the Lord and of His statutes to
Israel means: " the scribe who especially occu-
pied himself with the words of the law, and who
thus before all was learned with reference to it."
Ver. 12. Artaxerxes, king of kings,
unto Ezra — perfect (peace).— This is the in-
troductory formula. TIM cannot be an adjective
of SHI "I3D ; it would then thus plaoed alone
by itself have to be in the stat. emph. NVDJ.
* [Rawlinson : " The direct distance of Babylon from
Jerusalem is no more than about five hundred and
twenty miles; and it may therefore seem surprising
that the journey should have occupied four months.
But no doubt the route followed was that circuitous
one by Carehemish and the Orontes valley, which was
ordinarily taken by armies or large bodies of men, and
which increased the distance to about nine hundred
miles. Still the time occupied is long, and must be
accounted for by the dangers alluded to, chap. viii. 22,
31, which may have necessitated delays and detours to
avoid conflicts."— la.]
Yet it cannot before the following fijJO? mean
that all that usually belonged to the introductory
formula ha 1 been completely expressed in the
original document (Berth.) ; in this way it
would Beem too peculiar. There is as little iu
favor of the view of Keil that it is an adverb in
the sense of "very" belonging to an adjective
to be supplied to "130, as if the sense were:
doctori doctissimo; the adjective could hardly
have failed in such a case. According to ver. 7
we should expect that the letter, conformable to
its contents of good will, would have contained
in its introductory formula a greeting or wish
of peace ; so there is to be supplied in thought
after TD3 a verb as "he wishes," and the sense
is: Artaxerxes wishes, in a complete manner,
or abundantly — namely, peace [so Esdras, xai-
peiv, followed by A. V. perfect (peace). — Tr.]
Vers. 13-19 gives the first part of the royal
mandate : Let every one of Israel who will go up
with Ezra. Ezra, however, is to encourage fur-
ther the worship in Jerusalem with the money
that was given him for the purpose.
Ver. 13. I make a decree, etc. Comp. vi. 8.
1|np7 depends upon a'ljnO'zS = that every one
who is freely minded to go. ^]!T depends upon ,rl
— may go with thee. — For the infin. }nn and
the future IpV, comp. v. 6.
Ver. 14 would say: because the commission of
the king and his seven counsellors is designed to
encourage and strengthen the worship of Jeho-
vah, and accordingly also the condition of His
congregation. For the seven counsellors who
constituted the supreme tribunal of the Persian
kings, vid. Esther i. 14.* 'ilD^', for which we
might expect 'rlnj?1 because THJ^ corresponds
with the Heb. CX^V, and is used as [TIK'n in vi.
9. Naturally "thou" cannot be at once sup-
plied to n'/jy ; rather the expression is a gene-
ral one : the sending is made. — To inquire
concerning Judah according to the law
of thy God, which is in thine hand. — That
the second person is prominent here, cannot be
strange because, indeed, the whole matter is a
communication to Ezra. 7£ mp3 " to hold in-
vestigation over," thus, " revise something," is
then at the same time the same as "to put in or-
der."! ^1?' which st. constr. in Norzi's edi-
tion is pointed m, properly : with the law ;
means : according to the norm of the law. "I
1]T3 " which is in thy hand," means, " which
thou possesseth," is not however to be under-
* [" Herodotus relates that there were seven families
pre-eminent in Persia, those of the seven conspirators
against the Pseudo-Smerdis (III. 84); and it is reason-
able to suppose that the heads of these families formed
the special council of the king, the ' Achtemenidse,' or
royal family, being represented by the headt of the
branch next in succession to that of the reigning mo-
narch." Rawlinson in loco. See also. Ancient Monar-
chies, Vol. IV., pp. 403 and 404.— Te.]
f [" Probably the commission was general to inquire
into the state of the province. According to Xenophon
(Cyrop. VIII. 6, \ 16) it was a part of the Persian system
for the king to send an officer once a year into each
province to inspect it and report upon it." Rawlinson
tn loco. — Ta.J
76
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
stood as if Ezra had a particular copy of the
law, which Artaxerxes hereby would have ex-
plained as the ancient and true law of God ; after
that he had obtained the consent of the more dis-
tinguished of the Jews; but it is, as it were,
" whioh thou knowest, understandest, and hast
in hand." [Rawlinson, in loco, "righteously
and justly according to the principle of thy reli-
gion."— Tr.]
Ver. 15. And to carry the silver and gold,
etc. For a fuller statement of this, vid. viii. 25.
Ver. 16. All the silver and gold that thou
canst find in all the province of Babylon,
■with the free-will offering of the people
and of the priests, etc. The king here pre-
supposes that in addition to himself and his
counsellors there would likewise be found others,
not Israelites, in the province of Babylon, who
would be willing to contribute silver and gold
for the support of the Jewish people ; and indi-
cates that he has given Ezra permission to take
up a collection among them ; for what is collec-
ted in the province of Babylon in general, is dis-
tinguished with sufficient clearness from the gifts
of the people and priests, that is to say, the Jews,
as is evident from the subsequent clauses, rmilfin
an abstract formation from infin. Ithpaal, is that
which is voluntarily given. pznjfip, if it were
in simple apposition to people and priests, or re-
presented a relative clause, as Berth, supposes,
would necessarily have the article ; it is rather
loosely connected in the sense of: "if they, so
far as they voluntarily contribute."
Vers. 17-19. Even on this account, pro-
perly in view of these things, namely, because
this sending is ordained by me to encourage the
Jewish congregation and their worship. — Thou
mayest buy speedily with this money
bullocks — with their meat and drink of-
ferings— that is, the meat and drink offerings
belonging to the sacrifices according to Num. xv.
1 sq. — And offer them on the altar. — The
Pael. 3~}pPi is used instead of Aphel in vi. 10, 17.
Ver. 18. And whatsoever shall seem good
to thee. — The thorough organization of the Jew-
ish congregational life might readily render ne-
cessary some additional expense, e. g. for the de-
coration of the temple ; and Artaxerxes presup-
poses that the authorities in Jerusalem will be
able also to make such arrangements that they
may have something left of the gifts for such pur-
poses— and thy brethren = the elders in Je-
rusalem, who also appear in v. and vi. to decide
such questions. — That do after the will of
your God — namely, as it is declared in the law.
Ver. 19. And the vessels, for the service
of the house of thy God deliver com-
pletely.— These vessels are numbered in viii.
25, 27. The noun |ri73, which is only found
here — but comp. 'ri/B in ver. 24 — is identical with
jri/IB = "service" of the Syriac and Targums,
and corresponds with the Hebrew iTTDj/. The
meaning of D7OT1 " render completely " is usual
in the Aphel in the Syriao, and is connected with
the meaning of the Hebrew Piel DW " pay." —
Before the God of Jerusalem is essentially
the same as " before the God whose dwelling is
in Jerusalem." Comp. i. 3 : He is the God, who
is in Jerusalem.
Vers. 20-24. The second part of the decree or-
ders that the royal treasury of the land beyond
the river is to supply whatever else may prove
to be necessary.
Ver. 20. And whatsoever more shall be
needful for the house of thy God, which
shall occur to thee, as to be given, that is
to say, whatever need may arise when the other
means have been exhausted — shalt thou give
out of the house of the treasury of the
king — that is, out of the royal treasury.*
Ver. 21 now gives at once the supplementary
order for the treasurer in question; as a com-
mand to which Ezra might appeal. This must also
be given here. — By me, Artaxerxes, myself,
is decreed. — The pronoun PPX serves to em-
r 1—:
phasize the suffix of 'M (comp. Dan. vii. 15),
and so also the following noun. The order: all
that Ezra shall require of you, turns itself
directly to the treasurer, because it is thus so
much the more clear and impressive.
Ver. 22. Unto an hundred talents, states
the limit to which the giving may extend. The
-"y? (UP to one hundred talents) is connected with
the phrase: it shall be done of ver. 21, so far
as this involves: it shall be rendered or given.
The "13.3, the talent, weighed three thousand sa-
cred shekels (comp. Ex. xxxviii. 25, 27), the
holy shekel was about two marks, the Persian
(comp. Xenoph. Anab. I. 5, 6) one and a quarter
marks. The "13, which occurs already in 1 Ki.
v. 2 ; Ezek. xlv. 14, instead of the Chomer =
ten ephahs or baths, thus almost two bushels. —
Salt, which is not prescribed — which is not
stated, not limited to a definite amount. [For
the need of these things in the Jewish system of
sacrifice, vid. vi. 9. "As the Persian tribute was
paid partly in money and partly in kind (see note
on iv. 13), the treasuries would be able to supply
them as readily as they could furnish money."
Rawlinson in loco. — Tr.]
Ver. 23 gives a still more comprehensive in-
junction— all that is in accordance with
the command of the God of heaven — what
is demanded according to the divine law — let it
be completely done. — The am Xty. NiniX is
regarded by Ilitzig and Berth, as compounded of
"TIN and N"1IX (Hitz. Comm. on Daniel II. 5;
Bertheau on II. 3) especially because Y1K in
K,^TJ"nnX Dan. iii. 2 can be clearly recog-
nized as an intensive prefix ("very"). Haug,
on the other hand, in Ewald's Bib. Jahrb. V., S.
152 sq., derives it from the Persian dorest, the
Zend, root dorec=" grow, prosper, become firm,"
as formed by K prosth. in the meaning of " com-
pletely, punctually in every thing." — For why
— n07_,,n — for wherefore = " in order that
not."' Comp. iv. 22.
* ["The Persian system of taxing the provinces
through the satraps involved the establishment in each
province of at least one local treasury. Such treasuries
are mentioned occasionally in Greek history (see Ad-
rian, Exp. Alex. I. 17 ; HI. 18, 19, etc.)." Rawlinson in
loco.— Is..]
CHAP. VII. 1-27.
77
Ver. 24 gives an additional olause, which is
for the consideration of the treasurer likewise. —
And to you it is made known, etc., pjn'WTO
has an indef. subject, or the active ib for the pas-
sive; to you is it made known. Those addressed
are still the same, as from ver. 21 on, thus the
treasurers. — That all priests, etc., that is, con-
cerning all priests. — Ministers of the house of
God.— The Xri7K JT3 ^vha are alongside a/
t t v: •• : t
the priests not all worshippers of the true God
in general, but official persons, perhaps the low-
est class [Rawlinson] as we may infer from their
position after the Nethinim, or those who are
not included in the foregoing classes. Bertheau
compares the servants of Solomon, who occur in
II. 55, 58, after the Nethinim. For mJD, etc.,
comp. iv. 13. D'TO K7 properly = one not
having authority, with the infin., and 7= one
who has not power, or: it is not allowed, as
frequently in Syriac. XfD^!p7 from NDT in the
Targums for D'tJ'. Such a liberation of priests
and Levites from taxes, occurred also under Ar-
taxerxes the great. Comp. Joseph. Arch., XV.
3, 3.*
Vers. 25, 26. The third part of the decree au-
thorizes Ezra to set up judges experienced in the
law for the entire Jewish people, and impose
punishments for infractions of the law ; this con-
tains that very matter in which he is to afford
the very help to the congregation upon which all
now depended, a matter in which Artaxerxes in
his good-will made an important step in advance
beyond Cyras and Darius. Since the civil and
social life of Israel was so closely connected with
their religion by the law, they could not well
prosper under judges who had neither apprecia-
tion nor understanding of their religion. It
might appear strange to us that nothing more is
expressly said of the setting up of Jewish judges.
But our book, which limits itself to the negative
side of confirmation in the law, to the separation
of the heathen women, was not the proper place
for this. In the book of Nehemiah, which adds
the positive side, since the congregation obligate
themselves in chap. x. to keep all the important
parts of the law, this is implicitly involved.
Ver. 25. And thou, Ezra, after the -wis-
dom of thy God, etc. — }T3 ■"» as in verse 24,
etc., " which thou possessest." '3S is imper. Pa.
"appoint," "set up," for 'JD, the less hard e
sound is more easily uttered, and occurs as a mat-
ter of course when it is followed by a second syl-
lable ma or man. — Magistrates and judges,
which may judge all the people that are
beyond the river. — The imperf. pTH, with the
part expresses continued action. The people to
be judged are as a matter of course the Jewish
people. Among them are not only those who
know the law of God, but also others who yet for
the first time must be instructed in it. We are
* [" Here the decree of Artaxerxes was more favorable
to the Jews than those of all previous Persian monarchs.
We hear of a similar exemption of ecclesiastics from tri-
bute, only to a less extent under the SeleueidEB. (Jose-
plllls' Ant. Jud. XII. 3, § 3)." Rawlinson in loco.— Tk.]
not to think of the latter as proselytes, neverthe-
less it refers not only to the Jews of Pales-
tine, but also to those dwelling widely scattered
in the land to the West of the Euphrates. They
are all to be subject to the judges set up by
Ezra; the judges however are, according to the
context, to watch over the observation of the Mo-
saio law, and maintain its authority. This is the
foundation for the Jewish tradition of the insti-
tution of the great synagogue by Ezra.
Ver. 26. The object of this institution was that
judgment might be diligently held over any one
who did not keep the law of God and the king. —
The law of the king can here be joined on
to that of God, because so far as it required obe-
dience to the law of God in the foregoing decree,
it was transgressed by disobedience. Perhaps it
had already been shown, likewise, that where
obedience to the law of God ceased, usually al-
so obedience to the royal command vanished,
ny^l ~\2£ is in the Targ. not unusual for " hold
judgment." FliJD " out from him " = " over
him." The point of beginning is here at the
same time the point aimed at. The following
jn — TD = sive— sive — whether it be unto
death or to banishment, whether to con-
fiscation of goods or to imprisonment. —
VlhiB an entirely Syriac form of #."W, properly
rooting out, is here in distinction from death, ba-
nishment, Vulg. : exilium, or at least excommu-
nication (pomp. x. 8) [Rawlinson], not iraideia
(Sept.). Respecting the punishment in J"D3J,
treasure, property, as vi. 8, comp. x. 8.
' Vers. 27, 28. A closing doxology. Ezra can-
not but add to the foregoing decree — whose com-
munication we are without doubt to ascribe to
I) is hand — his praise for the grace of God, which
had been so gloriously exhibited in putting this
into the heart of the king to beautify the temple
in Jerusalem* 3^3 JfU as Neh. 12 ; vii. 15, yet
likewise already in 1 Kings x. 24. flX!3 = the
like, namely, as is indicated in the foregoing
decree. We are to consider that the exaltation
of the worship is likewise a glorification of the
house of the Lord.
Ver. 28. And hath extended mercy unto
me before the king.-This is the continuation of
the relative clause in ver. 27. The 7 before ""iir-13
: -■ t t
puts this word on one and the same footing as
the foregoing. Comp. the 7 before '3^ in vi. 7 ;
that is to say it represents here essentially the
"J37, which is before ^BH. The clause : And
I was strengthened, which leads over to the
narrative, would say "I was able, would feel
myself strong, — and I gathered together =
so that I gathered together out of Israel ohief
men. These chief men were heads of households
or families who, if they should be taken for the
emigration to Judah, would naturally take their
families with them.
* [" This abrupt transition from the words of Artax-
erxes to those of Ezra, may be compared with the al-
most equally abrupt change in vi. 6. The language
alters at the same time from Chaldee to Hebrew, con-
tinuing henceforth to be Hebrew till the close of the
book." Eawlinson in loco.— Tr.J
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
THOUGHTS UPON THE HISTORY OP REDEMPTION.
Vers. 1-10. (1) It. seems that, there were found
among the Jews remaining behind in Babylon,
even after Zerubbabe'. and Jeshua, at different
times, such persons as were seized with a holy
longing for the land of their fathers, especially
for the temple of the Lord, with its lovely divine
worship ; who also, accordingly, went up thither
not merely for a short time, but to remain for-
ever, in order to become members of the congre-
gation of Jerusalem, although many difficulties
stood in the way of most of them, and it might
be known to all what great deprivations, yea, evil
circumstances, were to be endured in Judah.
" Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I
dwell in the tents of Kedar." This was certainly
in these times the sigh of many with the poet of
the 120th Psalm; and "I will lift up mine eyes
unto the hills from whence Cometh my help" was
their subsequent triumphal song with the author
of Psalm cxxi. How much more then should
Christians be inspired with a holy longing to be-
come pilgrims on the way to heaven, and become
members of the upper Jerusalem, seeing that in
the city of God, that is above, among the many
thousand angels and saints, every lack and every
evil circumstance has vanished. Ezra and the
others who went up to Jerusalem in order to be
able to lift up their eyes to the heights of the
earthly Zion, seem to us to be saints. That
Chrislians should strive for the higher aim, that
beckons them from heaven, is, after all, only na-
tural, and so much the more are we obliged to
charge ourselves with frivolity, if we lose sight
of the aim and jewel of our heavenly calling — •
yea, are in a condition of entire forgetfulness
of it.
(2) To reform the congregation when it has
fallen away to the world is impossible without a
faithfully preserved and unfalsificd word of God,
which is their heavenly archetype; or rather
ever holds before them anew the eternal norm,
according to which they are to be fashioned.
Even in Jerusalem, even in the most immediate
vicinity of the temple, the congregation, when
they neglected and forgot the law of God, might
fall into a condition in which a reformation was
pressingly necessary. And even in the distance,
even in Babylon, Ezra, because he was a true
student of the Scripture, might be called to be
the reformer.
Vers. 11-26. (1) The congregation in the Dia-
spora had, properly speaking, for the present the
great task of awakening in the heathen world —
even in heathen princes, in some way a presen-
timent that true knowledge of God and piety
above all were with them, and thereby to beget
in the deeper spirits a receptivity as well for the
worship of the true God as for the observation
of His law. The decree of Artaxerxes, the good-
will of the heathen king towards Jerusalem in
general, might be an evidence of the important
fact, that the Diaspora actually fulfilled this
allowed task. Thus there is involved therein the
prophecy that they were to render this prepara-
tory and mediatorial service for the first time to
its proper extent in the Messianic times. This
second edict of Artaxerxes was in distinction
from the first (chap, iv.), at any rate, an evidence
that he was only prejudiced against the supposed
political efforts of the Jews, that he had no ob-
jection to their worship of the true God, to their
existence as a religious congregation ; that ou
the contrary it caused him joy if the worship
of God in Jerusalem was promoted in a suitable
manner.
(2) Notwithstanding the commands of Artax-
erxes respecting what should be done for the
improvement of the worship of Jerusalem were
so minute, he did not allow himself in the least
degree to prescribe that which concerned the in-
ternal affairs, which were regulated by the word
of God. He exercised only the so-called jus circa
sacra, and we find this in him, the heathen
prince, from good motives. Manifestly, since
there is no longer any theocracy, all princes
likewise should be thus discreet For the inter-
nal affairs there are higher laws and authorities,
in which an earthly authority can never inter-
fere without punishment.
Vers. 27-28. The Lord's praise expressed by
Ezra is a thanksgiving that the Lord, by turning
the heart of the king and his counsellors, had
enabled him to make the journey to Jerusalem.
We may, however, find still something more
therein. After all he likewise expressed, if only
mediately, his joy that the grace of God had suc-
ceeded in making such an impression upon the
head of the world-monarchy at that time as
the congregation, according to its highest task,
was to make, — a joy which was well calculated
to mark an era in the history of the congregation
living in the Diaspora.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-10. God's care over His congregation.
1) He awakens teachers (if it be necessary, even
reformers) and other persons of importance to
the divine worship. He wins also the hearts of
the rulers, upon whose good-will the success of
the teacher is conditioned. — Starke: It is not
enough to build houses and temples of stone, but
we must have living instruments, that is, teach-
ers aud preachers. Preachers must first of all
exhibit in their own life and consecration that
which they preach to others of practical truth,
as necessary and possible, 1 Cor. ix. 27 ; 1 Tim.
iv. 12, 16. — No one should be presumptuous in
any thing ; he will then be sure of his calling, and
it will give great comfort in all kinds of opposing
circumstances. — Magistrates should also contri-
bute their part to the building of churches and
schools, and, above all, act with benevolence, be-
cause they can best do so ; otherwise the heathen
will put them to shame in that day. It is a sign
of the great grace of God towards a people when
He inclines the heart of their rulers to take suit-
able care that pious teachers be given to them.
It is very easy for God to fill His people with
blessings, for the earth is His, and the fulness
thereof (Ps. xxiv. 1; 1 Chron. xxx. 12), and He
has much more to give away than He has already
given. 2) He protects and preserves His instru-
ments in the way that they must go ere they can
labor with the congregation. 3) He gives in
tbeir hearts the impulse and calling to do, as well
as to teach His will. — The holy longing for Je-
CHAP. VIII. 1-36.
79
rusalem: 1) it urges us out of Babylon to Jeru-
salem, and wins for us the hearts of such as will
sustain us; 2) it provides us with fellow-pil-
grims; 3) it causes the journey to succeed.
Vers. 11-26 are to be treated in essentially the
same way as the decree of Darius in chap. vi.
Vers. 27-28. The best grounds for thanksgiving
to God : 1 ) God has made the authorities of earth
serviceable for the glorifying of His house and
name ; 2) He has placed His called ones in the
position of being active in the enlargement and
strengthening of His congregation. — Starke:
It is a noble gift of God, if we have a magistrate
who is devoted to the true religion. — The ser-
vants of God, it is true, must submit to receive
unthankfulnesa and disfavor for all of their
faithfulness from mankind in general and great
lords in particular ; but if the contrary should be
the case, they should recognize the fact with all
the more thankfulness.
[Henry : Moses in Egypt, Ezra in Babylon, and
both in captivity, were wonderfully fitted for emi-
nent service to the church. — Would we secure
our peace and prosperity, let us take care that
the cause of God be not starved. — If any good ap-
pear to be in our own hearts, or in the hearts of
others, we must own it was God that put it there,
and bless Him for it. — Wordsworth : Even Ar-
taxerxes, a heathen king, is conscious and pro-
claims his persuasion, that the neglect of God and
His service brings down God's anger on a na-
tion.— Tr.]
B.— EZRA'S OWN DOCUMENTARY REPORT.
Chap. VIII. 1-36.
I. Respecting his Companions. Vers. 1-14.
1 These are now the chief of their fathers, and this is the genealogy of them that
2 went up with me from Babylon, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king. Of the sons
of Phinehas; Gershona: of the sons of Ithamar; Daniel: of the sons of David; Hat-
3 tush. Of the sons of Shechaniah, of the sons of Pharosh ; Zechariah : and with him
4 were reckoned by genealogy of the males a hundred and fifty. Of the sons of Pa-
5 hath-moab ; Elihoenai the son of Zerahiah, and with him two hundred males. Of
the sons of Shechaniah ; the son of Jahaziel, and with him three hundred males.
6 Of the sons also of Adin ; Ebed the son of Jonathan, and with him fifty males.
7 And of the sons of Elam ; JVshaiah the son of Athaliah, and with him seventy
8 males. And of the sons of Shephatiah : Zebadiah the son of Michael, and with
9 him fourscore males. Of the sons of Joab ; Obadiah the son of Jehiel, and with him
10 two hundred and eighteen males. And of the sons of Shelomith; the son of Josi-
11 phiah, and with him a hundred and threescore males. And of the sons of Bebai;
12 Zechariah the son of Bebai, and with him twenty and eight males. And of the
sons of Azgad: Johanan the son of Hakkatan, and with him a hundred and ten
13 males. And of the last sons of Adonikam, whose names are these, Eliphelet, Jeiel,
14 and Shemaiah, and with them threescore males. Of the sons also of Bigvai; Uthai,
and Zabbud, and with them seventy males.
II. Respecting a Rendering of this Band Complete. Vers. 15-20.
15 And I gathered them together to the river that runneth to Ahava; and there
abode we in tents three days : and I viewed the people, and the priests, and found
16 there none of the sons of Levi. Then sent I for Eliezer, for Ariel, for Shemaiah,
and for Elnathan, and for Jarib. and for Elnathan, and for Nathan, and for Zecha-
riah, and for Meshullam, chief men ; also for Joiarib, and for Elnathan, men of
17 understanding. And I sent them with commandment unto Iddo the chief at the
place Casiphia, and I told them what they should say unto Iddo, and to his brethren
the Nethinim, at the place Casiphia, that they should bring unto us ministers for
18 the house of our God. And by the good hand of our God upon us they brought us
a man of understanding, of the sons of Mahli, the son of Levi, the son of Israel ;
19 and Sherebiah, with his sons and his brethren, eighteen; And Hashabiah, and with
80
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
20 him Jeshaiah of the sons of Merari, his brethren and their sons, twenty; Also of
the Nethinim, whom David and the princes had appointed for the service of the
Levites, two hundred and twenty Nethinim : all of them were expressed by name.
III. Respecting the Preparation for the Journey, the Journey and Arrival in Jerusalem. Vers. 21-36.
21 Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict our-
selves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones,
22 and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of
soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had
spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that
23 seek him ; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. So we
24 fasted and besought our God for this : and he was entreated of us. Then I sepa-
rated twelve of the chief of the prie3ts, Sherebiah, HashabLh, and ten of their
25 brethren with them, And weighed unto them the silver, and the gold, and the ves-
sels, even the offering of the house of our God, which the king, and his counsellors,
26 and his lords, and all Israel there present, had offered: I even weighed unto their
hand six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and silver vessels a hundred talents,
27 and of gold a hundred talents; Also twenty basins of gold, of a thousand drams;
28 and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold. And I said unto them, Ye are
holy unto the Loed ; the vessels are holy also ; and the silver and the gold are a
29 freewill offering unto the Lord God of your fathers. "Watch ye, and keep them,
until ye weigh them before the chief of the priests and the Levite=, and chief of the
30 fathers of Israel, at Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of the Loed. So took
the priests and the Levites the weight of the silver, and the gold, and the vessels,
31 to bring them to Jerusalem unto the house of our God. Then we departed from
the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go unto Jerusalem: and
the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy,
32 and of such as lay in wait by the way. And we came to Jerusalem, and abode
33 there three days. Now on the fourth day was the silver and the gold and the ves-
sels weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth the son of Uriah
the priest ; and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas ; and with them was Joza-
34 bad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah the son of Binnui, Levites; By number and
35 by weight of every one : and all the weight was written at that time. Also the
children of those that had been carried away, which were come out of the captivity,
offered burnt-offerings unto the God of Israel, twelve bullocks for all Israel, ninety
and six rams, seventy and ssven lambs, twelve he pjoats for a siu-offering; all this
36 was a burnt-offering unto the Lord. And they delivered the kind's commissions
unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors on this side the river : and they
furthered the people, and the house of God.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-14. The register of those heads of
families who went up to Jerusalem with Ezra is
here inserted as a second important document.
It originated from Ezra himself, as the use of
the first person in ver. 1 shows; it is the foun-
dation on which his narrative of his journey
and activity in Jerusalem rests. It is distin-
guished from the register in chap. ii. by giving
not only the names of the families to which
those returning belonged, but also the heads
themselves of those households who returned.
It is as if they became gradually more and more
conscious that the existence of the Jewish con-
gregation no longer depended upon nationality,
but the free resolution of individuals, that the
individual accordingly, that especially the de-
ciding heads of households had an entirely dif-
ferent significance from ever before, and that
this their significance might be exhibited by
their express mention by name in the Bacred
history. That the names of families here al-
most exclusively, yea, if we accept the very
natural emendation in vers. 3, 5, 10, are with-
out exception the same as those that occurred
already in chap, ii., is explained simply from
the fact that of the families which returned with
Zerubbabel, households had still remained be-
hind in Babylon, which now with Ezra followed
their relatives; and that this very relationship
might have been decisive for the resolution to
go up with Ezra. Jt is worthy of note that in
this emigration just, twelve families were repre-
sented. In connection with the importance then
ascribed to the number twelve (comp. chap. ii.
1 sq. ; vi. 17 ; viii. 35) Bertheau finds it proba-
ble that Ezra's company was to be a representa-
tion of the congregation of Israel in its totality.
— In Esdras viii. ^8-40 are found some other
deviations, which now perhaps are worthy of
CHAP. VIII. 1-36.
81
consideration. As regards the sum total of
those who returned with Ezra, it amounted to
one thousand four hundred and ninety-six men
and fifteen heads according to the Massoretio
text; but according to Esdras one thousand six
hundred and ninety men and thirteen heads
without counting the priests and sons of David,
whose number is not given, and in comparison
with the number of the rest was perhaps but
small, since Zerubbabel had already led back
with him a relatively large number of priests
and sons of David. In the numerical signs cor-
ruption might easily creep in, and we must
leave it undecided, which statements are more
correct.
Ver. 1. These are now the heads of
their fathers, and this is the genealogy
of them that went up.— DIV/UK 'Bfon =
DiTfp«_rr3 'BN"\ not only here but usually,
house of their fathers=their household. The
head of the house of their father=the head of
the household. In a household, however, the
sons are often again fathers, without their form-
ing on this account households of their own.
Thus often many fathers belong to the house-
hold, and under a common head of the house-
hold. Thus the head of the father's houses can
easily be head of fathers. The suffix of DrvrUK
refers without doubt to the totality, that is, to
the children of Israel. tTVTin is first " record
itself;" then the "register of families" is, how-
ever, sometimes used for the family itself. It
is here added, because the name of the heads of
households is to be followed by the name of the
family to which they belonged.
Yer. 2. Here are first mentioned two heads of
households of two priestly families; of the family
of Phineas, who was a son of Eleazar, thus a
grandson of Aaron, Gerson ; and of the family
of Ithamar, who was Aaron's younger son
(comp. 1 Chron. xxx. and xxix. ), Daniel;
whether the latter is identical with the one
mentioned in Neh. x. 7 is uncertain. Both are
to be regarded as accompanied by their house-
holds ; for in ver. 24 Ezra is able to select from
the priests who went up with him, twelve to
take care of the presents. Then follows a head
of a household of the family of David, without
doubt the king David, namely, Hattush, possi-
bly to be identified with Hattush, the son of
Hashaniah (Neh. iii. 10), but to be distinguished
from the priest Hattush, Neh. x. 5 ; xii. 2. It
is questionable, however, whether he is not
more closely defined by the first words of ver. 3.
Ver. 3. Of the sons of Shechaniah, of
the sons of Fharosh. — The twice-repeated
\J3D following one another and unconnected is
striking. The Sept. has supplied an "and"
before the second, so that it designates at once
two families as such to which the head of house-
hold next following belongs. But this is cer-
tainly only to improve the text which was at
that time just the same as ours. Esdras, on the
other hand, has AaOovs rnv 2excvi6v, since it ren-
ders the tMBn of ver. 2 by KaBovs, attached
TV1DV! \!3D of verse 3 as a much closer defi-
nition, and besides read the singular [3 for
'JSD. It is very probable that there has been a
corruption of the text in this passage, and the
conjecture that Esdras makes recommends itself
all the more that WlBn in 1 Chron. iii. 22 is
adduced as a son of Shemaiah, and therewith
also is a grandson of Shechaniah [so Rawlinson.
— Tr.] Accordingly we have left in ver. 3 only
the family of Pharosh, as such, to which Zecha-
riah with his household belonged. The next
clause we may translate: And with him be-
longed genealogically one hundred and
fifty men, since fe/ITnn is taken as preterit.,
and the singular is explained from the fact that
it precedes the verb. OTTTin might, however,
be a noun, so that the sense would be : and with
a family, D'TiP = of men.
Ver. 5. Of the sons of Shechaniah the
son of Jahaziel. — It is singular that the son
of Jahaziel is not. mentioned by name. The
Sept. has airb roc vi&v 'Za&dr/g 'Zexzviaq vlos 'A£7;//l,
and Esdras viii. 32 essentially the same. Zafioqe
seems to be the same as N?flT, Ezra ii. 8. Thus
the Sept. and Esdras seem to have read Nlfirj^n,
so that it is to be translated: of the children of
Zattu, Shechaniah, the son of Jahaziel [so Raw-
linson.— Tn.]
Ver. 9. Here the sons of Joab are treated
as a particular family, whilst in chap. ii. 6 they
are counted with the sons of Jeshua as of the
family of Pahath-Moab, Probably only a few
of them belonged to those who returned under
Zerubbabel, so that they were then not counted
with that family with which they were nearest
related, although the number of the children of
Pahath-Moab, in consequence of this, becamo
rather large.
Ver. 10. Here (he Masoretic text has: of the
sons of Shelomith the son of Josiphiah. —
It is the same as in ver. 5, according to the
Sept. and Esdras, and we are to read: Of the
sons of Bani (comp. Ezra ii. 10) Shelomith, the
son of Josiphiah [so Rawlinson. — Tn..].
Ver. 13. And of the last sons of Adoni-
kam, -whose names are these, Eliphelet,
etc. — It is strange that a common head of a
household should be mentioned first. Keil sup-
poses that the sons of Adonikam, here referred
to, because they did not constitute a proper
father's house, are embraced together with the
sons of Adonikam, who returned under Zerub-
babel, and distinguished from the latter as
D'O'inN. But all the new comers here men-
tioned would have united with their fellow-
members of the same families who already dwelt
in Judah from the time of Zerubbabel. Besides
the reference to those who previously returned
is so entirely without support that DUIflX
cannot well be explained from it. Perhaps the
meaning is: not a first-born of the first line,
who as such would have been head of the father's
house, but only a later born, none of whom had
the dignity of a head of a father's house, but
only that of subordinate heads of families. Ac-
cordingly only lesser divisions of that, father's
house went up with Ezra. Thus would D'Jintt
be explained from the same circumstance from
which the name of a common head of a house-
82
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
hold fails. It is true we must then suppose
that □1Jins< had gained such a general sense in
itself that it had become a technical term for
those later born.
Ver. 14. Instead of one head of the sons of
Bigvai, two are mentioned, Uthai and Zabbud,
yet not as later born sons, but as it seems as
real heads of father's houses. The author of
Esdras viii. 40 has ov-Si 6 tov ' Xartiknivpov, so
that it might be asked, whether the two names
are not to be reduced to one.
Vers. 15-20. Above all Ezra was anxious to
gain for the emigration some persons capable
of ministering in the worship. Ver. 15 is pro-
bably to be translated: I gathered them to-
gether to the river, that runneth to Ahava,
not that floweth into the Ahava. Ahava is
probably the name of a place or region, after
which the river there flowing was named; in
ver. 21 it occurs briefly as N171X "IPO, and in
T -: - T T
ver. 31 Sinx "IHJ, which is either: the river of
Ahava ; or also after the analogy of the "1H3
fl13, the river Ahava. Where we are to seek
t :
the river and region is not known; probably,
however, in the vicinity of Babylon; probably
it is a tributary or canal of the Euphrates, ac-
cording to Ewald, Gesch. IV., S. 154, perhaps
the Pallacopas, in favor of which is certainly
the name (X1DX J?£J), and indeed the more
northern, which lay more in a direction towards
Canaan.* — And I viewed the people. — Re-
specting the lengthened form by the addition of
the H, nrp.S'l here and nnS^Nl in ver. 16,
comp. Ewald7<! 232, g [Green, "\ 99, 3.— Ta.].
Ver. 16. The Sept. translates: And I sent
to or for Elieser, etc. [so A. V.]. This might
mean in connection with ver. 17: I sent thither
in order to have him come and use him as a
messenger to Iddo. We may, however, take the
7 in this later usage of the language with the
Vulg. and many interpreters without hesitation,
as nota accus., according to 2 Chron. xvii. 7,
where it is used in this very way with Hlti,
thus: I sent Elieser, etc. The first named mes-
sengers were D'tyXI, probably heads of little
communities; the remaining two DT3D, that is,
teachers, Neh. viii. 7, 9 ; 1 Chron. xv. 22 ;
xxviii. 8, etc. Keil takes it in a more general
sense, judicious, prudent; but this is opposed
by its connection with D't^SI and the circum-
stance that Ezra would have sent men who could
make an impression in accordance with their
entire position. According to ver. 15 these men
did not belong to the Levites, who usually car-
ried on the office of instruction, comp. 1 Chron.
xv. 22; xxviii. 8, etc. But scholarship in the
Scriptures might have gradually become more
* [Rawlmson: "In the right direction and at about
the right distance are found a river and a town bearing
the same name, called by (he early Greeks Is. (Herod.
I. 170), and by the later 'Aei (Isid. Chas., p. 5), by the
Babylonians themselves Ibi, and here apparently Aha-
va. The modern name of the place is Hit. It is famous
for its bitumen springs, and is situated on the Euphrates
at a distance of about eighty miles from Babylon
towards the northwest."— Til.]
widely diffused, especially in Babylon. It is
possible, also, that they were priests. In chap,
x. 15, 18-31, many of the names here mentioned
recur again ; but probably different persons
were meant there.
Ver. 17. And I sent them with com-
mandment ; thus the Qeri. According to the
Kethib, whether now the 1 in HNSiXl be genu-
ine, or first added by the Masoretes, it is to be
understood: I had them go forth, E?Nin nj?_7J>
unto Iddo. — l'J_, according to later usage is for
~7N. What kind of a head or chief Iddo was,
what society he was of, whether merely reli-
gious, or also learned, why Ezra did not above
all seek to influence Iddo himself to the return
to Palestine: all this we must leave undeter-
mined.— At the place Casiphia. — We know
not, as a matter of course, how we are to take
the clause Dlpnn N'DDDa. The Sept. and Es-
I T - t: :t : A
dras have not regarded J^SDD as a proper name.
The former has ev apyvpiu tov t6ttov, and the latter
makes Iddo the head of the treasury without
doubt in Babylon. It is probable, if it be a
place, it is one in the vicinity of Babylon and
Ahava. — To his brethren, etc.— D^JIJn ITiN
which thus gives no sense, should probably be:
to his brothers (the Levites) and to the Nethi-
nim, namely, besides to himself, I ordered them
to go; not to his brothers, the Nethinim [as
A. V.]; for that Iddo himself was one of the
Nethinim is improbable from his honorable
position; that they, moreover, should be desig-
nated as his brethren without any natural
relationship would be against all analogy. —
To bring us ministers for the house of our
God. — Those are especially meant who, when
they had performed the service in the house of
God at the feasts, should be able besides to in-
struct the people in the law.
Ver. 18. And they brought us. — W^ is
written with dagesh in X as Gen. xliii. 26, as
also INMTl, Lev. xxiii. 17, as then il n and V
sometimes occur with dagesh, "quorum omnium
ratio nota est in Arcanis Oabbalx," R. Mose bar
Nachman in Comm. upon Jezir fol. 61. — Under
the gracious help of God (T, as vii. 6), and
through the influence of Iddo, they gained forty
Levites and two hundred and twenty Nethinim.
First of all the hlti KTN (that this is a proper
name is shown by the 1 before the following
names), a descendant of Mahli, the grandson of
Levi (Ex. vi. 16, 19; 1 Chron. vi. 4), then
Sherebiah, who again occurs in ver. 24 and
Neh. viii. 7 ; ix. 4 ; also x. 13 ; xii. 24 ; then in
ver. 19 Hashabiah, who likewise is again
mentioned in ver. 24; Neh. x. 12; xii. 24, and
finally Jeskaiah, who does not again meet us
in Ezra or Neh.; in ver. 20 the Nethinim, who
had been appointed already by Jeshua (comp.
note on ii. 43 sq,), then more definitely as it is
here alone mentioned, by David and the prinoes,
that, is, the high officials, to perform the heavier
work for the Levites. The last words of ver. 20
CHAP. VIU. 1-36.
83
mean* according to 1 Chron. xii. 31 ; they were
all expressed by name (particularly), namely,
for the going up with Ezra.
Vers. 21-30. The final preparation for the
departure ; at first the arrangement of (he feast.
The fasting had the purpose of imploring from
God a way straight or level, free from hindrance,
thus a prosperous journey. Aa an evidence of a
penitent self-humiliation, it contributed to gain
the favor of Him who, since He is throned on
high, can only dwell among the lowly (Is. lvii.
15), so already Judges xx. 26; 1 Sam. vii. 6;
Joel i. 14; 1 Chron. xx. 3.
Ver. 22. To implore the help of God, had a spe-
cial impulse in the circumstance that Ezra and his
companions had expressed a trust in God before
Artaxerxes which they would not have confirmed
if they had not especially relied upon God ; if they
had been willing to claim earthly means of pro-
tection. To show this trust in God was cer-
tainly important, because Artaxerxes' respect
for the Jewish religion might be best strength-
ened in this very Avay. They acknowledged
that the hand of our God is upon all them
for good that seek Him ; but His power
and -wrath is against all them that for-
sake Him.— Wemight expect the words: forevil;
but His strength and His wrath=His power of op-
posing, is sufficiently clear; it is as if the pre-
vious clause were : His goodness and favor are
over, etc. ; so that the words " for good" might
have been left out.
Ver. 23. We fasted and besought our
God.— This should be followed by ilX'l, and
not flK'j-7J£. fiNt~7.y seems to refer back to
Ver. 22 in the sense of therefore. Yet it is at
least questionable whether it may not after the
verb of asking, likewise introduce the object,
comp. nN'rS^ with SSann (Ps. xxxii. C), and
indeed notwithstanding the [P before U'rl 7N. —
And He let Himself be entreated for us.
— This is at once manifest in the successful pro-
gress of the journey.
Ver. 21 sq. The appointment of guardians of
the treasures. — And I separated twelve of
the princes of the priests. — Instead of 7 be-
fore TVT)V>, we are to read 1 with Esdras viii.
64; for Sherebiah, etc., did not belong to the
priests, but to the Levites. In addition, there-
fore, to the twelve princes of the priests, there
were accordingly twelve Levites, as those to
whom Ezra weighed the treasure and gave it in
charge.
Ver. 25. And I weighed, etc.— ri7lptfKl is
written with 1 after p because the Sheva of p
was meant to be heard, and indeed as Chateph
Kametz, and it is probable that this form is to
have the same vocalization in the next verse, as
then J. H. Mich, found it to be bo in many MSS.
The other view that it was to be spoken with
Chateph Patach was held because the 1 was lack-
ing after p, as likewise in Jer. xxxii. 9. The
* [Bawlinson in loco: "The writer seems to mean
that he had before him a list of the two hundred and
twenty, though he did not thiuk it necessary that he
should insert it."— Tn.l
silver and gold were a heave-offering, HDllfl
that is, a present to the house of God, that tho
king and his counsellors had set apart, comp.
vii. 15, 16, 19. D'ln in connection with nDIIPI
means: to take off from the other possessions
something, in order to consecrate it to God.
The article before ^n'")^ represents the relative
pronoun as 1 Chron. xxvi. 28; xxix. 17; 2
Chron. xxix. 06, etc. ; comp. Ew. 381, b. — ■
D'NXOJn (with kametz under S instead of sheva
on account of pause, comp. Esther i. 5). These
are those who were happened upon or met.
Vers. 26, 27. What Ezra weighed, DT-7J7, in
their hands, as i. 8. With respect to the talents
comp. vii. 22 ; the darics, ii. 69 ; the covered cups, i.
10. Finally there were two copper vessels of ex-
cellent polish. 3!Typ cannot very well be part.
Hophal ; in connection with fiKTlJ, it would
just as well as the following iTJlQ have the fem.
form. It seems to be a noun formed like pV^D,
ilBp, t]i?ra (Is. viii. 8, 23) with the meaning of
polish. 3ni occurs Lev. xiii. 30, 32 of bleached
hair, become somewhat fox-like by leprosy; the
root, DPl^, is, however, certainly connected with
3nt, Arab, sahaba, and the other roots in PS
and n2f, whose meaning extends to : to be
bright. filTIDri is properly a noun=loveli-
nesses, comp. lYlTIDn '73, 2 Chron. xx. 25.
Ver. 28. The sacredness of the guardians as
such, especially of the treasures entrusted to
them as a heave-offering to the Lord is empha-
sized by Ezra, in order to make them right
watchful with reference to them until they shall
have delivered them up.
Ver. 29. rfDKHn is ace. of direction, but not
stat. constr. as the article shows. The ni3ty7
are, because almost exclusively the temple-
chambers, sufficiently definite of themselves.
ni!T JV3 is in apposition with the foregoing.
Vers. 31-36. The journey and arrival in Je-
rusalem.— Ver. 31. They began their journey
from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of
the first month. The interval from the first
had been occupied by that which is narrated in
vers. 16-30. The statement in ver. 15 that they
had encamped only three days on the river of
Ahava is probably not to be understood as if
they after three days had again broken up
(Berth.), but indicates either the point of time
when that which is mentioned in ver. 15 sq.
occurred (comp. v. 32), namely, when Ezra
observed the lack of Levites (Keil) ; or it means
to say that after three days they had gone some-
what further on their way, but without leaving
the river Ahava, towards a region where they
could unite with those coming from Casiphiah,
from thence then entering upon their journey
proper.
Ver. 32. When then they had come to Jerusa-
lem, according to chap. vii. 9, on the first day
of the fifth month, then after a lapse of three
and a half months, they remained there three
days, that is, rested, until they understood
something further, just as Nehcmiah in chap. ii.
84
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
11, whilst without doubt they already made
preparation for the delivery of the treasures.
Ver. 33. Now on the fourth day they
weighed out the treasures in the hand (ver. 26)
of the priest Meremoth ben Uriah, whom we
find again Neh. iii. 4, 21, and probably also
Neh. xii. 3, and Eleazar ben Phinehas, who is
not further mentioned, and two Levites, Jozabad
ben Jeshua, who may be identical with the one
mentioned in chap x. 23, and Noadiah ben Bin-
nui, whose family is mentioned likewise in Neh.
x. 10; xii. 8.
Ver. 34. By number and weight of every
one, that is, as it was for each and every num-
ber and weight. The weight was written then
at that time, as Neh. iv. 16, in a public docu-
ment, so that the correct preservation might be
confirmed.
Ver. 35. In order now to secure for them-
selves a good reception with the Lord, they
offered above all burnt-offerings, whereby they
rendered homage to Him, dedicated themselves
to Him (comp. notes upon iii. 3), and indeed for
all Israel, in their name and as their represen-
tatives, coascious indeed that they had value
before God only as a part of this whole, or
rather as in union with entire Israel. They
offered twelve bullocks (comp. vi. 17), besides
ninety-six rams (ninety-six as intensification of
twelve) and seventy-seven lambs (seventy-seven
as intensification of seven, the number seven
expressing the covenant-relation), as a founda-
tion of the burnt-offering, however, twelve he-
goats for a sin-offering, because only the recon-
ciled can do homage to the Lord in a proper
manner and worthily dedicate themselves to Him.
Ver. 36. In order now to put themselves in agood
relation with the satraps and governor in Abar Na-
hara, they delivered to them the decree of the
king. The satraps, D'33"nEynX, Persian (accord-
ing to the inscription of Behistun), khahatrapava,
from khshalrapavan, from which the noun in the
Hebrew expression of the word is explained, prop.
=land-protector* (comp. Esth. iii. 12; viii. 9 ;
Dan. iii. 2), come into consideration as military
officers, alongside of the governors, niirti!), as
the presidents of the civil government. — And
they furthered, etc. — These closing words are
certainly to be referred to those Persian mag-
nates, to whom indeed this supporting was com-
manded by the royal edict, vii. 20-24. NtSU as
i. 4. The Perfect 'tKWi with 1 simply continues
the narrative as l73pl in ver. 30.
THOUGHTS UPON THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.
Vers. 1-14. So long as God was obliged to
dwell in a particular temple, in the midst of His
congregation, yet separated from them, mediato-
« FRawlinson in loco: "The word is derived from
khshatra, "crown," and pal, "to protect." the active
part, of which would be pana. It is evident that the
Hebrew term represents the older form of the word,
and represents it pretty closely. There is a prosthetic
Alcph, as in adarknn and Ahasuerua, and the tr of the
1 orsian becomes in the Hehrew dr ; but otherwise the
letters are correctly rendered." Rawlinson refers the
satrap to the chief ruler of the Persian provinces, from
which the governors fpaohavnth), rulers of smaller dis-
tricts, are distinguished.— Tn.J
rial persons were still necessary, namely, priests,
and a worship of sacrifices ; Jerusalem must still
remain the proper place of worship, and Judah
be the holy land as no other land could be. And
the congregation in the dispersion must regard
it as their sacred duty, over and over again to
put themselves in relation to the temple and
Jerusalem, and send thither whole bands, ia
whom the longing for the land of their fathers
awoke, to the enlargement of the principal con-
gregation, or yet at least little embassies (comp.
Zech. vi. 9), to enliven the communion with it, so
likewise to take part, when opportunity offered,
either in person, or at least through representa-
tives, in the offering of sacrifice in the legitimate
place of sacrifices. This common relation to the
one centre and hearthstone of their religious
life, constituted a bond, which held the people
together in spite of every scattering and spread-
ing out, yes, cultivated the feeling of a grand
unity; and even if this bond was only an exter-
nal one, it yet was all the more important, the
weaker the internal bond was in the times of the
law and the letter of the law. Christendom is
united by the internal bond of one common faith
and the most comprehensive love. Would then
that this may never prove internally weaker!
Would that in spite of all distances and separa-
tions, all might remain ever truly and vitally con-
scious of this, that they may constitute more than
the people of the old covenant one only great union
the body of the Lord! What can be more exalt-
ing and strengthening than this consciousness
that we do not stand alone, do not struggle alone,
do not suffer alone, do not rejoice alone, but that
the Lord has in every land a people, a great and
united people?
Vers. 15-20. The relation to the God of Revela-
tion who would be conceived, not according to
common notions or ideas, but according to His
historical manifestation of Himself, and on the
ground of the acts of redemption wrought by
Him, would be honored according to the regula-
tions given by Himself, — begets by internal ne-
cessity the need of instruction and training. It
cannot be maintained in any other way than by
the parents' making known to their children,
and the learned to the unlearned, the Provi-
dences and Histories through which the true
God has come near to the understanding,
and that trained and suitable persons should
cultivate the divine service in a proper man-
ner. The idea, that religious knowledge, so
far as it is necessary or desirable, makes its
appearance in every man of itself, has no place
except in the sphere of natural religion, and is con-
nected, if it. has become more general in our day,
with a falling away from the religion of revela-'
tionto the religion of nature. It thus had its good
ground that Ezra would not go up to Jerusalem
and enter upon the work of elevation of the con-
gregation at that place, without having gained
above all a, sufficient number of persons for his
emigration, who might stand at his side, as in-
structors and helpers in the worship of God. And
for those who would cherish the true religion, it
should ever be a chief care to attract suitable
teachers and ministers to the church, whilst now,
sad to see, it seems as if it were thought that, at
any rate, they could be dispensed with.
CHAP. VIII. 1-
85
Vers. 21-30. Already in Is. lii. 11 the encou-
ragement : depart, depart, go ye out from thence,
is connected with the admonition, be ye clean,
ye that bear the vessels of the Lord. Ezra might
even, without this, have felt himself called upon
to prepare himself and those who acoompanied him
by fasting ; that is, by self-humiliation, for the
journey to Jerusalem. But since he carried with
him vessels and treasure designed for the house
of the Lord, and in so far sacred ; in other words,
since his journey ministered not to ordinary, but
sacred purposes, by which properly all who took
part received a higher significance, purification
and sanctification by true and genuine fasting,
were an especially indispensable prerequisite.
No one can essentially further the cause and ho-
nor of God in a free and conscious manner with-
out previously doing what fasting signifies —
namely, chastising, yea, overcoming his soul —
that is, his old man. He who has accomplished
this will then have a keener feeling also for the
particular obligation imposed upon him by his
calling or his task, especially for the sacred
duty conscientiously to watch that that which
has been intrusted to us of blessings or gifts
shall be truly serviceable for the higher ends for
which they were given to us. He will under-
stand the connection between the two when Ezra
says: at first, be ye holy to the Lord, and the
vessels are holy, — so watch and take care, etc.
Vers. 31-36. Men like Ezra, who know that
they are instruments in the hand of the Lord,
and indeed for the accomplishment of a high
mission, may reckon with the confidence of
heroes on especial divine protection and support
in the midst of all the dangers threatening them :
" And although all the devils would withstand
us," etc. What, however, is secured to them in
this respect by God cannot be for them a mo-
tive for giving themselves over to a false secu-
rity, but only become an impulse for them to
make use of all that is entrusted to them, with
all the more conscientiousness for the accom-
plishment of its purposes. At the same time
they would be very careful, like Ezra, when he
ordered the weight of the gifts brought by him
to be written down, of securing their good name
against any wicked slanders that so easily are
raised against them. That the returned exiles
bo soon offered sacrifice to the Lord, and indeed
burnt-offerings, with the sin-offerings belonging
to them, expresses, moreover, the knowledge
that the mere offering of external gifts, however
great they might be, amounted to nothing; that
an internal gift, namely, that of the heart, by
internal worship, must be added, yea, that it
alone, if it be of the true kind, gives worth to
all the rest.
When the returned exiles laid claim to pro-
tection and Bupport on the part of the magis-
tracy through the handing over the decree of
the king'to his officers, they subordinated them-
selves to them thereby at the same time. As they
thus through their sacrifice gave to God what be-
longed to God, so through the decree of Artax-
erxes they gave to the state what the state might
expect.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 15-20. The importance of teachers and
other officials in the congregation. 1) Ezra,
although there were priests enough in Jerusa-
lem, felt the absence of Levites and other per-
sons of lower rank, who there might care for
the divine servioe, and also instruct the people.
2) He seeks to procure them before he under-
takes anything further. 3) He gains them
through the experienced help of God.— Starke:
That Ezra seeks to supply the lack of Levite=,
and sends so far for them, shows his zeal for the
house of God, and indicates how much we should
make of wise ministers of God, should it ever be
necessary to bring them from afar. We need
also frequently such persons as may fill the
lower offices more pressingly than others who
sit in exalted stations; and we must have more
village-pastors than doctors of theology and
superintendents. He who is of a sincere and
unenvious disposition in the ministerial office
will not always be alone, but can very well
endure, yea, desires and assists, that more la-
borers and colleagues may be procured along-
side of him, Num. xi. 29; Matt, ix 37.
Vers. 21-30. Respecting the true preparation
for the most important journey. 1) By fastino-
or overcoming one's self; 2) By watchfulness
with respect to the blessings and gifts that serve
to glorify the divine name ; 3) By conscientious
execution of the higher duties. — Starke: Al-
though Christians are not bound to any particu-
lar time of fasting, yet they should ever lead a
temperate and moderate life, in order that they
may be the more qualified for prayer, 1 Peter
iv. 8. — -Observe this, ye travellers: Divine pro-
tection sought by humble prayer is your safest
escort. — God is the best guide (Ps. xci. 11);
though we walk in "the dark valley, we need not
fear, Ps.xxiii.4. If after the offering of prayer our
enterprise goes successsfully on, we ought not to
think that it has been without dangers, but con-
fidently believe that our prayer has been heard.
Vers. 31-36. The pilgrims to Zion. I) Their
journey (is towards Jerusalem under God's espe-
cial protection); 2) Iheir blessings and gifts ''be-
long to the house and congregation of the Lord) ;
3) their aim (to offer to the Lord, and indeed,
above all themselves, recognizing the authorities
of the world). Buentius: Sunt autem (Chris-
tiani), sanctificari in bapiismo per fidem in Christum.
XJnde portare debcnt sancta vasa, quee sunt sancla
opera. Credere in Christum, sanctum opus est.
[Henry: All our concerns about ourselves, our
families, our estates, 'tis our Wisdom and Duty by
Prayer to commit them to God and leave the care
of them with Him. Our prayers must always be
seconded with endeavors. — 'Tis a great ease to
one's mind to be discharged from a trust; and a
great honor to one's name to be able to make it
appear that it hath been faithfully discharged.
— Woedswobth: It appears from the narrative
that Ezra's God was good, his treasurers faith-
ful, and his companions devout; and that the
royal governors furthered his work. Such were
the Balutary effeots of prayer and fasting. — Tr.]
86 THE BOOK OF EZRA.
SECOND SECTION.
The Chief Fault of the Time and its Removal.
Chaps. IX.— X.
A.— THE CHIEF FAULT OF THE TIME AND EZRA'S PENITENTIAL PRAYER.
Chap. IX. 1-15.
I. The Chief Fault of the Time, and Ezra's Sorrow for It. "Vers. 1-4.
I Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of
Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the
people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites,
the Hittite3, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyp-
2 tians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves,
and for their sons : so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people
of those lands : yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this tres-
3 pass. And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and
4 plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied. Then
were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel,
because of the transgression of those that had been carried away • and I sat astonied
until the evening sacrifice.
II. Ezra's Penitential Prayer. Vera. 5-15.
5 And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my
garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the
6 Lord my God, And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face
to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is
7 grown up unto the heavens. Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great
trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests,
been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity,
8 and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day. And now for a little space
grace hath been shewed from the Loed our God, to leave us a remnant to escape,
and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give
9 us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen ; yet our God hath not
forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the
kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair
10 the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And
now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy command-
II ments, Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land,
unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people
of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another
12 with their uncleanness. Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons,
neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth
for ever : that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an
13 inheritance to your children for ever. And after all that is come to pass upon us
for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast pun-
ished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this;
14 Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of
these abominations? wouldest not thou be angry with us tdl thou hadst consumed
15 us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping? O Lord God of Israel, thou
art righteous ; for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day : behold, we are before
thee in our trespasses ; for we cannot stand before thee because of this.
CHAP. IX. 1-15.
87
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-4. To a positive strengthening of the
life in accordance with the law belonged without
doubt a long preparatory activity on the part of
Ezra. It could not be accomplished by merely
external arrangements or contrivances. Rather
it was necessary that Ezra should bring about
an internal change, excite a holy zeal for the
law, as we see it break forth in fact at a later pe-
riod (Neh. viii. — x.), and thus above all deepen
and render more general the knowledge of the
law. But already, at the outset, he had to un-
dertake a negative improvement, the removal of
a bad state of affairs that threatened their fu-
ture. It was again the question as previously in
the time of Zerubbabel, respecting their relation
to the heathen, which was involved in their pre-
sent political relations, especially their union
with heathen under the same government. If,
however, the problem in the time of Zerubbabel
had been merely to ward off those who would
unite with the congregation on the plea of a com-
mon worship of Jehovah, now the question was
with reference to the exclusion of those with
whom union had been established, notwithstand-
ing difference of religion.
Ver. 1. And after the completion of
these things, eic— ni73 is infin. nomin. = com-
pletion. HvS is neuter, referring to the things
mentioned in chap. viii. 33-36. This statement
of time is somewhat indefinite — yet we are not
to suppose that the length of time of the things
here narrated was very long after chap. viii.
The delivery of the gifts brought with them oc-
curred on the fourth day after Ezra's arrival;
thus, on the fourth or fifth day of the fifth month
(comp. chap. viii. 32 and chap. vii. 9) ; the bring-
ing of the offerings, moreover, chap. viii. 35,
without doubt soon followed, and so also the de-
livery of the royal decree to the officials (viii.
36) ; the support on the part of the latter may
be very well mentioned in chap. viii. 36 prolep-
tically, or is to be understood of their promise.
If a longer time had elapsed between Ezra's arri-
val in Jerusalem and chap. ix. , it would not have
been necessary for the princes of the congrega-
tion to have first made complaint respecting the
evil circumstances in question, but Ezra would
have observed them himself. Accordingly by
the ninth month, — on the twentieth day of which,
according to chap. x. 9, the first assembly of the
people was held respecting the affair here coming
into question, — is meant without doubt the ninth
of the first year that Ezra passed in Jerusalem.
— The princes came to me. — D'H&n (with
the article) are not the princes as a whole — for
according to ver. 2 many of them participated in
the guilt, and these would not have given infor-
mation of themselves, — but the princes in dis-
tinction from the people. The princes distin-
guish as such who have not separated themselves,
that is, kept themselves separate from the people
of the land, three classes, that occur elsewhere,
also along side of one another: the people of
Israel — that is, the common people (/fcOti'' is in
apposition to D^H, comp. Jos. viii. 33 ; 1 Kings
xvi. 21); — the priests and Levites — comp.
e. g. chap. ii. 70.— The people of the lands
are the l&vr;, and indeed, first of all, those in the
vicinity, comp. chap. vi. 21. For the most part
there were, without doubt, remnants of the an-
cient tribes of Canaan, whose abominations, ac-
cording to the subsequent narrative, were pecu-
liar to them ; but probably during the exile other
heathen races also had emigrated into the depo-
pulated Palestine. Ezra and the princes thus,
when they required a separation from all these
heathen, — that is, excluded an intermarriage
with them, — exceeded the letter of the law, which
only prohibited intermarriage with the Canaan-
ites (Ex. xxxiv. 16; Deut. vii. 3), — but not be-
cause a certain Pharisaism had already made it-
self felt among them (0. v. Gerlach in his Bihle-
work), but because it was absolutely necessary
now if the congregation was to be preserved from
sinking down into heathenism. The heathen
dwelling in close vicinity to them, and not being
separated in political affairs, the mixed marriages
now threatened, if not positively forbidden, to
become disproportionately numerous, whilst in
former times they could never have been more
than exceptional. And besides, these heathen
were now essentially the same as the ancient Ca-
naanites. — According to their abomina-
tions.— This briefly = as their abominations re-
quired. 'JJ^Sj does not then begin the enume-
ration of the races in question — which is against
not only the accentuation which separates this
clause so strongly from the nations, but also the
position of the word, for the clause "according
to their abominations" would not then have in-
tervened, but should have followed the enume-
ration; and besides also the 7 before 'J^J-S —
which would have scarcely an analogy in its fa-
vor. Kather 'J^3j, "belonging to the Canaan-
ites;" briefly=as they were peculiar to the Ca-
naauites, the Hittites, etc. The abominations are
designated by this clause as the ancient ones,
condemned by the prophets, and especially by
Moses, long before; and all the various names
of nations are mentioned because the abomina-
tions had been so many and so different among the
different races. It was not the purpose to give
a complete statement, else the Hivites (comp.
Ex. iii. 8; xiii. 5; xxiii. 23) and also the Gir-
gashites (comp. Deut. vii. 1) would also have
been mentioned.
Ver. 2. For they have taken of their
daughters, etc. — namely, wives, comp. chap,
x. 44; 2 Chron. xi. 21, etc. The object D'tfj) is
in this connection, to a certain extent, to be un-
derstood of itself. — And have mingled them-
selves as the holy seed with the people
of the land. — This has properly the same sub-
ject as the foregoing. The following KHpn JHT
is to be placed in apposition with the subject, as
it seems ; that is to say, although they are a new
and holy seed, or shoot, which, after the old tree
had fallen by the severe judgments of God, was
to grow up into a new and better tree. Since the
expression "holy seed" does not occur again
elsewhere, it is not doubtful but that there ia
83
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
here a reference back to Isa. vi. 13. That at
least the better part of the people had not yet
by any means forgotten the ancient prophets, but
preserved them at the present time to strengthen
their faith, follows already from Haggai and
Zuchariah, where the Messianic promise, on the
basis of the more ancient prophecy, yet again
brought forth the richest flowers. — Yea, the
hand of the princes — rulers hath been
chief in this trespass. — In this unfaithful-
ness tho princes had been leaders with their bad
example, assuming thereby the responsibility,
comp. Deut. xiii. 10. 7.J?n, properly unfailhful-
ness (comp. Lev. v. 15) is spoken of, in so far as
they had abandoned the blessing of the purity
of Israel and periled thereby the higher bless-
ings connected therewith. D^JJD = command-
o -T:
ers, chiefs, is a word passing over from the an-
cient Persian into the Hebrew, comp. Is. xli. 25.
Ver. 3. Ezra could not but express the deepest
pain at this information, as well as the greatest
displeasure, and indeed with the warmth of Ori-
ental manners; none the less that there must be
applied a remedy, only to be carried out with
difficulty, and occasioning much sorrow. He
expressed his grief by rending (tearing) his un-
der and over-garment (comp. Lev. x. 6 and Josh,
vii. 6), his displeasure and anger by plucking
out the hair of the head and beard (a part of it),
comp. Neh. xiii. 25 ; that is to say, he hurt him-
self and disfigured his appearance (comp. Isa. 1.
6) ; if he had only been sad, he would have
shaved his head, Job i. 20. In this condition he
then sat down staring, DDH in Piel expresses
the being stiff and dull (hence also the being
waste), comp. Isa. lii. 14.
Ver. 4. Ezra'3 behaviour produced a profound
impression upon those who feared God's word;
because of the unfaithfulness of nVun, the
people of God living in captivity Ezra continued
his behaviour herein even when they assembled
themselves unto him. According to chap. x. 3
we are not to explain: all who trembled at tho
word of God on account of the unfaithfulness,
etc.; although Tin may be connected with 7j^
(Is. lxvi. 2, where 7.1?, indeed=7tf, in the sense
of trembling towards, comp. Is. lxvi. 5), but: all
who allowed themselves to be frightened by
God's words, which referred to the unfaithful-
ness. God is here called the God of Israel
because He had in the words in question called
for the purity and dignity of Israel.
Vers. 5-15. At the time of the evening sacri-
fice, however, he arose from his mortification —
JVJjjri, humiliation, mortification, which had
consisted in giving way to sorrow, but bad cer-
tainly likewise been connected with fasting, and
indeed accompanied with the rending of his
over or under-garrnent ; that is to say, in that he
still continued or repeated the rending — in order
now to spread out his hands to God as those who
pray usually did (1 Kings viii., etc.), publicly
uttering a penitential prayer.
Ver. 6. This penitential prayer would empha-
size throughout what great reasons the congrega-
tion had of bewaring of the sins in question. He
renders prominent in ver. 6 how great guilt they
already had upon them without this, and adds in
ver. 7 that sin has been the cause of all the mis-
fortune and misery of Israel. He calls to mind
in ver. 9 that God's grace had preserved only
just such a remnant, but by no means had con-
stituted a situation in which they could dispense
with Him. He confesses in vers. 10-12 that God
had expressly forbidden the sins now indulged
in, and had made nothing less than the strength
of the congregation, yea, the very possession
of the land, conditional upon their obedience to
his command. He then in vers. 13 and 14 raises
the painful and sad question, and draws the in-
ference whether, if after so many chastisements,
and after such an exhibition of favor, they should
again be guilty of such a transgression of the di-
vine command, whether God would not then
really become angry unto their entire destruc-
tion. He concludes in ver. 15 with the repenting
confession that the Lord is righteous, that the
congregation, however, cannot stand before Him.
Ezra now prays expressly for forgiveness, as we
might expect : he ventures not, he is ashamed, as
he himself says, to lift up his face to the Lord.
But such a penitential prayer and confession of
sin is already in itself a pleading for grace ; yea,
works more powerfully indeed than a, petition
expressedly uttered. And, at any rate, it is, just
as it is, very well calculated, at the same time,
to bring the people to the lively consciousness
of the perverseness of their Bin.
Ver. 6. I am ashamed and blush. — U)*\2 and
DjDJ are joined together for emphasis, as in Jer.
xxxi. 19, etc. — For our iniquities are in-
creased over our head. — Occasioned by the
transgression under consideration ; all sins and
transgressions whatever come to the remem-
brance of Ezra. He who already has so many
sins upon him should take very particular care
lest a new one should be added, especially when
one has already been brought into such deep mi-
sery by the previous ones. 131 from H3"! has
the Bame meaning as usually 13T from 331.
ri7,l?D7 = upwards, passes over easily in our au-
thor to the adverbial sense of " very abundant-
ly" (comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 3), even with POt
(comp. 1 Chron. xxiii. 17), but here in connec-
tion with ©SI retains its meaning as a preposi-
tion = beyond. The iniquities are regarded as
a flood in which man soon perishes [comp. Ps.
xxxviii. 4, and the general use of water to indi-
cate great troubles] [our trespasses — unto
the heaven — comp. 2 Chron. xxviii. 9; thus
the mercy of God is compared in extent with the
heavens, vid. Ps. xxxvi. 5; lvii. 10, etc. — Te.].
Ver. 7. And for our iniquities we have
been delivered — into the hands of the
kings of the lands to the sword, etc. — To
translate, with Bertheau, through the sword, is
remote from the sense, and is not suited to tho
following " into captivity." The shame is oalled
that of the face because it especially works upon
the face,, as Dan. ix. 7. — As this day, namely,
teaches or shows; 3 in connection with H-TH DITI
is not = about or on, but has a comparativa
CHAP. IX. 1-15.
89
force, as also in Jer. xliv. 6 ; xxii. 23 ; 1 Sam.
xxii. 8. The present teaches the here asserted
delivering over, in so far as the congregation was
still a nVlJ. comp. ver. 4.
Vers. 8, 9. It is true, the Lord has again al-
lowed His grace to work after His anger, but
not so that He could be dispensed with ; only
through Him has the congregation protection
and continuance. — And now a little mo-
ment (comp. Isa. xxvi. 20) hath been grace
from the Lord our God — namely, during the
time from Cyrus to the present, which seems
short in comparison with the long time of the
previous chastisement, especially since the latter
had begun already with the Assyrians (comp.
chap. vi. 22 and Neh. ix. 32), and had properly
been continued even to the time of Cyrus. Ezra
would not so much praise the greatness of the
divine grace, as if his thought had been that
transgression ought to have been avoided out of
thankfulness (for then he would have expressed
himself in an entirely different manner), but he
would say that the congregation, whatever it
might be, was only through grace ; and back of
this lies the thought that with it they would for-
feit their one and all. — To leave us a rem-
nant and to give ua a peg in bis holy
place. — ?j7 = us, "the people as a whole," in
distinction from which the nD'^S is the congre-
gation of the returned exiles. The peg, 1JV, is
to be regarded as one driven into the wall, on
which domestic utensils of any kind were hung,
comp. Is. xxii. 23 sq.* Hence we cannot under-
stand thereby, either with Bertheau, the congre-
gation itself (to make us a peg = a congregation
of a reliable stock), or, with Keil, the temple,
which is opposed by the words, "in the holy
place;" rather "to give any one a peg in a
house" (here in the temple, in the holy place)
means to give him a part and right in the house,
accept him as a coinhabitant in the house. It
comes into consideration that God is often re-
garded as a. Householder, and His people, in
a similar manner, often as His family, who
dwell with Him in His house (comp. Psalms
xv. 1; xxiii. 6; xxvii. 4, etc.). We have an
example in Isaiah lvi. 5: I will give them
hand and name in my house, where the T ex-
plained in so many different ways may be simply
activity or right to be active, in general to stir
one's self. — That our God might lighten our
eyes, and give us a little reviving in our
bondage.— The infins. TXnS and Uiin1? are
subordinated to the foregoing infinitives = that
he thereby. The subject 'J'rnS appears in an
independent position, as especially Isa. v. 24 ;
comp. Ewald, \ 307, c, because the object Wyg had
preceded and intervened between it and the infin.
"The eyes enlighten" means to remove the night
of trouble and weakness resiing upon them, which
was, according to that which follows, already in-
deed a night of death, and indeed by reviving, that
* [Rawlinson in loco thinks of the tent pin, which is
driven into the earth to make the tent firm and secure,
Is. xxii. 23, 26.— Te.]
is, by bestowing salvation, strength, encourage-
ment, oomp. Ps. xiii. 4; Prov. xxix. 13, especially
also 1 Sam. 14, 27, 29. — PITID = preservation of
life, or as here, reviving (comp. 2 Chron. xiv. 12),
is used here for the adjective "revived," whilst
in ver. 9 it retains its abstract meaning. Dj?D
is added, without close connection, as Neh. ii. 12;
vii. 4. The idea at the basis is, that national
ruin is a death of the congregation, and that the
re-establishment is an awakening from the dead.
This re-establishment was a very incomplete one
so long as the dependence on the powers of the
world still endured, and the congregation must
I still be called flVljn- The reference to the pro-
phecies of the prophets is here unmistakable.
As the expression "holy seed," already in ver.
2, so also "leave a remant," and the expression
"peg," remind us very decidedly of Isaiah,
comp. chaps, i. 9; xxii. 23 sq. ; lvi. 5; the ex-
pression "revival " looks back upon Ezek. xxxvii.
1-14, where the figure on which it is based is
carried out with great vividness and power.
We see that the pious Israelites subsequent to
' the exile, Ezra before all, attentively took to
heart the ancient prophecies of chastisements,
and that which should follow them, in order to
apply them without doubt to their own times.
Ver. 9. And hath extended mercy unto
us before the kings of Persia, to give us
revival. — The subject of the "giving" is not
the Persian kings (Berth., Keil), which is opposed
by the previous verse, and also by the fact itself;
but God alone, whose it is alone to slay and make
alive. It is not necessary, on this account, to
make God the subject of the clause: to set up
the house of our God, and erect its ruins.
This infin. may be subordinated to the foregoing,
bo that the Jews become the subject = that we,
etc. The subject of the last infin. to give us a
■wall in Judah and Jerusalem, is surely
again God, and not one of the Persian kings
(Berth, and Keil). The expression "give a
wall" leads of itself more to God, for it is na-
turally to be understood figuratively, and indeed
not of the temple, but in the more general sense
of the protection which was afforded the con-
gregation in Judah and Jerusalem against their
oppressors, comp. Zech. ii. 5.
Vers. 10-12. The transgression here spoken
of cannot be excused at all, with the plea, that it
was not expressly forbidden — And now, what
shall we say ? — for we have forsaken thy
commandments,— not: that we have forsaken
(Berth, and Keil), which would be weak. Ezra
means : I may thus ask, for, etc.
Ver. 11 may be translated: tbou who, or also,
which thou hast commanded by thy ser-
vants, the prophets. — Ezra does not mention
Moses in particular, but the prophets in general,
not because the commands of the Pentateuch
were not mediated or written down by Moses
alone, but also by other organs, as Delitzsch in
his introduction to Genesis supposes; — whether
Ezra knew this, is at least very doubtful, — but
because his thought is that God by His prophets
has given or again enforced the commandments
in manifold and oft-repeated ways, comp. Judg.
iii. 6 ; 1 Kings xi. 2. When a truth is under
b
90
THE BOOK OP EZRA.
consideration, which is not represented by one
prophet, but more or less by all, then it is usual
to cite in general, as the author of the book of
Kings also does. Moses is meant at any rate, yea
chiefly. And this explains the fact that Ezra
states the command, not it is true verbally from
a passage in the Pentateuch, but yet formularized
in a manner only appropriate to the Mosaic
period, when they still had to take possession of
Canaan. He has in mind before all Deut. vii.
1-3, as there also the entire manner of expression
is undeniably that of Deuteronomy, but he draws
into consideration, in a free manner, other pas-
sages, and indeed even from Leviticus, oomp.
especially Lev. xviii. 24 sq. m], the abomina-
ble, for which in Lev. only riXOB and JVDjrtf!
T : \
occur, is used in the Pentateuch of the impurity
of the issues of blood in women, only subse-
quently by the prophets of other impurities like-
wise, especially also of ethical impurities (comp.
1 Sam. i. 17; Ezek. vii. 20; xxxvi. 17). It is
preferred to its synonyms as an especially strong
expression. n3~7X n3!p. does not mean, cer-
tainly: from side to side (Keil), or from one end
to another (Berth., A. V.) ; for neither the one
nor the other meaning has been proved, or ety-
mologically established for nil- In Isa. xix. 7 it
is either the mouth, or the bed of the Nile (later
in distinction from the bank, as the HBO). H3
T T
is easily the equivalent of person, from person
to person, is, however = on or in all persons,
=throughout and everywhere. Comp. H3 ? H3,
2 Kings x. 21; xxi. 16. It is worthy of atten-
tion, of course, that this method of expression
only occurs of objects which hold men, of land,
house and city, or of men themselves.
Ver. 12. Nor seek their peace nor their
wealth forever.-These words are from Dt. xxiii.
7, where this is said with reference to the Moab-
ites and Ammonites. It almost seems as if Ezra
would have justified from the very letter of the law
by this oitation, his extension of the prohibition
of intermarriage to the Moabites and Ammonites.
The olause, that ye may be strong, reminds
us of Deuteron. xi. 8; the next clause, and eat
the good of the land, of Isa. i. 19; the
last clause, however: and possess It, or take
possession of it for your children for
ever, which does not occur in the Pentateuch in
this form, rests on the promise that is often re-
peated, especially in Deuteronomy, that in case
of obedience they would live long in the land
that the Lord gave them. ty'Tlfl means here not
give into possession (Berth., Keil), for then it
must govern the double accusative (comp. Judg.
xi. 34; 2 Chron. xx. 11), but "take into posses-
sion, possess." For the children, posterity, that
is, permanently.
Vers. 13, 14. Thus there can be no question
but that the new transgression is to be decidedly
condemned. This follows, as well from the pun-
ishment for previous sins, as from the way of
pardon. — And after all that is come upon
ns for our evil deeds, and for our great
trespass. — The artiole before X3 properly repre-
sents the relative, as viii. 25; x. 14, 17; for JO,
cannot well be a participle; as such it would be
in the plural. The continuation of this clause
does not occur already in the second half of the
ver. (Berth.) ; in this case the following \3 would
have to be taken in the sense of, in truth (after
all, in truth hast Thou, our God, spared us),
then ver. 14 would be in too little connection; it
would not appear that two kinds of thing's, that
as well punishment as forgiveness formed the
foundation of ver. 14. Rather the second half
of the verse verifies the thought, which is in-
volved in the first, that the guilt was very great,
and that it properly would have deserved still
severer punishment, and thus entirely prepares
the way for ver. 14. Its sense is, at any rate,
that the punishment has been less than the trans-
gression. The words might mean: For thou,
our God, hast restrained a part of our
sins from below, so that they (namely,
through theirco'jsequences,thevisitations of pun-
ishment) have not gone entirety over our head,
have not utterly ruined us; for there is no objec-
tion to taking Uji^O partitively. Already Esdras
has thus : 6 novtpiaag rag afiapriaq ■fj/j.Civ. In favor
of this view is the fact that in this way DC3D 1
would come into contrast with 7\l]}u> in ver. 6,
T-;~ :
in which it is also found elsewhere, Jer. xxxi.
37. At all events, however, we may likewise ex-
plain: Thou hast restrained Thine anger or Thy
punishment below the measure of our misdeeds,
so that the punishment has not been as great as
our misdeeds deserved (so J. H. Mich., Gesen.,
and Keil). nt3T7, indeed, is nowhere else found
with |D> but perhaps only for the reason that it
nowhere else is followed by a noun of closer de-
finition. |D follows, at least, the corresponding
rP,PD7> 1 Chron. xxix. 3; the synonymous finfll?
has usually 7 after it.
Ver. 14. Then should we again break thy
commandments, and unite ourselves in
marriage with, etc. — This question appeals to
the general sentiment, and serves to emphasize
very strongly the blamableness of the new trans-
gression.— Wouldst thou not be angry 'with
us, even to destruction ? — n7|~l;g, as 2
Kings xiii. 17, 19.
Ver. 15. Lord God of Israel, thou art
righteous. — This concluding and confirming
confession would not say : Thou art a severe
judge, and must interfere against the congrega-
tion on account of its decline (Bertheau and
Keil). The usual meaning of p^S (graciously
righteous), is against this, and then also the fol-
lowing clause, "for we have remained over
as an escaped remnant," which is not = we
have remained over merely as esoaped, but: we
have not been utterly ruined. Rather Ezra
would say, that no one can reproach God for not
doing all that could be expected. — Behold, we
are before thee in our trespasses, etc. —
This, the second half of the verse, constitutes
a very suitable and logically conclusive antithe-
sis to the foregoing. The more blameless God
is the more deserving of punishment Israel's
CHAP. IX. 1-16.
91
guilt. The yodh in U'JTOEto is found in the edi-
tion of R. Norzi and J. H. Mich. ; but is missing
in some MSS., and the pointing corresponds with
the latter. Both methods of writing might in
this case easily go on alongside of one another;
the singular would be favored by ver. 13, but the
plural corresponds with the full-toned style of
Ezra. — [We cannot stand before thee, e.g.,
as thy holy people, who are privileged to stand
before their king. — Tr.] — Because of this.
rtttt"7E = with this new evil deed.
THOUGHTS UPON THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.
Vers. 1-3. 1. If we act upon the supposition
that the sacred Scriptures, even the Old Testament
already, are to give us warning, exhortation, and
instruction with reference to every situation and
question of church, civil, or domestic life, yea, that
the Old Testament very particularly comes into
consideration for the details of life, it is natural
that we should find in the opposition that Ezra
makes in chapters ix. and x. to intermarriage
with the heathen, a warning or exhortation with
reference to intermarriage with those ef a differ-
ent faith from our own. And in fact that which
may be urged against such an application, e.g.,
that as Christians we rejoice in a greater liberty
than the Jews; that mixed marriages have not
been forbidden of themselves and under all cir-
oumstances, that the Christian church is never
threatened with as great dangers as the Jewish
congregation in the time of Ezra, that besides
the piety of the Christian has a mightier protec-
tion and help than the religion of the Old Testa-
ment pious — all this is outweighed by the op-
posing facts. The wife is now on a greater equa-
lity with the husband than in ancient times, has
a greater influence upon the man himBelf, as well
as in the training of the children, may thus easily
become more dangerous. Besides Christianity
is much more internal and deep than Old Testa-
ment piety, more influential upon the heart and
disposition upon all sides, and hence comes much
more into consideration with reference to the
married life, that rests upon internal communion.
It is true there is very seldom in the mixed mar-
riages of our times a question respecting the dif-
ference of religion; usually it is only respecting
a difference in the confession of faith, or a dif-
ferent degree of vitality of Christian religious-
ness— and to place marriages of this kind on the
same basis as those intermarriages with the
heathen would be premature, yea unfair. Hea-
thendom stood in an essential and indeed very
positive contrast to Judaism. The different
Christian confessions, on the other hand, have
the essential things in common with one another.
And between those which are distinguished
merely by the degree of the vitality of their Chris-
tian religiousness, there is often no positive con-
trast at all; the less vital Christianity may be
awakened and strengthened, especially if treated
with love. But we must always recognise and
take to heart, with reference to Ezra and his
behaviour, the fact, that in the conclusion and
conduction of a marriage those considerations
which have respect to the interests of religion
are more important than all others, and there-
fore a difference of confession, which threatens
not to promote but diminish religious ardor,
according to the nature of the case, which besides
constantly disturbs or of itself renders impos-
sible the internal living together in the highest
and holiest spheres, which then likewise has so
much that is unendurable with reference to the
training of children, and involves so many diffi-
culties; that likewise in the same manner, alack
of any religious faith, that places itself in open
conflict with Christianity, that more earnestly
considered, is to be regarded as a positively dif-
ferent religion, or wanders into scornfulness and
frivolity, — these ought to be real hinderanoes to
marriage for all Christians. As regards the
lack of faith, of the kind here referred to, which
manifestly must be placed on the same footing at
least with heathenism, the apostle did not allow
(1 Cor. vii. 12, 13) that a Christian brother
should marry an unbelieving wife, or the reverse,
but only that he should retain her if he once had
her. That a brother should marry an unbelieving
(heathen) wife, he seems not to have regarded as
at all possible. With reference to marriage with
an unbeliever, we are to take to heart what he
says in the subsequent context (ver. 16), What
knowest thou, 0 wife, whether thou shalt save
thy husband, or what knowest thou, O man,
whether thou shalt save thy wife ?
2. The question how the congregation was to
act towards others of a different faith, was now
to be answered for the second time. It is not
easy, with reference to this matter, to do exactly
the right thing; for Christians, who more deci-
dedly have the task of winning others for their
faith, thus in no way Bhould shut themselves off
from them, it is still less easy than for the Israel-
ites. But Bince all depends upon imparting to the
others the best that we have, it follows that we
must draw back, when this is impossible, espe-
cially if we incur the danger of losing this best
thing ourselves. Under all circumstances it is
self-evident that we should only cherish such an
association as we can ever withdraw from if ne-
cessary.
3. No error is so conspicuous in the new con-
gregation as that of intermarriage with the
heathen. Not only Ezra but Nehemiah had still
to contend with it (Neh. x. 31; xiii. 23 Bq.), and
as the princes, so indeed had the sons of the
high-priests taken part in it (comp. chap. x. 18).
Without doubt there was a reason in the circum-
stances themselves. Usually new tasks are im-
posed as well upon the congregation as a whole,
as also upon the individuals in the new relations.
A new end is to be attained, and the difficulty of
striving after this in the right manner often in-
volves the temptation of approaching it in a
false way. The task of the new congregation
was to assume such a relation to the neighboring
nations from whom they were no longer separated
by political boundaries, as that they might ever
be in the position in the fulneBS of time for ful-
filling their missionary calling with reference to
them. Accordingly the history itself urged
onwards to a sort of approximation. Notwith-
standing this, however, the institution of false
relations, which could only render the accom-
plishment of their mission impossible, had no
excuse.
92
THE BOOK OP EZRA.
4. Having lost their political independence,
and reduced to a small number, the congregation,
even their leaders or princes might have come
upon the thought that it was not only allowable,
but indeed was advisable, to enter into closer
relations with the heathen, who now were sepa-
rated from them by so very little. They might
have hoped that their people, on the basis of
such a connection, might exercise a good influ-
ence with reference to religion and morals, and
in consequence of this the congregation would
gain the desirable increase; yet this error would
not have been possible, if they had had the true
singleness of heart towards the divine command.
By the lack of this singleness, those who ought
to have been to the rest of the congregation
guides to good, became guides to evil. Ezra on
his part, who did not lack this singkaess, re-
cognised in these very circumstances, with which
the princes might justify the transgression under
consideration, grounds for just the contrary, for
a, still more careful separation from the heathen.
In fact, just because the congregation were
without the protection of a political independ-
ence, because moreover they had become weak
and despised on account of their small numbers,
there was scarcely a doubt that the heathen, in-
stead of allowing themselves to be influenced by
the Israelites, would have become the influential
factor for them, and they would have jeopardized
the very existence of the congregation itself.
6. In a similar manner, as after other great
judgments, as, for example, after the deluge, it
became manifest after the exile likewise that the
delivered, however excellent they proved to be
at first, were unable to constitute a really new
beginning, which should be pure and sinless, but
ever only a continuation of the ancient sinful
existence ; that there was now no more sinless
development, that rather sin breaks forth in new
forms in the new relations which have been
established by the judging and preserving provi-
dence of God, so that it needs ever anew a holy
reaction against it on the part of the Lord.
Nevertheless, of course, the judging and pre-
serving acts of the Lord are not in vain. The
congregation advances through them forwards,
if not to a pure, yet to a better development, aud
their course, even if it is never that of a con-
queror who has entirely overcome his hereditary
enemy, is yet that of a victorious warrior, who
at least beholds the complete victory and its noble
prize at the end of his course. Nevertheless, the
circumstance that among the princes many recog-
nised the wrong as such, and sought to remove
it with the help of Ezra, is a proof that the Lord
at this time had provided a number of a better
element, who already not only constituted a start-
ing-point for His reaction, but also themselves
began to react out of their own midst.
Vers. 5-15. 1. Before Ezra did anything else he
expressed his sorrow for the failure of the con-
gregation from the word of God, and indeed par-
ticularly by a penitential prayer, in which he
included himself most devoutly within the con-
gregation whioh had transgressed. The first
thing with which to begin a true reformation will
ever be the feeling of penitence, and in accord-
ance with this a penitential prayer, which issues
from the deepest conviction that we are involved
in the sinfulness of the congregation, and which
has to share in the fear of the threatening judg-
ments, which, however, none the less manifests
the sharpest contrast to the sin in question.
Such a penitential prayer, especially if it is con-
nected with an humble recognition of the justice
of the judgment that is feared, already has also
the significance of a prayer for forgiveness, help,
and preservation, just as the praise of the Lord
as the God who hears prayer, affords redemption
and salvation, at the beginning of those very
Psalms, that are prayed out of deep need, and
run out into a petition for redemption and sal-
vation, is itself already a mighty petition, which
in spite of every necessity joyfully praising God,
is able without doubt to most powerfully move
His paternal heart.
2. Ezra's prayer very suitably unites various
things, which must fill us with holy abhor-
rence of fresh transgressions after redemption;
he reminds us at first of the fact that we are
deeply involved in sin from our fathers, we might
say, already by nature, and thus can not be too
much on our guard against it, and at the same time,
that it is our sins that have brought about the
misery in which we all more or less live; so then
that God has given us grace which certainly ap-
pears exceedingly great over against our sins and
unworthiness, so that it must fill us with thank-
fulness and urge us to sanctification, which,
however, over against the necessities of earth, is
a small beginning of better things, easily lost
again; furthermore, that the sin, that we might
perchance be guilty of, is against God's express
command, and can never be justified; that God's
visitation of punishment, if we are not warned
by His punishment or by His grace unto holiness,
must necessarily become greater and more se-
rious. These truths will have a preserving and
improving power for the congregation of all
times.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1, 2. We have the duty of keeping afar
off from others. 1) When? If we can exercise
no improving influence, but have to fear lest we
be ruined with them. 2) Why ? because we have
to preserve great blessings for ourselves and
others. 3) How? with renunciation of temporal
advantages, especially with self-denial. — The im-
portance of a correct choice in marriage: 1) the
injury that is done by a bad choice ; it is not
only temporal, but eternal; 2) the gain that we
have in a good ohoice. — Starke: Marriage with
an unbelieving woman is very dangerous, for she
can convert a man easier than the man can con-
vert her, 1 Kings x. 4. — What other injuries un-
equal marriage may accomplish, vid. 2 Chrou.
xviii. 1. — The importance of true family life for
the furtherance of church life: 1) Church life is
a matter of the free resolution, which must be
correctly guided by proper training; 2) church
life is conditioned upon learning its advantages,
as this is possible, first of all, only in the bosom
of the family.
Vers. 5-15. The fundamental principles of
true reformatory activity: 1) True simplicity of
heart, — we must not allow ourselves to be led
astray by the temptations that are often involved
CHAP. X. 1-44.
93
with sufficient strength in the relations given by
God Himself; we must rather gladly and without
reserve bow to the divine word; 2) true sor-
row for the present transgressions, however diffi-
cult they may be to remove, they must yet be
recognized seriously in their true character;
Z\ true fear of the divine judgment — it is a
bitter, but indispensable medioine for the de-
structive wanderings from duty. — Brentius :
Exprimitur affectus pietatis, qui in unoquoque debet
geri erga proximum suum, videlicet quod unusquis-
que non debet aliter affici erga peccata proximi mi,
quam si ipse ea perpetrasset. Sic affectus erat
Abraham, erga Sodomitas, sic Samuel erga Saul,
sic Daniel erga populum Judaicurn. Et hie affectus
multorum bonorum autor est, videlicet ne tradueamus
proximum nostrum, sed oremuspro eo, et castigemus
eum, pro officio nostra. — Starke: Pious people
laugh not at the sins of others, but are sad at
heart on their account, Jer. ix.; Gen. xviii. 23;
2 Sam. xv. 35 ; 2 Cor. xi. 29. — How inexcusable
are the fresh transgressions of those who have
been redeemed from the misery of sin. 1) Sin
has already wrought misery enough. 2) God has
shown His grace in delivering from it, which is
exceedingly great, but may easily be lost again.
3) He has let us know His will. 4) His visita-
tion of punishment will be still more severe. —
Starke: The strongest walls and the surest fence
about a city and village is God's gracious care,
Ps. iii. 4-7 ; Prov. xviii. 10. — By the wickedness
of the inhabitants is a land defiled ; accordingly
let us beware of sin. In the judgments of God
we have to recognize His moderation, and thank
God for it. — The true penitential prayer: 1)
Recognition of sin in its entire greatness and
ruin: 2) recognition of the divine grace; 3) re-
cognition of the cleanness of the divine will; 4)
recognition of the justice of the judgment to be
feared. — Intercession of pastors for their con-
gregations: 1) Out of love in spite of sin; 2) in
faith in God's grace; 3) in hope of a hearing.
— Starke : Since Ezra in his prayer sets before
him the entire people, he includes himself among
them and accepts his share in the sins of the
people, comp. Is. lis.; Dan. ix. 5; Neh. i. 6. —
Teachers should particularly stand in the gap
and seek to ward off the punishment of God by
prayer. We often know not for the sake of what
believer' s prayer God has spared a people and city.
[Scott: Silent grief and astonishment some-
times form the most expressive protestation
against enormous crimes; and when men speak
on such occasions it may be more effectual to ad-
dress themselves to God than to the offender. —
Henry: A practical disbelief of God's all-suffi-
ciency is at the bottom of all the sorry shifts we
make to help ourselves. — The scandalous sins of
professors are what we have reaBon to be aston-
ished at. — An eye to God as our God will be of
great use to us in the exercise of repentance. —
There is not a surer or sadder presage of ruin
to any people than revolting to sin, to the same
sins again after great judgments and great deli-
verances.— Wordsworth: Observe, this confes-
sion and prayer of Ezra, the priest and scribe,
the friend of the king of Persia, was in a public
place, at a time of public resort to the temple.
He was not ashamed of repentance and self-hu-
miliation, and he showed publicly that his trust
was in God's help, vouchsafed to fervent prayer
at the door of God's house. — Tr.]
B.— THE REMOVAL OF THE ERROR, AND THE LIST OF THOSE WHO PURIFIED
THEMSELVES FROM IT.
Chap. X. 1^4.
I. The effect that Ezra' s prayer had upon Shechaniah, then upon the princes of the congregation.
Vers. 1-8.
1 Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting
himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very
great congregation of men and women and children : for the people wept very sore.
2 And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said unto
Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the
3 people of the land : yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now
therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such
as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble
4 at the commandment of our God ; and let it be done according to the law. Arise ;
for this matter belongeth unto thee : we also will be with thee : be of good courage,
5 and do it. Then arose Ezra, and made the chief priests, the Levites, and all Israel,
6 to swear that they should do according to this word. And they sware. Then
Ezra rose up from before the house of God, and went into the chamber of Johanan
94 THE BOOK OF EZRA.
the son of Eliashib: and when he came thither, he did eat no bread, nor drink water :
for he mourned because of the transgression of them that had been carried away.
7 And they made proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the chil-
dren of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together unto Jerusalem ;
8 And that whosoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of
the princes and the elders, all his substance should be forfeited, and himself sepa-
rated from the congregation of those that had been carried away.
II. The Success of Ezra in the Assembly of the Congregation. Vers. 9-17.
9 Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jeru-
salem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the
month ; and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because
10 of this matter, and for the great rain. And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto
them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass
11 of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and
do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the
12 strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As
13 thou hast said, so must we do. But the people are many, and it is a time of much
rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two :
14 for we are many that have transgressed in this thing. Let now our rulers of all the
congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities
come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges
15 thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us. Only
Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahaziah the son of Tikvah were employed about
16 this matter: and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them. And the chil-
dren of the captivity did so. And Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers,
after the house of their fathers, and all of them by their names, were separated, and
17 sat down in the first day of the tenth mouth to examine the matter. And they
made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the
first month.
III. List of those who Separated Themselves from their Wives. Vers. 18—44.
18 And among the sons of the priests there were found that had taken strange wives :
namely, of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren: Maaseiah, and
19 E]iezer,#nd Jarib, and Gedaliah. And they gave their hands that they would put
away their wives; and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their trespass.
20, 21 And of the sons of Immer ; Hanani, and Zebadiah. Aud of the sons of Ha-
22 rim; Maaseiah, and Elijah, and Shemaiah, and Jehiel, aud Uzziah. And of the
sons of Pashur ; Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethaneel, Jozabad, and Elasah.
23 Also of the Levites ; Jozabad, and Shimei, and Kelaiah, (the same is Kelita,)
24 Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer. Of the singers also; Eliashib: and of the porters;
25 Shallum, and Telem, and Uri. Moreover of Israel : of the sons of Parosh ; Bamiah,
and Jeziah, and Malchiah, and Miaoiin, and Eleazar, and Malchijah, and Benaiah.
26 And of the sons of Elam ; Mattaniah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, and Abdi, and Jere-
27 moth, and Eliah. And of the sons of Zittu; Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, and
28 Jeremoth, and Zabad, and Aziza. Of the sons also of Bebai ; Jehohanan, Hana-
29 niah, Zabbai, and Athlai. And of the sons of Bani ; Meshullam, Mallueh, and
SO Adaiah, Jashub, and Sheal, and Ramoth. And of the sons of Pahath-moab ; Adna,
and Chelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezaleel, and Binnui, and Manasseh.
31, 32 And of the sons of Harim ; Eliezer, Tsbijah, Malchiah, Shemaiah, Shimeon, Ben-
33 jamin, Mallueh, and Shemariah. Of the sons of Hashum ; Mattenai, Mattathah,
34 Z'ibad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, and Shimei. Of the sons of Bani ; Maadai,
35, 36 Amram, and Uel, Benaiah, Bedeiah, Chelluh, Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib,
37, 38, 39 Mattaniah, Mattenai, and Jaasau, And Bani, and Binnui, Shimei, And
40, 41 Shelemiah, and Nathan, and Adaiah, Machnadebai, Shashai, Sbarai, Azareel,
42, 43 and Shelemiah, Shemariah, Shallum, Amariah, and Joseph. Of the sons of
44 Nebo; Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jadau, and Joel, Benaiah. All these had
taken strange wives: and some of them had wives by whom they had children.
CHAP. X. 1-44.
95
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-8. This chapter from beginning to end
treats of the great results attending the peniten-
tial prayer of Ezra in the congregation.
Ver. 1. Now when Ezra had prayed, etc.
— Ezra's prayer is properly designated as a con-
fessing. JVn^nn, comp. notes on ix. 16. /SJfip
means : prostrating one's self, lying on the knees,
comp. Ix. 1. — Before the house of God, — else-
where also "before the face of God," in the
court of the temple. That a great crowd ga-
thered together unto him had its reason in the
fact that the people wept very much, that is, for
sorrow over the evil circumstances into which so
many had plunged themselves, and especially were
deeply moved with him also in view of th e sins by
which they had done it, and accordingly also de-
sired assistance. i"D2, which form only occurs
here, depends upon its verb, although it is sepa-
rated from it by the adverb njnn in the man-
ner of an infin. abs.
Ver. 2. And Shechaniah answered,
etc. — That Ezra himself did not step forth with a
definite demand, that he waited until one of the
congregalion should make a proposition, did not
have its reason in the fact that his position did
not entitle him to make such a demand, but in
the circumstance that the reformation could only
be of worth and thoroughly carried out when it
came forth from the congregation itself. She-
chaniah here, the son of Jehiel, is to be distin-
guished from Shechaniah, the son of Jahaziel, in
chap. vili. 5. And Jehiel, his father, is probably
not identical with the one mentioned in ver. 26.
Were it so, Shechaniah would not have scrupled
to make a proposition by which his own father
would be compelled to dismiss his wife. The
sons of Elam, to whom he belonged, occur in ii.
7; viii. 7, and again in ver. 26. He was, and
this is significant, no priest, nor prince, but one
of the congregation, so that in and with him the
congregation itself promptly arose to vindicate
the law. ^'E^il, cause to dwell, is in our chap-
ter (comp. vers. 10, 14, 17, 18), and so also in
Neh. xiii. 23, 27, used for the taking home of
wives. Shechaniah confesses: We have acted
unfaithfully towards the Lord in taking home
foreign women (comp. ver. 10 and Neh. xiii. 27),
in order to justify Ezra for his strong condemna-
tion of this intermarriage. At the same time he
retains hope, nXI~7,JJ = at this transgression
(comp. ix. 15), or rather in spite of it. 7J? in
itself sensu medio, may readily have the meaning
of "in spite of," comp. Is. liii. 9; Job xvi. 17.
nipD is here = nipfl. Shechaniah is of the
opinion that a removal of the evil is still possi-
ble, and perhaps he already recognized aho the
fact that the resolution to carry out this difficult
thing might give the impulse to a general refor-
mation.
Ver. 3. Now therefore let us make a co-
venant with our God — that is, we will obli-
gate ourselves by a solemn covenant and a sworn
vow to God (comp. 2 Chron. xxix. 10) to put
away. — N'Sin is here the opposite of y$)T\ —
all the wives — namely, as a matter of course,
all foreign ones — and such as are born of
them — also to send away the children. This
resolution might almost seem to be unnecessarily
severe, yet it is a matter of question whether it
would not have been harder still to separate the
mothers from their children. The little ones
still needed their mothers, and the larger ones
might easily be a support for their mothers.
Moreover, it was to be feared that the children,
if they were retained, would constitute a bond
between the men and their banished wives that
would soon again reassert its power and render
possible the return of the wives. We are by no
means to conclude from vers. 11-19 that they
contented themselves with reference to this pro-
position, with the removal of their wives. Comp.
against this view ver. 44 and Neh. xiii. 23 sq.
Moreover, however, that which Shechaniah here
in his zeal so comprehensively proposes might
yet not be so recognized and required, with-
out exception. There was no sufficient ground
for removing sons who were willing to live in
accordance with the law, and who were not ne-
cessarily to be cast out on account of the mother.
— According to the counsel of the Lord
and of those that tremble at the command-
ment of our Lord. — That the Lord and those
who tremble at His command should be brought
logether in this way is almost remarkable. The
Sept. and Esdras, and after them also De Wette
and Bertheau, read accordingly ,}'1S, my Lord,
which would be Ezra [so A. V. and Rawlinson.]*
But Ezra had not yet given atiy counsel at all,
and besides, it is hardly conceivable that She-
chaniah should here speak to him in such a re-
verent tone, and then in the verses immediately
following so familiarly and cheeringly. Already
the Vulgate has juxta voluntatem domini, and ac-
cording to De Rossi, quite a number of MS8.
read even n'lIT. The connection of the two ex-
pressions, which is in itself somewhat remarka-
ble, would probably say : according to the coun-
sel of the Lord, as it is understood and vindicated
by those who tremble at His commandments.
Entirely parallel is Acts xv. 28: "for it seemed
good to the Holy Ghost and to us." The itVJJ
of the Lord is often elsewhere His decree (comp.
Is. v. 19; xix. 17; Ps. cvi. 13); here, however,
according to the context, the counsel, which He
gives, as Ps.cvii. 11 ; Prov. i. 25; 2 Kings xvii.
13. Thus mildly Shechaniah expresses himself,
however, because a specifio command to dismiss
the wives, and likewise also their children, was
not found in the law, and moreover also partly
because the law, in so far as it yet gave an im-
pulse thereto, had a counselling, that is, a pre-
cautionary significance with the good of the con-
gregation in view. The clause nB'jjV.rniflS is
not to be taken in an optative sense [A. V.] —
which would be weak — but as a promise: it shall
happen according to the law. The fourth verse,
moreover, passes over from the tone of comfort
* [Rawlinson in loco: "This expression shows the
hi"h position which Ezra occupied as the commissioner
of the Persian king. His oounsel does not appear to
have been expressly given, but might be gathered from
tie general tone of his prayer."— Ta.)
96
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
to that of promise. — Arise, for upon thee is
the matter. — This can only mean: upon thee
the matter has to depend ; thou must carry it out
according to thy judgment and conviction. —
And we with thee. — This means in accord-
ance with the foregoing. And we will be with
thee, will help thee.
Vers. 5-8. Now Ezra made use of the favorable
sentiment : he made the princes, etc., to swear
to do ntn "^HJI, that is, to carry out the pro-
position of Shechaniah, then however continued
his sorrow, and thereby deepened the zeal that
had been excited, until he saw the beginning of
the execution of the reform. — Ezra arose from
before the house of God, that is, he left the
place in the court, where he had prayed, and
'went into the chamber of Johanan, the
son of Eliashib, in order to fast and mourn
there. This cell was certainly in the wing that,
the new temple had gained, and which served
for the preservation of the garments of the
priests and other articles, but likewise for the
provisional abode of the priests and Levites ; ac-
cording to Neh. xiii. 4-9 the high-priest Elia-
shib had erected a cell for the use of the Ammo-
nite Tobia, as his relative, which he used in his
frequent visits to Jerusalem. The names of
Johanan and Eliashib frequently occur (comp.
vers. 24, 27, 36), one of (he twenty-four classes
of priests had its name from a more aucient Eli-
ashib, 1 Chron. xxiv. 12. But that an apartment
or cell of the temple should be named after a
subordinate man of the name of Johanan, as
Ewald supposes [Oesch. IV., 3. 263), is impos-
sible. It is very likely that we are to think of
the later high-priest Johanan, and indeed the
more so that he was not, it is true, as the one
under consideration, a son, but a grandson of
Eliashib. The order of high-priests from the
time of Zerubbabel was as follows: Jeshua, Joi-
akim, Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, Jaddua, comp.
Neh. xii. 10 sq., where it is true Jonathan stands
in place of Jaddua ; where however, according
to Neh. xii. 22, 23, Johanan is meant. In the
time of Ezra, Joiakim or Eliashib was high-priest.
We must probably Buppose that the author used
a later designation for the previous times as one
more intelligible to his readers. The apart-
ment might have been present already in the
lime of Ezra, which subsequently, perhaps in
consequence of a re-building, was named after
the high-priest Johanan. The second ip"1! is a
needless repetition, and cannot be at all com-
pared with the twice-repeated DiTMn verses 5
and 6, which at any rate each time receives a
special definiteness by an additional clause,
(against Keil).* Dti' is besides, at any rate very
seldom used in the sense of " thither," as it must
be taken to be in connection with IpH The sup-
position of Cler. and Berth, that we are to read
instead of it [T^, and he passed the night or re-
mained there, commends itself very much to our
judgment. Already Esdras ix. 1 lias: /cat av-
Tiicr&elc eicet, the Syriac : and he sat or remained
* | It may be as in the A. V.. the protasis of a temporal
clause, as " When he came thither."— Tr.]
there; the Sept. however: xai 'nroptv&ri iuli
Eat no bread nor drink water is to fast.
Comp. Ex. xxxiv. 28 ; Deut. ix. 9.
Ver. 7. Thus they, namely, the princes and
elders, who according to ver. 8 took the matter
in hand — made proclamation. — 710 Tjyjn as
i. 1, — and indeed probably whilst Ezra was still
fasting and mourning, thus immediately after
Ezra's penitential prayer and Shechaniah's pro-
position— that all the members of the congrega-
tion should assemble unto Jerusalem.
Ver. 8. According to the counsel or re-
solution of the princes and the elders, etc. —
nx^3 belongs to the following clause— the ban
should fall upon every one's substance who
should not come in after three days* to Jerusa-
lem, his possessions were to be forfeited for the
benefit of the templef (Lev. xxvii. 28 and Neh.
xii. 28), and he himself however should be at once
cast forth from the congregation.
Vers. 9—17. The assembling took place on the
twentieth day of the ninth month, namely, in the
same year which Ezra had arrived in Jerusalem,
(comp. chap. ix. 1), and indeed in the square
piTl) of the house of God, probably on the
east or south-east side of the temple court, yet
not before the water gate. Comp. notes on Neh.
viii. 1. If already the affairs themselves, which
naturally had not remained concealed from them,
were calculated to excite them to the utmost, and
depress them, the stormy weather that had set
in made their situation utterly miserable. In
December it is not only cold, but the rain is ac-
customed to fall in torrents. Comp. Robinson's
Phy. Oeog., p. 287.
Vers. 10, 11. When Ezra now held up before
them their error and called upon them to give
praise unto the Lord, that is, honor Him indeed
by the separation from the people of Hie land,
above all from the foreign wives — mifl |f_U as
Josh. vii. 19 — then the entire assembly (ver.
12) announced with a loud voice, accordingly
unreservedly resolved — TI"U 71p (the same as
Vl"U 7ip3 iii. 12) is a closer designation, which
is co-ordinated to the subject or the so-called
ace. instrum., Gesen., S. 138, Anm. 3, comp. Ps.
iii. 5, etc.— according as thy words to us
we must do. — Already the Vulgate in accord-
ance with the accents, connects Wl)! with the
foregoing [juxta tuum verbum adnos, sic fiat); we
may however in accordance with ver. 4, Neh.
xiii. 13; 2 Sam. xviii. 11, likewise connect
WIP with what follows, so that the sense is:
thus we are in duty bound to do.
Vers. 13, 14. However, it could not be estab-
lished in this way, namely, by a general decla-
ration, whether many of the guilty would not be
*[Rawlinson in loco. "The brevity of this term indi-
cates tho narrowness of the area over which the re-
turned Israelites were spread." — Ta.1
t [Rawlinson in toco: "The Persians allowed gene-
rally to the conquered nations that they should be go-
verned by their own laws. In the present case Ezra had
had special permission to appoint magistrates and
judges who should judge the people according to the
law of his God (vii. 25) and could enforce his views of the
law not only by confiscation of goods, but even by death
(vii. 26)."— Te.]
CHAP. X. 1-44.
97
dissatisfied with the step concluded upon and
seek to withdraw from their obligation. If the se-
paration was to be carried out energetically and
surely, it must be established in detail who were
united in marriage with strange women, and it
was necessary that the elders or princes in ques-
tion should undertake to take care that the reso-
lution of the congregation should everywhere
have its proper consequences. Thus it was ne-
cessary that there should be confirmations and
explanations that demanded a long time. Those
who had spoken accordingly continue : — But
the people are many. — 73X is an adversative
particle of limitation. Their meaning is that on
account of the large number of the assembly, it is
not certain whether they all were really agreed. —
And the time is violent rain. — This is briefly
for: the time is that of the violent rain, just as
"thine eyes are doves" Song of Songs, iv. 1. —
And there is no strength to stand ■with-
out = we cannot longer stand in the cold. —
And the business is not for one day and
not for two, etc. — There are so many cases that
must be established and examined into.
Ver. 14. Let now our princes stand for
the entire congregation, etc. — vnpn_737
serves not as a closer designation of the princes
as such who belonged to the entire congregation
in distinction from the elders and judges of the
separate cities (Berth.), as it has already been
taken by the Sept., arfruoav 6r) apxovrec tf/ioiv,
and Esdras : arf/raaav Se bi wponydv/ievoi tov ttX^-
&ovc. The 7 is rather a designation of the dat.
commodi, and here is equivalent to " in place of."
The sense is, let the princes remain in Jerusa-
lem and advise with Ezra; especially however
name to him the members of the congregation in
question. — And let every one in our cities
who has taken home strange wives, come
at fixed times, and with them (for, with
him) the elders of every city, and the
judges thereof. — The princes are to fix the
times for the guilty ones named by them to Ezra,
when they have to appear with their elders and
judges ; the guilty are then to promise to dis-
miss the wives; the elders and judges however
are intrusted with the duty of watching over the
performance of their vows. Since the various
local congregations might be called at different
times, it was possible in this way to dispose of
them in Jerusalem in a much shorter period. The
article before TKfln again represents the rela-
tive as in ver. 17; viii. 25. D'JH.IO D'fyJ are
appointed terms, only here and Neh. x. 35 ; xiii.
81. jar is a Chaldaism.— Until they turn
away the fierce wrath of our God from us
with reference to this matter. — "1JJ. in the
sense of "until," gives no difficulty. For it
might be expected of a God who is ever so gra-
cious, that with the cause of the wrath the wrath
itself also would cease. The supposition of Ber-
theau, that TJ? with the following 7 in the later
language is used for the simple 7, thus stating
the purpose, cannot be proved from Jos. xiii. 5 ;
1 Chron. v. 9; xiii. 5, compared with Num. xiii.
21. Also in the clause fTTH "13T7 ~\V after wrath,
V - T T _
~\]}_ retains its meaning; the sense is: which
reaches even to this matter.* Certainly, how-
ever, the simple HIT! 1317 would have sufficed
V ~ T T ~
here (comp. Gen. xix. 21 ; 1 Sam. xxx. 24;
Dan. i. 14), just as pirP07 IJp, 2 Chron. xxvi.
15; Ezra iii. 13, and p'lrPD1?, 2 Sam. vii. 19
amount to the same thing. With the first words
of the verse, " let our princes stand," this clause
cannot be connected in the sense of " so long as
this matter lasts, (Keil) ; against this is not only
the fact that it would be somewhat superfluous,
but also that a new clause: And let every one —
come — has come in between.
Vers. 15-17. Only Jonathan, etc.— If we
follow the clear usage of the language we must
regard this as in apposition. 1]K properly
" only " (then often it is true " in truth ") easily
leads to an adversative limitation, and iy_ "TOJ£
means 1 Chron. xxi. ] ; 2 Chron. xx. 23 ; Dan.
viii. 25; xi. 14: stand against any person or
thing, as Boraetimes also 7J£ Dip. Accordingly
Jonathan and Jahaziah withstood the adopted
resolution, whether they merely had some ob-
jection to the proposed method of dealing with
the matter, or were also opposed to the banish-
ment of strange wives itself. Only the circum-
stance that verse 16 is joined on, without an
adversative particle, although it treats of the obe-
dience of the congregation, seems to favor the
view that here also an agreement is meant, as
then already the Vulgate has: steterunt super hoe
prxfecti sunt huic negotio. But in truth, accord-
ing to our conception, ver. 16 is not in contrast
with ver. 15. All depends upon the emphasis
placed upon '' only " at the beginning of ver. 15.
Not notwithstanding that, but because only Jona-
than, etc., withstood, the congregation did, as a
whole, as had been proposed. The present read-
ing in ver. 16 117"I3,1 Ezra, the priest, men as
heads of fathers' houses were separated, is not
only opposed by the fact that we should expect
with the Sept. and Vulg. the copula before D'KfaK,
since an asyndeton would here be very remark-
able, but likewise by the fact that a separation
of Ezra could hardly be Bpoken of, for he was
already sufficiently set apart by his entire posi-
tion. We may therefore with Ewald, Gesch. IV.,
S. 185 and Berth., in accordance with Esdras and
the Peschito read T? 7^3_'\— And Ezra sepa-
rated for himself, or at any rate also 0-||*l
N")TJ?S — there were separated unto Ezra. [So
Rawlinson].— After the fathers' house = so
that every father's house was represented by its
head. -And they all with names, as viii. 20.-
And they held a session— so Oi!^ here — on
the first day of the tenth month, thus ten
days after the general assembly of the people,
* [Rawlinson after Dathe and Maurer follows two MSS.
which read H-TH "OTH ^-— Te-1
V - T T — —
98
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
to investigate the matter. — Instead of ffVH
which is not a Hebrew formation, we are to read
the infin. t?m.
^Ver. 17. And they made an end with all,
etc., D'iSJK (men who had taken home strange
. T_. \
wives) can hardly be in apposition with 733 as
the more an-'ient interpreters would have it; the
expression would be too peculiar ; moreover the
accentuation is against it. No more can D'iJ'lX
be the object of tWI and 733 be a designation
of place; they brought to an end the men (the
hearing of them) in every place (Berth.) ; D'EHX
in this case would certainly require the article.
The same objection is to be made to the ren-
dering of Keil, "with reference to the men,"
which in itself moreover already misses the
sense. The suspicion that the clause was a
title of the following section in ver. 18, and
only by mistake was placed here is quite na-
tural, but it is not confirmed by any ancient
version. Thus we must regard the entire clause
as a brief, loosely attached, closer designation
of 73, and understand: they were ready with
the entire object incumbent upon them, that
however was men who, etc. — [Ruvlinson in loco:
"In some cases, it may be presumed, they had
to summon persons before them who did not
wish to part, with their foreign wives; in all
they had to assure themselves that the wives
were foreign ; finally they had in every case
where they decreed a divorce to make out the
'writing of divorcement,' to which the woman
put away was entitled as evidence of her having
been a wife and having become free." Tr.]
By the first day of the first month, namely,
of the following year. The session thus lasted
in all very nearly three monthi.
Vers. 18-44. Catalogue of the men, who had
strange wives, and were obliged to dismiss them.
First of all are the priests in vers. 18-22, and
indeed in vers. 18 and 19 four of the house of
the high-priest.— Of the sons of Joshua, etc.
This evidently means the high-priest Jeshua,
who had come to Jerusalem with Zcrubbabel.
The sons of his brother were probably oaly his
distant relatives; according to ii. 36, they were,
if Jeshua there is the high-priest Jeshua, sons of
Jedaiah, thus brother in a broader sense.
Ver. 19. They gave their hands, that is,
they vowed in a solemn manner by striking
hands (eorap. 2 Kings x. 15) to dismiss their
wives. D'OTNl might follow as epexegesis =
and indeed as guilty. But it is more simple to
supply : and they were guilty, that is, as they
stood there guilty. The more general law of
Lev. v. 14 sq. comes into consideration. They
must bring a guilt-offering, because they had
committed a 'tJJD against Jehovah, for which a
satisfaction was possible, and hence must like-
wise be given; comp. the different opinions
respecting the guilt-offering in Keil's Archiiol. I.
S. 244. ]N¥-T,y is subordinated as an accusa-
tive of closer definition to the previous word.
In connection with the following persons we are
to supply in thought the promise to dismiss the
wives and probably also the offering of a corres-
ponding guilt-offering. — Of the names following
in vers. 20-22 some occur again in Neh. viii. 4 ;
x. 2—9, which perhaps designate the same per-
sons. In all eighteen priests were guilty ; none
of the divisions that had returned with Zerubba-
bel had kept themselves free from the transgres-
sion (comp. ii. 36-39).
In vera. 23 and 24 ten Levites follow, among
whom Kelaiah, usually called Kelita (comp. Neh.
viii. 7 and x. 11); furthermore Jozabad, who
again occurs in Neh. viii. 7.
Vers. 26-44 give the names from the rest of
Israel. In all there are eighty-six, distributed
among ten of the families named in chapter ii.
It is singular that the sons of Bani are men-
tioned twice in ver. 29 and ver. 34, and proba-
bly there is an error in the second Bani, although
it already occurs in the reading of the Sept. and
Esdras. Whilst of every other family only four,
six, seven or eight persons are enumerated in
ver. 34 sq. not less than twenty-seven are men-
tioned as of this family. Furthermore it is sin-
gular that the inhabitants of the cities adduced
in ii. 21-28 and vers. 33-35 are not expressly
mentioned, whilst yet in ver. 7 sq and ver. 14
those outside the city come into consideration as
well as the Jerusalemites. Probably the twenty-
seven men mentioned in vers. 34-41 belonged to
the different districts of Judah.
Ver. 44 concludes the entire catalogue with a
summary statement. — All these had taken
strange ■wives. — 'K^J must be taken as a
participle; probably, however, we should read
as the perfect MWi. for the expression Nt#J
D'EO, comp. ix. 2. No admissible sense can be
derived from the last words of the verse; the
translation: And there were among them wo-
men, and they had, or which had brought sons
into the world, by which the masc. suffix of
DilO, and so also the masc. form WiC'l, is re-
- ' • r- \
ferred to the wives, gives a statement, which is
too self-evident to be correct. But a change
which Bertheau proposes: "And there were
among them those who sent away wives and sons,"
does not commend itself, partly because it is in
too little connection with the text as we have it,
partly because such a clause would likewise be
too self-evident after ver. 3. — [Rawlinson adopts
the former interp. and says : " The fact is noted
as haviog increased the difficulty of Ezra's task."
— Tr.]
thoughts tjpon the history of bedemption.
Vers. 1-4. 1. It is certainly worthy of remark
that it is not narrated of Ezra that he, as we
should expect, expressly and severely denounced
the men married to strange Wives, but that we
are only told of his prayer and confession of sin,
in which he inoludes himself in the number of
the guilty. Earnest sorrow for the sin to be de-
nounced in others, and especially persevering
prayer in their behalf, which in the nature of the
case readily includes intercession, generally
makes a deeper impression as well upon the per-
sons themselves as their adherents, than casti-
gating sermons, as then likewise here a great
crowd of men, women, and children assembled
CHAP. X. 1-44.
99
about the praying and sorrowing Ezra, deeply
affected by his sorrow.
2. If a head of a community sorrows in true
sympathy and anxiety for his people, the better
class of the people do not lack the earnest wish
to remove his sorrow, and especially its cause:
the love and respect which they entertain for him
very easily pass over into this wish, and then
there is easily found in the congregation itself a
spokesman, who, as here Shechaniah, openly ac-
knowledges the guilt, and correctly expresses
what it is necessary to do in order to be free
from it. Such a voice, moreover, arising out of
the congregation itself, such willingness, spring-
ing up of itself, is the best result and reward of
the sorrowing one. The willingness of the con-
gregation, thus testified, is thereby at the same
time still further intensified and enlarged, and
the improvement which then takes place as a free
act, has a truly ethical significance.
8. Such a one, who stands in the midst of a
congregation, has need not only of a strict con-
scientiousness, but also of great courage and
alacrity, in order to openly designate a sin of
which many have been guilty as a sin, and de-
mand the putting of it away. But he who is
first convinced that the sin in question is really
sin, and that the putting it away is really God's
will, should not be frightened by any objection
from expressing his conviction, and improving
the others, who perhaps are only weak, but not
hardened. A lack of conscientiousness and cou-
rage in this respect is truly lamentable ; it is
ominous and ruinous for those in question. Joy
in God, on the other hand, has its great blessings
under all circumstances, even when, instead of
good resulting, at first only opposition, scorn,
and persecution are reaped. Besides, a good
transaction never remains entirely, at least never
very long, wholly without results.
Vers. 5-8. It is indeed possible, yea, usually
the oase, that the first better feelings which dawn
at a reformation are transitory. Many let them-
selves be carried away by the awakening voices
of the better spirits, so that they to a certain ex-
tent outrun themselves, and regard themselves
as capable of the severest Belf-saerifices ; but af-
terwards, when they come to realize the difficul-
ties to be overcome, in all their magnitude, they
shrink back from them as quickly as they had
before resolved to overcome them. Even be-
cause they are so great, they deem themselves
excused from carrying out their resolution. And
the longer they hesitate the more grounds they
find to justify the sins that were to be put away.
He who would truly improve a congregation
Bhould therefore never be satisfied with a first
good resolution on their part; his earnestness,
his sorrow, his prayer must endure, and it must
be felt by all, that he has no rest and no joy un-
til the good resolution has become act and fact.
But if anything, such a perseverance will have
the power to deepen and render permanent the
penitence of the congregation, so that, as in our
history, it takes the steps with earnestness and
zeal, that are necessary to carry out the good re-
solution.
Vers. 9-12. The wife was not in such a high
station among the Israelites as among Chris-
tians. Polygamy was still allowed. Yet the
true relation to God and the recognition of the
truth, that the woman had been created in the
divine image, already involved, that the posi-
tion of the man towards the woman was much
better than among the heathen Asiatics. The
demand that wives and children should be dis-
missed was at any rate, for the most of the par-
ties concerned, one of the hardest that could at
all be made. But a true reformer should not he-
sitate to demand even the hardest things of the
congregation of the Lord, and express his de-
mand with clearness and definiteness. His rule
is God's word and will alone. Every modifica-
tion, weakening, and rendering it easy on his
part, renders his work of reformation all the
more difficult. For it deprives him of his autho-
rity as an instrument of God ; he thereby aban-
dons the only safe foundation, besides passes
over to act in his own name. It renders it diffi-
cult for the congregation to follow him. For to
do God's pure and clear will there is ever to be
found fresh readiness, but to execute the will of
a man, or what he may think proper, does not sa-
tisfy. The divine will often demands much — very
much — but its accomplishment has a correspond-
ing blessing, but this fails if God's demand is
weakened by human devices.
Vers. 13-17. 1. We cannot blame the autho-
rities for assembling the people without delay
even in the cold and rainy season of the year.
The removal of transgressions against God's law
and will admits of no delay. But again, it would
not have been justifiable for Ezra to have pre-
pared additional unnecessary burdens for the
people, who already had besides enough to bear
in the burden they had taken on themselves if
He exposed them to the injuries of the storm, so
to speak, punished them. Towards him who is
willing to impose upon himself every self-denial,
even the hardest, for the sake of the word of God,
every possible forbearance has ever its proper
place. And under all circumstances he who would
carry out a difficult work of reformation has to
take enre that everything moves on in order.
2. From our point of view, the dismissal of
strange wives with their children, seems extra-
vagantly severe, — without doubt there were also
many in the congregation of that time who found
the demand of Ezra beyond measure hard, many
who might be ruined by this proceeding. Not-
withstanding, if we properly estimate all the cir-
cumstances of that period, and especially the
great dangers that threatened the very existence
of the congregation, we will be obliged to re-
gard Ezra as in the right. We are not always
to avoid that which may be a stumbling-block.
The point of view which alone decides at last, is
ever that the communion with the Lord must be
re-established or furthered ; all communion and
friendship with men must stand in the back-
ground. If, when we let the latter retire to the
background we be regarded as destitute of con-
sideration and the like, we may easily put up
with it. Even the opinion of men already pre-
pares a martyrdom, to which Peter's word may
be applied, "happy are ye; for the Spirit of
glory and of God resteth upon you." 1 Pet. iv.
14. What a thorough success his proceeding
without regard to consequences had is clear from
Neh. viii. — x. ; for it certainly already gave an
100
THE BOOK OF EZRA.
important impulse to the renewal of the covenant
there narrated, — it is clear then moreover from
Ps. cxi. and exii., which praise the Lord still for
the redemption given to the people, at the same
time, however, already are full of praise of the
law and the disposition in accordance with the
law, especially also from Ps. cxix., if it origi-
nated already in this period where the poet, just
as Ezra in chap, ix., refers to deadly peril, from
which the Lord only has delivered him, or re-
moved him, and the one thought that only in the
keeping of the divine commandments is salvation,
is given with variation, comp. especially ver. 37 sq.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-4. The power of sorrow over sin (if it
be a true, divine Borrow) : 1) It moves the pious
to sympathy and sorrow ; 2) the more intelligent
to the recognition of sin ; 3) the guilty, at least
in part, to the resolution to put away sin. — The
possibility of hope in God: 1) In spite of what
circumstances : even when the pious leaders sor-
row, and the more intelligent are obliged to ad-
mit great transgression ; 2) under what condi-
tions: when we are ready to re-establish the
communion with God by putting away sin, and
again cheer those sorrowing for it. — Starke : If
we have sinned and deserved punishment, we
should not despair, or let go every hope, as if we
were out and out ruined ; but we should confess
the sins committed, lament and grieve for them,
and take our refuge with the mercy of God.
Vers. 5-8. How will it be better? l)Ifhe.whohas
to represent the cause of God obligates superiors
(fathers and teachers) to do their duty and suffers
sorrow so long as they have not accomplished
their work. — Searke: Preachers should be an
example for the people (1 Tim. iv. 12), that they
should see their good works and be likewise in-
cited to good. — In the example of the great is a
great power for evil and also for good. 2) When
the superiors earnestly and zealously take heed
to remove the general transgression. 3) When
those who would not follow are excluded from
communion with the others. — Stakke: Those
who publicly sin should be publicly chastised, in
order that others also may fear. Preachers
should chastise with especial earnestness where
there is loose conduct in matter of marriage. — In
true conversion we must for God's sake re-
nounce that which is hard and difficult for us to
renounce.
Vers. 9-12. True willingness to set aside that
which separates from God: 1) on the side of the
people — they follow the call of their superiors
punctually, with zeal, in spite of external diffi-
culties; 2) on the side of the teacher — he sin-
cerely shows the people their sins, and requires
of them also confidently the most difficult things;
3) on the side of those who have sinned — they
vow to free themselves from their guilt. — The
duty of loving God more than our nearest rela-
tives. 1) When we are to follow it — always and
under all circumstances, even when to fulfil it is
especially difficult. 2) What it means — espe-
cially this, that we do wrong in letting our high-
est good be imperilled by relatives, by our wives
or by our children, — that we are therefore bound
to choose the wife, above all, with reference to
the Lord; 3) upon what it is based — on our
having to give the Lord praise and honor (comp.
ver. 11) — Brentius : Non est quidem rnatrimonium
sine consensu et sine promissione, at ilia non sufji-
ciunt. In contractu matrimonii requiretur legis ob-
servalio.
[Scott: Genuine humiliation before God and
sorrow for sin always produce works meet for
repentance. — Fervent affections should^not be
allowed to subside till our most beloved sins have
been renounced. — Henry; Our weeping for other
people's sins may perhaps set them a weeping for
themselves, who otherwise would have continued
senseless and remorseless. — Then there is hope
of people when they are convinced not only that
'tis good to part with their sins, but that 'tis in-
dispensably necessary. — Wordsworth : Prayer
may preach; the sighs and sobs of the penitent
are sometimes the best sermons ; but prayers and
tears avail not without practice. — Tit.]
THE END.
THE BOOK
OF
NEHEMIAH.
CRITICALLY AND THEOLOGICALLY EXPOUNDED,
INCLUDING THE HOMILETICAL SECTIONS OF Dr. SCHULTZ,
BY
REV. HOWARD CROSBY, D.D., LL.D.,
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.
NEW YOEK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
743-745 BROADWAY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
SCKIBNEK, AEMSTEONG & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
INTRODUCTION.
?1. THE BOOK AND ITS CONTENTS.
The Book of Nehemiah holds a conspicuous place in the sacred canon as the last his-
toric composition of the ante-christian period. With the exception of the prophecy of Ma-
lachi, it gives us the last clear look at the Jewish state before it reappears in the bright light
of the gospels. We see the returned people — a small remnant of the children of Jacob —
continuing the national line in the ancestral land toward the Messiah, with holy vitality
enough (as it were) for this one purpose, but with a general mortification existing through-
out the nation. The ark of the covenant was gone, the Shechinah no longer illuminated the
holy of holies, the Urim and Thummim had long ceased, the bulk of the people were lost in
captivity from Armenia to Elam, and Israel, instead of being an independent common-
wealth, with a mighty and magnificent capital, had become a petty province of Persia, while
Jerusalem was but a half-rebuilt ruin. Yet, with all this, prophets were still vouchsafed to
the Abrahamic line. Haggai and Zechariah had by the use of their prophetic power certi-
fied the special presence of Jehovah at the building of the second temple, and Malachi, more
than a century later, urged the people to renewed spirituality in the name of the Lord.
From Neh. vi. 10, 12, 14, we are led to believe that between Haggai and Malachi many pro-
phets appeared before returned Israel, although some of them prostituted their divine gift to
low and false ends.
This twilight age of Jewry is lighted up by the writings of Ezra and Nehemiah as the
evening is often re-illuminated by the absent sun's reflection upon a cloud high in the zenith.
They give us an inlook into the style of life assumed by the nation in its lingering decadence.
We enter the holy city — we see and hear the men — we note their tendencies, and mark the
old, strange mingling of patriotism and devotion with a philoxeny that was destructive of
both. The narratives bring us into close contact with the people. Nehemiah's words are
simple, betraying not the least effort of the rhetorician, but their very homeliness makes the
scenes described most life-like. We see throughout the writing of an honest, earnest man, —
and through him the history closes with a sublime dignity.
The book of Nehemiah was included by the old Jews with the book of Ezra, and the
latter name was given to the two. In the Vulgate the book of Ezra appears as the first book
of Esdraa, and the book of Nehemiah as the second book of Esdras. The Geneva Bible in-
troduced our present nomenclature, and thus made the Apocryphal third and fourth books
of Esdras to be numbered as the first and second.
The language is a pure Hebrew, with here and there such an Aramaism as ^n in the
sense of "deal corruptly" (chap. i. 7), rnp in the sense of "tribute" (chap. v. 4), and JJO
in the sense of " consult." This book, Ezra and the Chronicles offer to us the same general
linguistic appearance. Such aiml- Xeyd/teva as WF (chap. vii. 3) and fQynfl (chap. xii. 31)
are the peculiarities of the individual writer, and no marks of a different period.
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF NEHEMUH.
The main subject of the book is the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, which, in the
largest sense, if we include the dedication of the walls and the events occurring during the
building, occupies nearly ten chapters of the thirteen which compose the book, namely, chap,
iii. — chap. xii. 43. Previous to the wall-building we have the account of Nehemiah's con-
cern for the holy city, his earnest prayer for the divine guidance, his request of the king of
Persia, his journey (by royal permission and order) to Jerusalem as its governor, his careful
examination of the ruined walls, his encouragement of the people to rebuild them and their
consent, and his bold front against the neighboring enemies of the Jews. This preliminary
narrative occupies the first two chapters. We may divide the next ten chapters regarding
the wall-building and the dedication into — (1) The apportionment of the work, chap, iii.;
(2) The opposition from enemies without, chap, iv.; (3) The hindrance from domestic dis-
sensions, chap, v.; (4) The opposition by combination between the outer enemies and their
Jewish allies. The wall finished, chap, vi.; (5) The ordering of the city. To this end the
genealogies are examined, chap. via. (6) Religious services follow, to wit: the public read-
ing of the law by Ezra and his assistants. Preparation for and keeping the feast of taberna-
cles, chap, viii.; (7) Extraordinary fast, with confession, chap, ix.; (8) A covenant sealed
touching obedience to the law, separation from foreigners, observation of the Sabbath days
and years, and support of the temple service, chap, x.; (9) The settlement of the families in
the holy city and the other towns, chap, xi.; (10) A preliminary list of priests and Levites.
The dedication of the wall, chap. xii. 1-43.
The remainder of the book, viz., chap. xii. 44— chap, xiii., contains an account of the
appointment of officers over the treasures, and the ordering of the singers and porters, the
thorough separation of Israel from the strangers, according to the law, and lastly (from chap,
xiii. 4), an account of Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem, and his stern dealing with
Eliashib's family for their alliances with Sanballat and Tobiah, together with his other reso-
lute measures of reform. (See the scheme following.)
<S 2. THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIME.
That Nehemiah is the author of the book, all agree. Much of it is written in the first
person, and claims thus to be th" writing of Nehemiah himself. But while it is agreed that
Nehemiah is the author of the book, yet some learned commentators, such as Archdeacon
Hervey, pronounce a large part of the book to have been inserted by other (though author-
ized) hands. From chap. vii. 6 to xii. 26 inclusive the matter is supposed to be inserted, as
also the passage chap. xii. 44-47. Keil, on the other hand, stoutly argues for Nehemiah's
authorship throughout. The truth is probably between these extremes. The genealogy in
chap. vii. 6-73 (virtually the same as that in Ezra ii. 1-70) is undoubtedly an inserted pub-
lic document, and yet in this we can see Nehemiah's hand making the addition of ver. 65
and ver. 70 6 regarding his own (the Tirshatha's) action in reference to matters alluded to in
the older document * So the record in chap. xii. 1-26 is evidently an insertion, giving lists
of priests and Levites from Zerubbabel's day to the time of Alexander the Great (Jaddua —
vers. 11, 22), a century after Nehemiah. Keil's attempt to explain away this latter is la-
bored and unsatisfactory. The rest of the supposed inserted portion we take to be Nehemi-
ah's own. The fact that Nehemiah does not there speak in the first person only parallels
his book with that of Daniel, where the first person and the third person are interchangeably
used. Ezra's prominence in this part of the narrative is simply caused by Ezra's priestly
duties requiring him to be the prominent figure,t and only exhibits Nehemiah's modesty in
the record. The resemblance to Ezra's style and the different construction of the prayer in
chap. ix. from that in chap. i. are arguments of a very frail character. The general likeness
of chap. xi. 3-36 and 1 Chron. ix. 2-34 makes nothing against Nehemiah's authorship of that
portion. There is no good reason for denying a regular chronological sequence in this part
* This document, so amended by Nehemiah, has been incorporated in Ezra.
t The Rev. Mr. Haigh has urged a very bold and ingenious theory, but one that will not bear examination,-1
that Ezra and Nehemiah went to Jerusalem together. (See Transact, of the Soc. of Bib. Arch., Vol. II.)
\ 2. THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIME. 3
of the book in perfect consonance with the rest, and we cannot but consider the attempts to
threw doubt here on Nehemiah's authorship as an effort of the destructive criticism that is so
headlong and heedless in its efforts. Nehemiah* (Heb. Tpru, Nehemyah, "compassion of
Jehovah'') was of the tribe of.Judah, and probably of the royal stock. The expressions in
chap. i. 6 and ii. 5, together with his special activity in the matter of re-establishing Jerusa-
lem, and his acceptability by his countrymen, and also his high position at the Persian
court, all seem to suggest this fact of Nehemiah's birth. His father was Hachaliah, of whom
we know nothing. The name Nehemiah was probably a common one. Many have sup-
posed that Nehemiah was a priest, but there is no more satisfactory ground for such a notion
than the occurrence of his name, as Tirshatha, before the names of the priests in chap. x. 1.
He was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes (Heb. KnpttfnFOK, Artahshasta), king of Persia. This posi-
tion was a very high one at court, and brought him into close and intimate relations with
the monarch, whence came his ability (when his soul was stirred for Jerusalem) to carry out
his measures of aid and reform for his beloved ancestral country. His character appears to
us as faultless. Patriotism, piety, prudence, perseverance, probity and courage equally
marked his administration of affairs. He renounced the luxuries of the Persian court for the
hardships of what might almost be called a primitive and frontier life, in order to save his
country from physical and moral ruin ; in all his varied trials he looked up to the guidance
and protection of h.s God; he used methods with careful discrimination, he pursued his de-
termined course unflinchingly, he set an example of self-abnegation and liberal dealing, and
met the enemies without and within the nation with equal firmness and success. The time
in which Nehemiah flourished was clearly that of Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus). This king's
32d year is mentioned in chap. xiii. 6. Only three kings of Persia bad a 32d year in their
reigns — Darius I. (LTystaspis), Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus), and Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon).
Now this Artaxerxes could not be Darius, for in Ezra vi. 14 the two names are contrasted, as
of different monarchs. Whoever the Artaxerxes may be there, his name in that connection
shows that Darius was not known as Artaxerxes. The date of Artaxerxes II. is far too late
for the chronological position of Eliashib, as high priest. We are therefore shut up to Artax-
erxes I. as the monarch mentioned by Nehemiah. Josephus calls the king Xerxes, but the
chronology of Joseph is so wretchedly corrupt in the matter of Nehemiah, Ezra, Sanballat,
etc., that it is waste time to give him attention.!
In Artaxerxes I.'s time Persia was in its zenith of splendor and power, although the ele-
ments of decay were already beginning to work in the empire. Artaxerxes had come to the
throne through the assassination of his father, Xerxes, by the chief of the guard, Artabanus.
At the instigation of Artabanus, he put his brother Darius to death as the murderer of his
father, but on discovering the designs of Artabanus against himself, he slew the double trai-
tor. He subdued a revolt headed by his brother Hystaspes, reduced rebellious Egypt, and
terminated the long hostilities with Greece by the peace of Callias. The empire then enjoyed
a period of quiet, which may be regarded as the culminating point of its glory, during which
the events of Nehemiah's history occurred.
The name Artaxerxes is the Greek and Artahshasta is the Hebrew for the old Persian
Artakhsbatra from Arta (very) and Khshatra (powerful). Herodotus translates it ^iya
hpj'iog. Khshatra is allied to the Khshatrarn (empire) of the Behistun inscription (Col. i. Par.
9, 11, 12, 13, 14) and to Khshayathiya (king). The second element of the name is not iden-
tical with the name Xerxes, which is in old Persian Khshayarsha.
* The name Nehemiah occurs twice in the book as referring to others than the author— to Nehemiah, son
of Azbuk, in chap, iii, 16, and to Nehemiah, a companion of Zerubbabel in chap. vii. 7.
t Josephus puts both Ezra and Nehemiah in the reign of Xerxes, son of Darius, and speaks of Xerxes' twen-
ty-eighth year ! He also makes Nehemiah to be two years and four months building the walls. He puts the
Btnry of Esther in the time of Artaxerxes, and makes Sanballat to be appointed satrap at Samaria by Darius
Codomannus.
7
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
\ 3. SCHEME OF THE BOOK.
I. Before the wall-building (chaps. i.( ii.).
1. Nehemiah's sadness (chap. i.).
2. Nehemiah's request of the king (chap. ii. 1-8).
3. Nehemiah's journey (chap. ii. 9-11).
4. Nehemiah's inspection and counsel (chap. ii. 12-20).
II. The wall-building (chap. iii. — xii. 43).
1. The stations (chap. iii.).
2. The opposition from without (chap. iv.).
3. The opposition from within (chap. v.).
4. The craft used by the enemies (chap. vi.).
5. The ordering of the city (chap. vii. 1-4).
6. The genealogy (chap. vii. 5-73).
7. The law-reading on the first of Tisri (chap. viii. 1-12).
8. The preparations for the feast of tabernacles (chap. viii. 13-16)
9. The feast of tabernacles (chap. viii. 17, 18).
10. The extraordinary fast (chaps, ix., x.).
11. The distribution of inhabitants (chap. xi.).
12. The Levitical Genealogy (chap. xii. 1-26).
13. The dedication of the walls (chap. xii. 27-43).
III. After the 'wall building.
1. Levitical apportionments (chap. xii. 44-47).
2. The separation of the Ereo (mixed multitude — chap. xiii. 1-3).
********************
3. Nehemiah's reforms twelve years later (chap. xiii. 4-31).
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
Chapter I. 1-11.
1 The words [history] of Nehemiah, the son of Haehaliah. And it came to pass
in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year [of Artaxerxes], as I was in Shushan
2 the palace [the citadel of Susa], that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and
certain men of Judah ; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped
[the Jews, the delivered ones], which were left [over] of the captivity, and con-
3 cerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant [the left-over ones]
that are left [over] of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and
reproach : the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are
4 burned with fire. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down
and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted,1 and prayed before the God of hea-
5 ven, and said, 1 beseech thee, O Loed God of heaven, the great and terrible God that
keepeth covenant and mercy [i. e. the merciful covenant] for them that love him
6 and observe his commandments : Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes
open, that thou mayst hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee
now [to-day], day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess
the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee : both I and
7 my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly1 against thee, and
have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou
8 commandedst thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou
commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad
9 among the nations: but if ye turn unto me and keep my commandments, and do
them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet
will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have
10 chosen to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people, whom
11 thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand. 0 Lord, I
beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to
the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee,
thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man [i. e. Artaxer-
xes]. For I was the king's cup-bearer.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 4. DV TIXV Here and in 2 Sam. xii. 23 the participle. Here the auxiliary verb expressed. After
T ■ Y:T
D'O' supply D'ai, as in Dan. x. 14.
' T ■ ~
' Ver. 7. lh IjSan Van- Aben Ezra and most of the Jewish commentators count this a Chaldaism as in
Dan. vi. 23, 14 (22, 23). In Glen. vi. 12 Ttf3_l?3 nTl^'iVi) is translated by Onkelos X"W3 ^3 V?"3n ^X.
The meaning of " act corruptly " is, however, found in Job xxxiv. 31. It may be an early Aramaic signifi-
cation.
6
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Tidings from Jerusalem.
Ver. 1. The title of the took is contained in
its first four (Hebrew) words, Divre Nehemyah
Ben 'ffacha.lt/ah* i. «., The words of Nehe-
miah, the son of Hachaliah. — Even the pro-
phets sometimes begin their books in this way
(see Jer. i. 1, and Amos i. 1), although with them
the Devar Yehovah (the Word of the Lord) finds
its place soon after. The absence of the Devar
Yehovah here is nothing against the inspired
character of the book. Its presence in the pro-
phets is simply a token of their prophetic cha-
racter, as they speak to the people directly in
God's name with a special message. In the his-
torical books, even in the Pentateuch, the sacred
foundation of them all, this phrase very natu-
rally is not found. Here, as in 1 Chron. xxix.
29, and elsewhere, " the words of" are really
"the words about," or "the history of." In
Jer. i. 1, Amos. i. 1, etc., they have the literal
meaning. (Dathe rightly "historia Nehemiah ").
(For the name and history of Nehemiah, see the
Introduction).
The starting-point of Nehemiah's words (or
history) is in the month Chisleu, in the
twentieth year, in Shushan the palace. —
Chisleu was the ninth month, Abib or Nisan (in
which the paesover fell) being the first. Chisleu
would thus answer to parts of November and De-
cember. Josephus makes it (Xael.ev) the same
as the Macedonian Apellaeus (Ant. xii. 7, 6),
which was the second month of the Macedonian
year, whose first month Dius began at the autum-
nal equinox. Apellseus would thus be from the
latter part of October to the latter part of No-
vember. Josephus was probably satisfied in
identifying the two months of Chisleu and Apel-
lseus, to find some portion of time belonging
equally to both. They certainly did not coin-
cide throughout.
Chisleu is not likely to be a Persian month-
name, as has been conjectured. The Behistuu
inscription gives us eight Persian month-names,
to wit., Bagayadish, Viyakbna, Garmapada, At-
riyatiya, Anamaka, Thuravahara, Thaigarcbish
and Adukanish. It is true that in all but the
first of these battles are recorded as occurring,
so that they are not probably winter months.
Yet the style of the names would scarcely war-
rant us in supposing that Chisleu would be in
such a list. As Chisleu appears on a Palmyrene
inscription (Chaslul), it may be of Syrian ori-
gin. This mon'h-name occurs in the Hebrew
only after the captivity, to wit, in this place and
in Zech. vii. 1. Fuerst suggests Gkesil (Orion-
Mars) as the base of the name, the name being
brought from Babylonia by the exiles; but the
name is found in the Assyrian, as are the other
(so-supposed) Persian month-names of the Jews,
which is strong presumptive evidence of their
Shemitic origin.
The " twentieth year" is, as in chap. ii. 1, the
twentieth year of Artaxerxes (Heb. Arta'hshasta),
who reigned from B. C. 465 to 425. The year
* The Hebrew is transliterated for the benefit of the
English reader.
designated is therefore parts of B. C. 446 and
445, when the " age of Pericles" was beginning
in Athens, and when Rome was yet unknown to
the world. (For Artaxerxes, see Introduction).
"Shushan the palace" (Heb. Shushan ffabbirah)
was the royal portion of the " city Shushan "
(Esther iii. 15). Shushan or Susa (now Sus) lay
between the Eulseus (Ulai) and Shapur rivers,
in a well-watered district, and was the capital
of Susiana or Cissia, the Scriptural Elam (Isa.
xi. 11) the country lying between the southern
Zagros mountains and the Tigris. It early fur-
nished a dynasty to Babylonia (Gen. xiv. ] ), was
conquered by Asshur-bani-pal about B. C. 660,
and shortly afterward fell to the lot. of the later
Babylonian Empire. When the Persians had
conquered this Empire, Susa was made a royal
residence by Darius Hystaspes, who built the
great palace, whose ruins now attract the atten-
tion of archaeologists. Artaxerxes (the king of
Nehemiah's time) repaired the palace, whose
principal features resembled those of the chief
edifice at Persepolis, the older capital of the
Persian Empire. The present ruins of Susa
cover a space about a mile square, the portion
of which near the river Shapur is probably
" ShuBhan the palace."
Athenseus (xii. 8) says, KTinBtjvai ra 2oSra
fnaiv ' ApiardfiovXoc nal Xdpnc did ttjv upaidrirra
tov tSttov aovoov yap elvai ry EA/I^wp (? 'E?,v-
fiaiuv) (ftavrj to Kplvov. So Steph. Byzant, Soijcra,
otto Tcjv uplvov^ a troWXa ev ry x^P? ^eipvtcei enEivn.
If this be true we must accord it a Shemitic ori-
gin, which is against other evidence. Shushan
may be a Turanian or an Aryan word, whose
likeness to "Shushan" (Shemit. for lily) has
deceived the old writers. Susa was the court's
principal residence, Ecbatana or Persepolis being
visited for the summer only, and Babylon being
sometimes occupied in the depth of winter.
Ver. 2. Nehemiah is informed of the sad con-
dition of Jerusalem and the colony of Jews in
Judea by Hanani and others. His words are
Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he
and certain men of Judah, etc. Hanani was
literally brother to Nehemiah, as we see from
chap. vii. 1. He afterward was appointed one
of the assistant governors of Jerusalem by Ne-
hemiah (ch. vii. 2). He is not to be confounded
with Hanani, a priest, mentioned in chap. xii.
36, and (perhaps the same) in Ezra x. 20. Of
Judah may be Tend from Judah as denoting place
rather than tribal distinction. The words would
thus refer to the verb "came," and naturally
introduce Nehemiah's question. That the co-
lony was called " Judah," see chap. ii. 7.
Nehemiah asked them concerning the
Jews that had escaped, which were left
of the captivity, and concerning Jeru-
salem. Heb. happelilah asher nisharu min hash-
shevi (lit. "the deliverance which were left over
from the captivity "). The abstract is used as a
concrete collective noun. Although the greater
part of the Jews preferred to live in the land to
which their ancestors had been carried captive,
yet to the pious heart those who returned to the
old country were recognized as the ''deliver-
ance," or the ''delivered ones," "escaped ones."
The journey from Jerusalem to Susa by Tadmor
or by Tiphsah is over a thousand miles long, and
CHAP. I. 1-11.
at the usual rate of Oriental travelling would
take at least 46 days. With the natural causes
to retard so long a journey, we may safely call
it a two months' travel. Ezra, with his caravan,
was four months on his journey from Babylon to
Jerusalem (Ezra vii. 9).
Ver. 3. Nehemiah's informers tell him that the
remnant (han-nisharim, "the left-over ones") in
the province are in great affliction (the gene-
ral word for adversity) and reproach (the word
.explaining the cause of the adversity). They were
the objects of scorn and contemptuous treatment
from the neighboring peoples. The wall of
Jerusalem they also represent as broken
down and its gates burned. Nebuchadnez-
zar had broken down the walls a hundred and
forty-two years before (2 Kings xxv. 10) and the
attempt to rebuild them had been stopped by the
Pseudo-Smerdis (the Artaxerxes of Ezra iv. 7)
seventy-six years before this embassy to Nehe-
miah. After that, in the reign of Darius Hys-
taspes, the temple had been finished, but the
walls seem not to have been touched. The burnt
gates were also, doubtless, the old wreck from
Nebuohadnezzar's time. There is no reason for
supposing that the walls had been rebuilt, and
again destroyed. Hanani and the men of Judah
add to their statement of the affliction and re-
proach of the province that the walls still remain
in their old ruined condition.
Ver. 4. Nehemiah' sprayer. The tidings brought
by Hanani and the others deeply moved Nehe-
miah, and led him to a special season of humi-
liation and prayer. His grief was doubtless in-
creased at the thought that all this evil existed
in spite of Ezra's work, for Ezra had gone to
Jerusalem thirteen years before. He sat down
and wept and mourned certain days and
fasted and prayed. — That is, he withdrew
from his court duties, and spent a period of re-
tirement (comp. Ps. cxxxvii. 1 for the phrase
"sat down and wept") in most sincere sorrow,
which compelled his fasting and prayer, as its
godly manifestations. The phrase Grod of hea-
ven [Elohe hash-shamayim) is supposed by some
to be only found with the writers of the Babylo-
nish or post-Babylonish period, Daniel, Ezra, Ne-
hemiah, and the author of the 136th Psalm, but
we find it in Gen. xxiv. 3, 7, and in Jonah i. 9.
The style is repeated in Bev. xi. 13 and xvi. 11
(6 debc rov ovpavov). It was a natural epithet to
distinguish Jehovah from the gods of earth
formed of earthly substances. The phrase can-
not properly be called Persian, as the reference
in Jonah proves. Moreover, it does not occur in
the long Behistun inscription. If it was used by
the later Persians, it is as likely to have been
taken from the Jews as vice versa.
Ver. 5. Terrible is awe-inspiring, tOij, the Ni-
phal participle of NT (to tremble). That keep-
e<.h covenant and mercy. — Lit. That keepeth
the covenant and mercy , by hendiadys for "the
covenant of mercy," or "the merciful covenant ."
established in the world's Messiah, but centrally
and typically in the Israelitish system. Ob-
serve his commandments — or keep his com-
mandments ; the same verb as before. God keeps
the covenant for them who keep His command-
ments. This is not a doctrine of meritorious
works, but of adhering faith. See its explana-
tion in John vi. 28, 29, where the work of God
is a sincere faith. The essence of faith is love,
whose definition is given in 2 John 6. "The
great and terrible God" is a phrase borrowed
from Deut. vii. 21, and "that keepeth
observe his commandments" is from the 9th
verse of the same chapter. The Pentateuch has
furnished much of the religious phraseology of
the nation in all ages. (Comp. Dan. ix. 4.)
Ver. 6. After this address to Jehovah as the
awe-inspiring and yet oovenant-keeping God, he
asks God to hear him as the representative of his
nation. The phrase, let thine ear be atten-
tive, and thine eyes open, that thou may-
est hear, is peculiar. It is derived from Solo-
mon's prayer (1 Kings viii. 29, 52), and has re-
ference, doubtless, to the greater attention paid
by the ear when the eyes are opened towards the
source of the sound.
Now, day and night. — Lit. to-day, day and
night. His prayer was oft repeated in the course
of these days of separation and mourning at hours
of the night, as well as at the usual hours of
daily prayer. Which we have sinned. —
Nehemiah has a clear sense of his identification
with his people in sin as in misery. Both I and
my father's house have sinned. — From this
mention of his father's house we have a strong
reason to believe that Nehemiah was of the royal
house of Judah. It is hard to understand his
special mention of his father's house, unless it
had been a conspicuous family in the nation.
(See the Introduction. )
Ver. 7. The commandments, nor the sta-
tutes, nor the judgments. — Heb : eth-ham-
mitzoth weth-hahukkim weth-hammishpatim. It is
almost impossible to draw the distinction be-
tween the meanings of these three words. They
were probably used in the fulness of the legal
style. Commandment, statute and judgment are
the nearest English equivalents, but here they
are all subjected to the verb corresponding to
the first noun ("command"), and we must thus
loosely refer them to the various forms of the
divine commandments. The 119th Psalm seems
to use these words as synonymous. (See on ch.
ix. 13, 14.)
Ver. 8. Remember, I beseech thee, the
word. — After the confession of sin comes the
plea of God's promise. See Deut. iv. 25-31, xxx.
1—10. Not the words, but the spirit of the pro-
mise, is given.
Ver. 11. Who desire to fear thy name. —
The name of God is His expression in His word
or work. The declaration of a desire to fear Ood
is a modest assertion of a true fear of God, but
with a consciousness of its imperfection. This
man=King Artaxerxes. — Nearness to God ena-
bles Nehemiah to think of the "great king" as
only a man. The "this" does not indicate that
he was in the king's presence when he prayed,
but that he was brought into close relations with
the king. For I was the king's cup-bearer.
— The position of cup-bearer to the king was an
exalted one (comp. Gen. xl. 21). Eab-shakeh
(the name given to one of Sennacherib's envoys
to Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii. 17) means "chief
cup-bearer." The monuments of Egypt, Assy-
ria, and Persia show the high rank of the cup-
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
bearer. Nehemiah's high position as cup-bearer
is an additional argument for his relationship to
the royal family of Judah, for the Oriental de-
spots loved to have men of royal blood to wait
upon them. (See Dan. i. 3.) This phrase, "for
I was the king's cup-bearer," is added as expla-
natory of the allusion to the king.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The interest of Nehemiah in the forlorn
condition of Jerusalem had a deep religious cha-
racter. Patriotism and piety were closely re-
lated in a people whose land had been the scene
of a theocracy, and in a man of Nehemiah's cha-
racter the piety is conspicuous in every impulse
of his patriotism. It is sad to reflect that when
such opportunity for a return to the Holy Land
had been given by Cyrus, that only 50,000 Jews
availed themselves of it, out of, probably, an ag-
gregate of millions. The manner in which the
affairs of the Jewish province dragged from Cy-
rus' day to the time of Nehemiah, a period of
nearly a hundred years, was not due only or
chiefly to the opposition of local enemies, sup-
ported by the Persian government, but had its
chief cause in the apathy and self-seeking of the
Jewish people. Nehemiah's piety is thus no type
of the religious condition of the Jews of his day,
but is a conspicuous exception to the general
state of his people.
2. Fasting, with the exception of that on the
day of atonement, was with the Jews (before
tradition supplanted God's word) left to the sug-
gestion of the occasion. It grew out of a deep
grief or an anxious foreboding. Nehemiah's fast,
continuing for several days, must have been not
a total abstention from food, but a withdrawal
from all pleasurable forms of eating, his sorrow
rendering him averse to all indulgence in the
pleasures of the palate.
3. The "day and night" prayer of Nehemiah
was no "vain repetition," as his wounded spirit
and his humble faith gave life to every utterance.
He had two facts before him — the greatness of
God and the sinfulness of God's chosen people.
On these he would graft the return of the people
and the mercy of God. Some, like himself, were
looking Godward, and had not God promised
mercy to such? The favor of the Persian mo-
narch would be the expression of God's grace.
4. The rule of obedience ("if ye turn unto me
and keep my commandments, and do them," etc.)
is not the way of salvation, but of continued pros-
perity. The love of God is assumed in his chil-
dren. Their happiness now depends on their
obedience. "If ye love me, keep my command-
ments." The Jews were in covenant with God.
Keeping commandments had not brought them
there, but keeping commandments would fill
them with the blessings of the covenant.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-4. Genuine patriotism. 1) When and
where it is roused: both at a distance and in
those who, in their prosperity, could easily for-
get their country and the people to whom they
belong. 2) Concerning what it asks: concern-
ing the prosperity of those whom the Lord has
preserved or selected, that they should strive
for a better future. 3) What it finds the hard-
est to bear: that its country and people are in
distress, and even in reproach, and that they
are wanting in power to protect the goods con-
fided to them.
Starke : In prosperity we should not forget
our poor relations or acquaintances, but should
ask after them, Gen. xliii. 27. We should make
the necessities of the saints our own, and give
account of them to others. Rom. xii. 12.
Our greatest and final wish: 1) Concerning'
what we ask; there remains to us, even in pros-
perity and high position, if indeed we are godly,
stilf one question, that is, concerning the king-
dom of God, and its approach, and indeed only
this certainty can satisfy us, that it comes con-
tinually more to us, to our families and our peo-
ple ; without it nothing is of worth to us, for
without it there is no stability. 2) Concerning
what we mourn for; that thus far, always so
much the opposite of that takes place which
should take place in relation to the kingdom of
God. 3) Before whom we bear it: before the
Lord with mourning, fasting and prayer.
Starke: If the saints of God had great love
and yearning for their fatherland, Ihe earthly
Jerusalem (Ps. li. 20; exxxvii. 5), how much
greater love and yearning should we have for
the heavenly Jerusalem! Heb. xii. 22; xiii. 14.
Although a Christian is neither bound to the
Jewish nor to the Romish fasts of the present
day, Btill he should practice sobriety. 1 Pet. iv.
8. The judgments of God cannot better be
averted than by true humiliation, fervent prayer
and honest reformation. Gen. xviii. 23 sq.
Vers. 6-11. The nature of the true petition
(for Jerusalem, for the Church): 1) It proceeds
from true love ; is therefore persistent and fer-
vent: Nehemiah prays (ver. 6) day and night
for the children of Israel. 2) It rests upon the
humble recognition of one's own worthlessness
(although standing before God as priest, the
petitioner includes himself nevertheless to the
inmost with those for whom he prays). 3) It is
full of faith, in spite of sin and punishment, on
the ground of the divine promise.
The foundations for our faith in the time of
oppression: 1) God's promise, after the chas-
tisements which we have merited, to allow
mercy again to rule. 2) God's former evident
proofs of grace, particularly the greatest, that
He has freed us by His great power (shining
deed), and has made us His servants. 3) God's
divine nature itself, which cannot be false to
itself, and cannot leave unfinished that which it
has begun.
Starke: The knowledge of God through tho
law and through the gospel must be united,
otherwise the latter makes confident epicurean
and rough people; but the former, hesitating
and timid doubters (vers. 4, 5). Neither must
we excuse the sins and transgressions of our
ancestors. Dan. ix. 16. — Whoever stands in the
consciousness of the poverty of his spirit does
not exclude himself from sinners, but still al-
ways humbles himself before God. Dan. ix. 7;'
1 Tim. i. 15; 1 John i. 8. God knows our weak-
ness beforehand, and knows that we will stum-
ble in the future. Matt. xxvi. 31. God's choice
CHAP. II. 1-20. 9
is unalterable, and He keeps faith forever. Ps.
cxlvi. 6; Jer. iii. 12. We should grasp God's
promises and favors by true faith, and base
ourselves upon them in prayer. Ps. xxvii. 8;
Mark xi. 24. We are God's property and ser-
vants, and have been dearly bought and freed.
1 Pet. ii. 9. If we wish to obtain anything
from men, especially from those in power, we
should first seek it in prayer from God, for their
hearts also are in God's hand, and He can in-
cline them as He will. Prov. xxi. 1; Esther
iv. 16.
Chapter II. 1-20.
1 And it came to pass in the month Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes
the King that wine was before him : and I took up the wine and gave it unto the
2 king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. Wherefore [and]
the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this
is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid, and said unto
3 the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when
the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are
4 consumed with fire ? Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make re-
5 quest ? So I praved to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, If it please
the king, and if thy servant have found favor in thy sight, that thou wouldest send
6 me unto Judah, unto the city of my father's sepulchres, that I may build it. And
the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy
journey be? And when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and
7 I set him a time. Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters
be given me to the governors beyond the river [Euphrates], that they may convey
8 me over [i. e. from country to country] till I come into Judah ; and a letter unto
Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams
for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house [i. e. temple], and for
the wall of the city, and for the house [i. e. temple] that I shall enter into [to in-
spect]. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.
9 Then I came to the governors beyond the river [Euphrates], and gave them the
king's letters. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with
10 me. When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard
of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare
11 of the children of Israel. So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.
12 And I arose in the night, I aDd some few men with me ; neither told I any man
what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem : neither was there any beast
13 with me, save the beast that I rode upon. And I went out by night by the gate
of the valley, even before the dragon-well and to the dung-port, and viewed the
walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed
14 with fire. Th<-n I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's pool, but
15 there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass. Then went I up in the
night by the brook, and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the
16 gate of the valley, and so returned. And the rulers knew not whither I went, or
what I did ; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the
nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that [afterwards] did the work.
17 Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth
waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire : come and let us build up the
18 wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach. Then I told them of the hand
of my God which was good upon me ; as also the king's words that he had spoken
unto me. And they said, Let us rise and build. So they strengthened their hands
19 for this good work [or rather, for good]. But when Sanballat the Horonite, and
Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian heard it, they laughed
us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do ? Will ye
10
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
20 rebel against the king? Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of
heaven, he will prosper us; therefore [and] we his servants will arise and build:
but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial [i. e., record of remembrance] in
Jerusalem.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
i Ver. 6. hiW- Only here and in Ps. xlv. 10. See Exegetical Note.
2 Ver. 7. JTiinS-Sj?- This later use of Sj> for Sx, found in Ezra and Esther, is also found in Job fre-
quently. Compare Exeg. Note on ch. i. 7.
3 Ver. 8. rillp1?, infln. construct, of the Piel PlTp, as in ch. iii. 3, 6. So 2 Chron. xxxiv. 11. See also Ps.
In tI-
civ. 3. PIT'S. This late Hebrew word is applied to the temple in 1 Chron. xxi. 19, and to the royal portion of
Susa in Neh. i. 1. (Comp. Ezra. vi. 2.) See Exeg. Note here, and on ch. vii. 2.
« Ver. 12. H3 23^ for 7V*)V 23\ Comp. Is. lxvi. 20.
T T V T
6 Ver. 13. 13t£r. In LXX. ftugv avvrpi&uv. So also in ver. 15. Doubtless the correct reading is, with some
MSS. and commentators, "\2\U, which, however, neyer elsewhere occurs in Kal.— D'SI^S DH. The open Mem.
suggests D'SISDH as the proper reading. (Comp. ch. i. 3.)
« Ver. 14. TUIH "I3,J>V A clumsy form for "ijjt'S ' .TinPI 1Bf».
' Ver. 16. [3-"ljr, not " as yet," but " until so," i. e. |3 'IW$ "WX TJ£.
» ver. n. ns-in for nsinV
t : v t : v :
» Ver. 18. «'J3? Ulpi for DJ3J1 WpJ- So in ver. 20.
EXEGETIGAL AND CRITICAL.
The Interview loith the King.
Ver. 1. The month Niaan (called "Abib"
in the Pentateuch, Exod. xiii. 4) — the first month
of the Hebrew national year. This name Nisan
is found in the Assyrian, but its deiivation is
obscure. It corresponded to parts of our March
and April. The twentieth year of Artax-
erxes the king. — Artaxerxes' reign-years
counted from some other month than Nisan, for
the preceding Chisleu was in the 20th year.
The unlikely supposition (as by Up. Patbiok)
that the "twentieth year" of chapter i. 1 re-
fers to Nehemiah's life, is thus unnecessary.
(See on chap. i. 1.) Wine was before him.
— It is the custom among the modern Persians to
drink before dinner, accompanying the wine-
drinking with the eating of dried fruits. (See
Rawlinson's Herod. I. 133, Sir H. C. R.'s note.)
Compare the "banquet of wine" in Esther v. 6.
Now I had not been beforetime sad in his
presence. — Lit. And I was not sad in his pre-
sence. That is, it was not his wont to be sad in
the king's presence. The exactions of Persian
monarchs would not endure any independence
of conduct in their presence. Everybody was
expected to reflect the sunlight of the king's ma-
jesty.
Ver. 2. Wherefore the king said. — Lit.
And the king said. The word translated "sad"
in vers. 1, 2, 3, and the noun "sorrow" in ver.
2, are very general words for "bad" and "bad-
ness." But the bad countenance was the sad
countenance (see Gen. xl. 7 for the same
phrase).
Ver. 3. Let the king live for ever. — Heb.
hammelek Polam yihyeh. Compare 1 Kings i. 31 ;
Dan. ii. 4; v. 10; vi. 6, 21. The mere formula
of address to an Oriental king, so that even a
Daniel used it without compunction. The City,
the place of my fathers' sepulchres. — Lit.
the city, house of graves of my fathers. This em-
phasis of "the house of graves" not only seems
to prove Nehemiah a Jerusalemite in descent,
i. e., of the tribe of Judah, but also of the royal
house. An obscure person would scarcely have
chosen such a way of designating the oity before
the king. (Comp. on chap. i. 6.)
Ver. 4. For what dost thou make re-
quest?— Lit. On what account this thou art asking?
The king takes for granted that the look of sad-
ness is an assumed preliminary to asking a fa-
vor. There is a true Oriental touch in this.
So I prayed to the God of heaven.— A
beautiful mark of Nehemiah's piety. He first
addresses the King of kings, and then the earthly
monarch. He knew in whose hands were kings'
hearts. For the phrase " God of heaven," see
on chap. i. 5.
Ver. 5. That I may build it — This was
Nehemiah'B first great aim, to rebuild the oity.
Without walls and fortifications, it was but a
large village, exposed to sudden ruin. Could
the walls be rebuilt, its permanence would be
secured, and the province of Judah have a strong
centre. That Nehemiah saw that this was the
true course to conserve the special interests of
God's people, there can be no doubt. A man of
his piety could not rest in the mere external view
of things.
Ver. 6. The queen also sitting by him.—
We have a good illustration of this scene in a
sculpture from Asshur-bani-pal's palaoe (Koy-
unjik). The king reclines on one side of the ta-
ble, and is in the act of drinking. The queen
sits upright in a chair of state at the side of the
table, near the king's feet, but facing him. She
is also in the act of drinking. Attendants with
large fans stand behind each. (See oopy of this
interesting scene in Rawlinson's Ancient Monar-
CHAP. II. 1-20.
11
ehies, Vol. I., p. 493). That the word "shegal"
refers to the principal wife of the king seems
olear from its use in Ps. xlv. 10. The chief wife
of Artaxerxes at one time was Damaspia, ac-
cording to Ctesias.
Ver. 7. The governors. — Heb. pahawoth,
from pechah, the modern pacha, the Oriental
name for a viceroy used by Assyrians, Babylo-
nians, and Persians. Beyond the river, i. e.,
the river Euphrates. The oourse to Judea would
leave the Euphrates probably at Tiphsah, 700
miles from Susa or Shushan, whence there would
be 400 miles of travel through the Syrian coun-
tries before reaching Jerusalem. They were
letters to governors or pachas in this Syrian re-
gion that Nehemiah requested.
Ver. 8. Asaph, the keeper of the king's
forest, may have been a Jew, as the name is
Israelitish. It may, however, be a form of As-
patha (Esther ix. 7), from the Persian Aspa
(horse). The word translated "forest" is par-
ties, which is our familiar paradise. It is an
Aryan word (Zend, pairidaeza), and signifies a
walled round place, a preserve of trees and ani-
mals. There was probably a royal park set off
for the king in the neighborhood of Jerusalem,
and Asaph was its keeper. The word pardes is
found in the Scriptures only here and in Sol. S.
iv. 13 and Eccl. ii. 5. As it is not an old Persian
word, but found in the Sanscrit and Armenian,
no argument for the late date of Solomon's Song
and Ecclesiastes can be derived from it. In
Solomon's day, with that king's extensive con-
nections with distant countries, the word may
readily have entered into his vocabulary from any
Aryan source. The palace which apper-
tained to the house. — It is supposed by some
that this is the well-known Birah or Baris (af-
terward Antonia) at the north side of the tem-
ple-area. But that was probably constructed at
a later date. Nehemiah sought simply to recon-
struct the old buildings. Now the palace next
to the house (i. e., to the temple, the house, as
the house of God) was Solomon's palace, inha-
bited by all the kings after him, which was situ-
ated at the south-east corner of the temple-area.
(See 2 Cbron. xxiii. 12-15). The house that
I shall enter into. — Not Nehemiah's own
house (he was too high-minded to think of that),
but the house of God, spoken of before. He de-
sired timber (1) for the palace gates, (2) for the
walls, and (3) for the house of God. "That I
shall enter into" means "which I shall visit
and inspect."
According to the good hand of my God
upon me.— For this beautiful expression of piety,
compare Ezra vii. 9 and viii. 18. In ver. 18 of this
chapter we see it again, slightly varied in form.
The Journey to Jerusalem.
Ver. 9. The king had sent captains of
the army and horsemen 'with me. — Nehe-
miah's high rank made this a matter of course.
— Ver. 10. Sanballat the Horonite. — There
were two Horons ("Beth-horons" in full) in
Palestine, a few miles north of Jerusalem.
There was also a Horonaim (lit. " the two Ho-
rons") in Moab (Isa. xv. 5). Sanballat was
probably from the latter, and was a Moabite, as
we find his associate is Tobiah, an Ammonite.
He was probably satrap or pacha of Samaria
under the Persians, and Tobiah was his vizier
or chief adviser. The hatred of the Moabites
and Ammonites toward Israel, and the equal
hatred of the Israelites to Moab and Ammon
appear to have grown stronger in the later ages
of the Jewish state. In David's time, his family
found refuge in Moab, as Elimelech's family
had done long before, and Ruth a Moabitess
was ancestress of the line of kings in Israel and
Judah. After the attack upon Moab by Jehosh-
aphat and the terrible scene upon the wall of
Mesha's capital (2 Kings iii. 27), there was pro-
bably nothing but intense bitterness between
the children of Lot and the children of Israel.
Sanballat and Tobiah represented the Moabitish
and Ammonitish hatred.* The origin of the
name Sanballat is uncertain. It seems akin to
the Assyrian Assur-uballat, and may be, in its
correct form, " Sinuballat," Sin being the moon
(comp. Sin-akhi-irib or Sennacherib), or it may
be San-uballat, San being the sun.
Tobiah, the servant, the Ammonite. —
Tobiah is a Jewish name (see Ezra ii. 60 and
Zech. vi. 10). We could scarcely expect to find
the element Jah in the name of an Ammonite.
Tobiah was probably a renegade Jew, who had
become a slave among the Ammonites, and, by
his talents and cunning, had risen into promi-
nence, and was now chief adviser of Sanballat.
Hence the epithet, which probably his enemies
had fastened on him: "Tobiah the slave." —
It grieved them. — Samaria had become the
leading state west of the Jordan, and any resto-
ration of Jerusalem would threaten this predo-
minance.
Ver. 11. And was there three days. —
Days, probably, of prayer and observation be-
fore any determinate action. (See Ezra viii. 32,
for a precisely similar conduct on Ezra's part
thirteen years before.)
The Inspection.
Ver. 12. In the night — few men — neither
told I any man. — These facts and that of only
one animal being used in the night-survey show
the prudence of Nehemiah, who would avoid
calling the attention of Sanballat to any survey
of the walls until all was ready for building.
Any formal survey made in the day-time would
soon have reached Sanballat's ears, for he and
Tobiah were both closely allied by marriage-
alliances with the Jerusalem Jews (ch. vi. 18
and xiii. 28).
Ver. 13. The gate of the valley, Sha'ar
hag-gai (2 Chron. xxvi. 9; Neh. iii. 13), was
probably a gate overlooking the great valley of
Hinnom, which is called in Jer. ii. 23 simply
" the valley." It was between the Tower of the
Furnaces {Migdal hat-tannurim) and the Dung-
gate. We may place it about twelve hundred
feet south of the present Jaffa Gate. — The
dragon-well (Ain hattannin) is perhaps the
present great pool, Birket Sultan, along the
* The Sanballat of Josephus is evidently a very dif-
ferent person, living a century later. He may have
been a descendant of this one, inheriting his office ana
his hostile tactics toward the jews.
12
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
eastern side of which and above it would be
Nehemiaii's course southward from the Jaffa-
gate. The strange name (Fountain of the Sea-
monster) may have been given to it because some
curious large water-snake or crocodile was kept
in it in Nehemiah's time. — The dung-port
(Sha'ar ha-ashpoth) is rather the rubbish-gate, and
was probably the gate in the valley before which
the rubbish of the city was cast and burned.
It was the " east gate " (lit. pottery-gate) of Jer.
xix. 2. So the Jewish authorities. We may
suppose this gate was at the southern extremity
ofZion. The false rendering of "dung-port" has
given rise to the idea that it was near the temple ;
that through it the filth from the animals offered
in sacrifice was carried. It is possible that this
filth may have been carried over the bridge to
Zion, and through this gate to the brink of Hin-
nom's deepest portion, and there dumped with
the other rubbish. But the rubbish-gate or dung-
port was only one thousand cubits from the val-
ley gate (see ch. iii. 13), and no gate near the
temple could have been thus near the valley-
gate, if the valley-gate were anywhere on the
west of the city. We should consider the Rub-
bish-gate as directly before that part of Hinnom
known as Tophet (Jer. vii. 31, 32, and xix. 6,
11, 12, 13, 14). (But see Excursus.)
Ver. 14. The gate of the fountain, Sha'ar
ha-ayin, is certainly a gate in front of the pool
of Siloam (see ch. iii. 15). It would be where
the ancient wall turned northward beyond ils
south-eastern corner. — The king's pool, be-
rechath hammelek, must be the pool of Siloam.
Comp. ch. iii. 15. The "virgin's fountain" of
to-day is too far away. It probably received
this name from its watering the king's garden
(ch. iii. 15). See Joseph. Ant. 7,* 14, 4. Also
Jeioin. Com. on Jer. vii. 30.
There was no place for the beast that
■was under me to pass. — The ruin was so
great, and the rubbisli ho accumulated, along
Ophel, that Nehemiah could not pursue his
course along the wall any further (ver. 15), but
was obliged to go down into the valley of the
Kidron (the brook, nachal), up which he went
and surveyed the wall, and then turned back
and pursued the same route back again to the
valley-gate. It is evident that this survey was
confined to the southern and eastern walls,
which were perhaps the most ruined and the
most neglected, as being on the sides of greater
natural defence.*
Ver. 16. Neither had I as yet told it to
the Jews. — Rather : Neither did I, until I had
done thus, (ell it to the Jews. — The rulers (sega-
rtim, a Persian word) were the executive officers
of the colony. Neither to the Jews in general
nor to the rulers, priests or nobles specially had
Nehemiah communicated the fact of his survey.
He, however, now summons an assembly, and
urges them to build the walls, showing them as
arguments God's meroies to him and tne kings
favor. — The rest that did the work, i. e. the
* It is generally thought that Nehemiah made the
full circuit of the wall9 ; but, although the language
might allow such an interpretation, the want of any
hint of another way back (no mention of the Fish-gate
or Old-gate or any other prominent land-mark on the
north and west side) aeems to force us to take shuv in
the sense of going back in the way he went out.
others engaged in the public service. Or (more
probably) it maybe proleptic for "those that
afterward engaged in the wall-building."
Ver. 18. So they strengthened their
hands for this good work, or for good, i. e.,
for a prosperous time.
Ver. 19. Geshem or Gashmu (vi. 6), who
was third with Sanballat and Tobiah in hostility
to the Jews, was perhaps chief of those Arabs
whom Sargon had settled in Samaria (see Raw-
linson's Anc. Mon., Vol. II., p. 146).
Ver. 20. Ye have no portion nor right
nor memorial in Jerusalem. — This was Ne-
hemiah's firm protest against the slightest inter-
ference on the part of these heathen chiefs. He
will not acknowledge their right even to com-
plain, and refuses to answer their false charge
implied in their question. With such enemies
there should be a clear understanding from the
first. One of the strong points of Nehemiah's
character was his uncompromising and prompt
method in all things.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. Like Joseph and Daniel, Nehemiah carried
into a high office near the throne of an Oriental
despot the vigor of a holy life. It did not make
him a recluse, nor yet a sad-faced servant of the
king. His sad visage at this time was a thing
remarkable. He had been an acceptable officer
of the court, and the king's treatment of his re-
quest shows the high favor in which he stood.
True religion does not incapacitate one from of-
fice; but furnishes the man with a power to
please, while it preserves him from the tempta-
tions of rank.
2. No doubt there had been from the founda-
tion of the Persian empire a sincere sympathy
on the part of the Persians with the Jews. The
monotheism of the Jews gained them favor with
the Persian throne, and was, doubtless, the
chief reason of Cyrus's edict concerning their
return to Jerusalem. By the twentieth year of
Artaxerxes this sympathy had probably dimin-
ished (as under Magian influences it had been
previously hindered), and yet the king's readi-
ness to send an escort with Nehemiah (chap. iv.
23), and to make his way easy, may be attributed
in part to this traditional regard for the Jewish
hostility to polytheism.
3. Nehemiah's secresy was a part of his exe-
cutive ability. Although he had the king's en-
dorsement, he knew the value of keeping his own
counsel, for there were jealous foes around the
Jews ready to throw hindrances in his way.
Moreover these had allies among the Jews them-
selves— men high in rank and position — and the
distance was so great from the Persian capital
that Nehemiah's firman needed great wisdom on
his part to make it efficient.
4. The encouragement which Nehemiah held
out to his countrymen to rebuild the walls was
not simply the king's willingness, but the guiding
hand of God. He saw behind the throne of Per-
sia the power of Israel's Jehovah, and sought to
strengthen his brethren by the same view. Piety
teaches the heart to see second causes as only
indicators of the Divine will and action, and
law, whether it be from man's mouth or in the
CHAP. II. 1-20.
13
forces of external nature, is rightly referred to
an overruling Providence that guides and guards
the people of God. It was this consideration
that formed Nehemiah's answer to Sanballat, To-
biah, and Qeshem.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-9. Love towards suffering Jerusalem:
1) Its sorrow (vers. 1, 2), in spite of personal
prosperity, and even in the midst of the enjoy-
ments of the royal banquet. 2) Its confession
(vers. 2, 3) ; it is not ashamed of belonging to
the congregation of the Lord ; neither is it
ashamed of its poor brethren, but declares itself
candidly as love, and indeed in spite of the dan-
ger of displeasing in a very hazardous way. 3)
Its petition (vers. 4, 5): it begs for help, first
indeed of God the Lord, and then also of men,
but particularly for the permission to give its
own aid, and that too with self-denial. 4) Its
joy (vers. 6, 9) : its prayer is not only grauted,
but it receives almost more than it could hope
for. Bbentius : jfftec enim est vera amicitia, quse
in afflietionibus perdurat. Exemplum imitandum:
si quid petendum est ab homine, primum a Deo
pttamus, qui hominis cor nobis amicum reddere
potest.
Starke: To speak to princes of weighty mat-
ters demands great precaution. 2 Sam. xiv. 2.
0 Soul, if a heathen lord takes a servant's griefs
so tenderly to heart, how should not the Father
of mercy allow thy griefs to penetrate His
heart! Jer. xxxi. 20, 25. The sighs of the godly
are powerful petitions before God. Ps. xii. 6.
One should not frighten timid supplicants still
more, but speedily encourage their petition by
generous bounty. Matt. v. 32; Bom. xii. 8.
Princes and lords should willingly listen to the
complaints of their subjects, and grant as much
as possible. 2 Sam. iii. 16. God gives accord-
ing to His great goodness more than we can
hope or ask for. Eph. iii. 20; 1 Kings iii. 13.
The sorrow for suffering Jerusalem: 1) In
spite of our own prosperity; 2) On account of
the sad position of the congregation; 3) Iu
presence of those who are able to help, and
must be gained over.— The self-denial of a pa-
triot: 1) He grieves in spite of his own pros-
perity, for the misery of his country; 2) He
risks his position by a frank confession ; 3)
He wishes to relinquish his position, in order to
aid his fatherland.
Starke : It is a token of a godless spirit when
one does not reverence his fatherland ; but it is
villainy when one desires to injure it. 2 Mace,
v. 8.
Ver. 10. The conduct of the worldly-minded
towards the congregation of the Lord : 1) Their
latitudinarianism: Sanballat and Tobiah main-
tained friendship with the Jerusalemites. Chap,
vi. 10, 17; xiii 4-9, 28. 2) Their narrowness:
they cannot endure that any one should seek to
advance the welfare of the congregation of the
Lord, as such.
Venerable Bede: Notanda animarum rerum-
que diversitas, quia supra quidem dicti sunt hi, qui
remanserunt de captivitate in Juda, in afflictione
magna et opprobrio fuisse ; sed et Neherniam longum
cumfletu eipreeibus duxisse jejunium, eoquod muros
Hierusalem dissipatos, et portse illius essent igne
combustis, et nunc versa vice hvstes ejusdem sanctse
civitatis eontristati et in afflictione sunt magna con-
stituti, eo quod sedificia illius restuuranda. TJnde
colligendum, etiam in hac vita sewentiam domini
posse compleri, qui cum dixissit: Amen, amen, dico
vobis, quia plorabitis et flebitis vos, mundus autem
gaudebit, vos autem contristabimini, continuo subje-
oil : sed tristitia vestra vertctur in gaudium.
Vers. 11-18. Bright zeal in the concerns of
God: 1) It foresees (vers. 11, 12) and hastens
at times because dangers threaten ; 2) It looks
around (vers. 13-15) to fully estimate the diffi-
culty of the work to be performed ; 3) it looks,
and points, on high (vers. 17, 18), to God's help,
to the hand of God, which is extended in favor
above it, and therefore succeeds with those
whose help is necessary.
Venerable Bede : Diversa urbis destruclse loca
lustrandro pervagatur Sic et doctorum est
spiritualium, ssepius node surgere ac solerte indagine
slatum sanctse ecclesise quiescentibus ceteris inspicere,
ut vigilanter inguirant, qualiter ta, quse vitiorum
bellis .... dejecta sunt, castigando emendent et eri-
gant.
Starke : When one has suitable means at
hand for avoiding the danger, he must not de-
spise them. Josh. ii. 15; 2 Cor. xi. 33. When
something is granted to us by the authorities
through favor, we must ascribe it to God. When
one will perform anything great, he must keep
it secret. 1 Sam. xiv. 1. When the Church
sleeps, God awakens pious people, who work
and watch for its welfare. There is a time for
speaking and a time for silence. Well begun is
half gained.
Vers. 19, 20. In our work for the kingdom of
God what position must we take towards the
objections of the world? 1) We must be pre-
pared for scorn, contempt, and anxiety. The
worldly-minded consider the aim which we truly
have as foolish, as it is too elevated for them ;
they therefore attribute to us another aim,
which is foreign to us ; and in this way they
give a most suspicious look to our activity. 2)
We must not, however, lay any importance upon
this; that which they consider foolish is our
highest task, that we should keep ourselves
unspotted from the world, and therefore concede
to them, in so far as they are the world, no part
or right in our intercourse.
Vers. 17-20. The admonition to build up the
kingdom of God. 1) It complains: you see the
distress, etc., for it always finds again the rea-
son that it may pass beyond to the demand :
come, let us build, resting upon the former
proofs of the Lord, who also has known how to
make the kings of the earth serviceable to His
ends. 2) It excites the ridicule aDd the suspi-
cions of the world, but overcomes them through
reference to the God of heaven, who causes His
people to succeed, but never allows the evil to
prevail. — Venerable Bede: Doctores sancti,
immo omnes, qui zelo Dei fervent, in afflictione sunt
maxima, quamdiu Hierusalem, hoc est, visionem
pads, quam nobis Dominus reliquit et commenduvit,
per bella dissensionum cernunt esse desertam, et por-
tas virtutum, quasfuxta Esaiam laudatio occupare de-
buerat, prsevalentibus inferorum portis dejeetas atque
opprobrio habitas contuentur. — Starke : It is a
14 THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
good sign when envious people combat a work;
for one can conclude from that that it provokes
the devil, and that makes us the more joyful.
Gen. xxxvii. 4; 1 Sam. xvii. 28. The devil is
□ever idle : therefore when he can undertake
nothing actively against the people of God, he
makes use of poisonous tongues ; but whoever
fears God has a secure fortress. Sir. xiv. 26, 81.
One should be firm in his confidence in God,
aud allow nothing to be abstracted from it.
Chap. III. 1-32.
1 Then Eliashib, the high-priest, rose up with his brethren the priests, and they
builded the sheep-gate; they sanctified it, and set up the doors of it; even unto the
2 tower of Meah they sanctified it, unto the tower of Hananeel. And next unto
him [lit. at his hand] builded the men of Jericho. And next to them [rather, next
3 to him, i. e., next to Eliashib] builded Zaccur the son of Imri. But [and] the
fish-gate did the sons of Hassenaah [sons of Senaah] build, who also laid the beams
thereof, and set up the doors thereof, the locks [sockets] thereof, and the bars thereof.
4 And next unto them repaired Meremotb the son of Urijah, the son of Koz [Hak-
koz], and next unto them repaired Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, the son
5 of Meshezabeel. And next unto them repaired Zadok, the son of Baana. And
next unto them the Tekoites repaired ; but their nobles put not their necks to the
6 work of their Lord. Moreover [and] the old gate repaired Jehoiada the son of
Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah ; they laid the beams thereof, and set
7 up the doors thereof, and the locks [sockets] thereof, and the bars thereof. And
next unto them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite, and Jadon the Meronothite,
the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah [the Mizpah which belonged] unto the
8 throne of the governor on this side the river. Next unto him repaired Uzziel the
son of Harhaiah, of the goldsmiths. Next unto him also repaired Hananiah the
sou of one of the apothecaries [the son of Shelemiah of the apothecaries (?)], and
9 they fortified Jerusalem unto the broad wall. And next unto them repaired Ke-
phaiah the son of Hur, the ruler of the half part [half the circuit] of Jerusalem.
10 And next unto them repaired Jedaiah the son of Harumaph, even over against his
11 house. And next unto him repaired Hattush the son of Hashabniah. Malchijah
the son of Harim, and Hashub the son of Pahath-moab, repaired the other piece
12 [a second piece], and the tower of the furnaces. And next unto him repaired Shal-
lum the son of Halohesh, the ruler of the half part [half the circuit] of Jerusalem.
13 The valley-gate repaired Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah; they built it, and
set up the doors thereof, the locks [sockets] thereof, and the bars thereof, and a
14 thousand cubits on the wall unto the dung-gate [rubbish gate]. But [and] the
dung-gate [rubbish gate] repaired Malchiah the son of Rechab, the ruler of part
[the circuit] of Beth-haccerem ; he built it, and set up the doors thereof, the locks
15 thereof and the bars thereof. But [and] the gate of the fountain repaired Shallum
the son of Col-hozeh, the ruler of part [the circuit] of Mizpah; he built it, and co-
vered it, and set up the doors thereof, the locks [sockets] thereof, and the bars
thereof, and the wall of the pool of Siloah [Shelah] by [that appertained to] the
16 king's garden, and unto the stairs that go down from the city of David. After
him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk the ruler of the half part [half the cir-
cuit] of Beth-zur, unto the place over against the sepulchres of David, and to the
17 part that was made, and unto the house of the mighty. After him repaired the
Levites, [under] Rehum the son of Bani. Next unto him repaired Hashabiah the
18 ruler of the half part [half the circuit] of Keilah in his part. After him repaired
their brethren, [under] Bavai the son of Henadad, the ruler of the half part [half
19 the circuit] of Keilah. And next to him repaired Ezer the son of Jeshua, the ruler
of Mizpah, another piece [a second piece] over against the going up to the armory
CHAP. III. 1-32.
15
20 at the turning of the wall [armory of the corner]. After him Baruch the son of
Zabbai earnestly repaired the other piece [a second piece], from the turning of the
21 wall [from the corner] unto the door of the house of Eliashib the high-priest. After
him repaired Meremoth the son of Urijah the son of Koz [Hakkoz] another piece
[a second piece] from the door of the house of Eliashib even to the end of the house
22, 23 of Eliashib. And after him repaired the priests, the men of the plain. After
him repaired Benjamin and Hashub over against their house. After him repaired
24 Azariah the son of Maaseiah the son of Ananiah by his house. After him repaired
Binnui the son of Henadad another piece [a second piece] from the house of Aza-
riah unto the turning of the wall [unto the corner], even unto the corner [and unto
25 the turret]. Palal the son of Uzai [repaired] over against the turning of the wall
over against the corner], and the tower which lieth out from the king's high house,
that was by the court of the prison. After him Pedaiah the son of Parosh [re-
26 paired.] Moreover [and] the Nethinim dwelt in Ophel unto the place over against
27 the water-gate towards the east, and the tower that lieth out. After them [him]
the Tekoites repaired another piece [a second piece], over against the great tower
28 that lieth out, even unto the wall of Ophel. From above the horse-gate repaired
the priests, over against his house. After them (him, i. e., the last one of these
29 priests] repaired Zadok the son of Immer over against his house. After him re-
30 paired also Shemaiah the son of Shechaniah, the keeper of the east gate. After him
repaired Hananiah the son of Shelemiah, and Hanun the sixth son of Zalaph, ano-
ther piece [a second piece]. After him repaired Meshullam the son of Berechiah
31 over against his chamber. After him repaired Malchiah the goldsmith's son unto
the place [house] of the Nethinim and of the merchants over against the ga*e
32 Miphkad [gate of the visitation] and to the going up of the corner [turret]. And
between the goiDg up of the corner [turret] unto the sheep-gate repaired the gold-
smiths and the merchants.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
9. *!] 73. In this sense of " circuit" the word is Chaldee. See Targum on Josh. xvii. 11. In Heb. it means
" staff," or " distaff." See 2 Sam. iii. 29 ; Prov. xxxi. 19.
13. niStyn. The omission of the X is to be noted as eomp. with ver. 14. Gesenius considers the K as pros-
thetic,,and makes the root J"\Dt5\ tat it is as likely to be HBS.
30. 'Jty, a lapsus for TVIM.
T12W), here and in ch. xii. 44 and ch. xiii. 1, seems to be a varied form of rUJtSO.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Wall-Building.
Ver. 1. Eliashib the high-priest. — This
man was afterwards closely allied to Jerusalem's
enemies, one of his grandsons having married
Sanballat's daughter (ch. xiii. 28). His alliance
with Tobiab became so close that he prepared a
room for Tobiah in the temple (ch. xiii. 4, 7).
Eliashib may have excused this desecration on
the ground that Tobiah was a Jew by birth.
(See on ch. ii. 10.) Eliashib was grandson of
Jeshua, who, with Zerubbabel, led the original
return. Notwithstanding the unworthiness of
this high-priest and his probable want of sym
patby with Nebemiah's piety and patriotism, he
could not refuse to take the lead in the wall-
building. Public opinion was too strong under
the appeals of Nehemiah.
The sheep-gate, Sha'ar hatz-tzon, must have
been by the temple, or else the priests would
not have been selected to build it. It is proba-
bly the TzpoflaTuu) of John v. 2, translated in E.
V. "sheep-market." It seems to have been at
the north-eastern corner of the temple-area,
in the neighborhood of the present St. Stephen's
gate. It might derive its name from the fact
that through this gate the sheep and goats (for
the word refers to all small cattle) destined for
the sacrifices were driven. (See Excursus.)
They sanctified it and set up the doors
of it. — This gate is the only one which is said
to be sanctified (kidshuhu), and we cannot tell
whether it was done at once, so soon as it was
built by the priests, or afterwards when the
doors were set up (ch. vi. 1). The other gates
were purified (another verb, taher) after the
completion of the wall (ch. xii 30). This seems
to indicate a special connection with the temple.
It probably opened into the temple-area. The
setting up of the doors was not done until after-
wards, but is here anticipated.* (See ch. vi. 1.)
The tower of Meah, migdol ham-meah, . . .
the tower of Hananeel, migdol hananeel. —
These two towers were between the sheep-gate
and the fish-gate. They may have occupied tho
* This gate and the water-gate and horse-gate and
gate Miphkad (vers. 26, 28, 31) all appear to have been
within the temple-precinct or its neighborhood, and all
appear to have been destitute of looks and bars ; for
these are spoken of with regard to all the other gate3
(vers. 3, 6, 13, 14), but not with regard to these. These
gates may have been kept constantly open, but guarded
by an armed force.
16
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
north-eastern corner of the temple-encloRure,
and the corner west of that, where the city-wall
from the north joined the wall of the temple-
enclosure. Hence they would (like the sheep-
gate) be both connected with the temple, and
hence they were sanctified. (See Excursus.)
(They sanctified it in the second occurrence
seems to refer to the wall including the two tow-
ers. ) — The tower of Mean may have been the place
where the nobles and rulers collected their hun-
dredth (ch. v. 11), Mean being the Heb. for the
"hundredth:" but?
Ver. 2. And next unto him builded the
men of Jericho. And next to them
builded Zaccur the son of Imri. — This
should read literally : And at his hand builded
the men of Jericho, and at his hand builded Zaccur
the son of Imri. — Zaccur may have been leader
of the men of Jericho. The English version
misleads.
Ver. 3. The fish-gate, Sha'ar had-dagim,
was east of the present Damascus-gate in the
north wall. It is mentioned 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14
and Zeph. i. 10. (See Excursus.)
The sons of Hassenaah. — Rather : the sons
of Senaah. (See Ezra ii. 35.) Senaah was a
city, or more likely a large territory (if we are
to judge from the large numbers in Ezra, I. c),
near Jericho. In the Onomasticon we find a
Senna, seven miles north of Jericho. — The
locks thereof were probably the sockets into
which the bars fitted.
Ver. 4. Meremoth, the son of Urijah, is
the same who is called in Ezra viii. 33 "Mere-
moth, the son of Uriah the priest." (See ch. x.
6.) He was of the family of Hakkoz, written
wrongly in E. V. in this place Koz. See 1
Chron. xxiv. 10.
Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, the
son of Meshezabeel.— This Meshullam was
allied to Tobiah, for Tobiah's son Johanan had
married Meshullam's daughter (ch. vi. 18).
Nehemiah made the Jews, allied to the enemies
of Judah, to commit themselves to the welfare
of the city, as against their chosen intimates of
the heathen. The "Meshezabeel" may be the
same mentioned in ch. x. 21 and xi. 24. — Za-
dok, the son of Baana, seems to be the same
as the Zadok of ch. x. 21. Both Meshullam and
Zadok were probably of the tribe of Judah.
Ver. 5. The Tekoites. — Tekoa (still bear-
ing its old name) is nine miles clue south of
Jerusalem, and about two miles south-west of
the conspicuous Frank Mountain. — Their no-
bles put not their necks to the ■work of
their Lord. — Nehemiah' s task was an immense
one, to unite a people, in many of whom there
was no sympathy with the cause, for a rapid
«nd successful movement. The fashionable part
of Jerusalem was in virtual league with the ene-
mies of God. Some of these were constrained
(as Eliashib) by circumstances to take part in
the work of rebuilding the Holy City, but others
(as these Tekoite nobles) resolutely kept aloof.
Ver. 6. The old gate must have been in
the north wall, east of the present Damasous-
gate. Keil reads: "gate of the old wall" with
Arnold and Hupfeld, as referring to the old wall
in distinction from the "broad wall," which
was newer. If we are to read Jeshanah as »
genitive, it is possible that the gate was " the
gate of Jeshanah" as leading to that town (2
Chron. xiii. 19). (See Excursus.)
Ver. 7. Meronothite. — Here and in 1 Chron.
xxvii. 30 only. Meronoth may have been a de-
pendent village of Mizpah. — Unto the throne
of the governor on this side the river. —
They did not repair unto (i. e. as far as) the
throne, etc. Then the preposition would have
been 'ad, but it is I (i. e. el). It connects the
description with Mizpah, and describes this
Mizpah as belonging to the throne (or sway) of
the governor beyond the river (i. e. beyond the
river from Susa and the empire's centre), or as
our version has it " the governor on this side
the river." Perhaps this was to distinguish it
from the Gilead Mizpah, which was under ano-
ther governor (Judg. x. 17, etc.). In this case
the "river" would be the Jordan. Some place
Mizpah at Neby Samwil, some at Scopus.
Ver. 8. The son of one of the apotheca-
ries.—Probably the name Shelemiah (ver. 30)
has dropped out here. The goldsmiths and
apothecaries (makers of spices, ointments and
perfumes) worked under these leaders. These
apothecaries are supposed by some to have been
priests (1 Chron. ix. 30).
Fortified Jerusalem. — Here and at ch. iv.
2, the Heb. word 'azab is translated in E. V.
"fortify." Fiirst derives it from an original
meaning of " knot" or "bind ;" hence "fasten"
or "repair." Ewald gives, it the meaning of
" shelter." But in Ex. xxiii. 5 it seems to mean
" help," though Fiirst there gives it the meaning
of "loosen." A common meaning of the word
is "to forsake " as in Deut. xxxi. 16. This last
meaning Fiirst and Gesenius retain in ch. iv. 2
by transl ting: " will they (the governors) for-
sake the matter to them ?" or ''will they allow
them?" May not this general notion be in-
tended here: "they loosened (i. e freed from
exposure and peril) Jerusalem ?" Keil retains
the common meaning of azab, and reads: "they
(the builders, or else the Chaldeans) left Jeru-
salem untouched as far as the broad wall."
The broad wall, hahomah harehavah (ch.
xii. 38) seems to have been a special fortification
at the north-west corner of the city. Keil would
identify it with the four hundred cubits destroyed
by Joash, and afterward rebuilt by tJzziah. (See
Excursus.)
Ver. 9. Ruler of the half part of Jerusa-
lem.— Compare vers. 12, 14, 16, 16, 17, 18.
Pclefc means a circuit, and is a governmental
term. Rephaiah was ruler of half the circuit
of Jerusalem, and Shallum (ver. 12) was ruler
of the other half. The circuits of Beth-zur and
Keilah had each two rulers also (see vers. 16,
17, 18). These circuits were probably districts
deriving their names from their chief towns.
Ver. 11. The other piece, middah shenith,
"a second piece," as in vers. 19, 21, 27, 30.
The first piece ("first," perhaps, because first
assigned to them) which they repaired is men-
tioned in ver. 23, where Malchijah is called Ben-
jamin. The Harim and the Pahath-moab, who
are mentioned as the fathers of Malchijah and
Hashub, who repaired this second piece, were
probably remote ancestors, Harim being the
third of the twenty-four who in David's time
CHAP. III. 1-32.
17
gave name to the priestly divisions or courses
(1 Chron. xxiv. 8), and Pabath-moab being one
of the chiefs of families who came back with
Zerubbabel a century before (see ch. vii. 11).
The name Pahath-moab (governor of Moab) is
one of the evidences of a close connection with
Moab on the part of some of the families of
Israel. Elimelech's residence in Moab and Da-
vid's use of Moab as a place of safety for his
family are other evidenoes. (See also 1 Chron.
iv. 22 for another allusion.)
The Tower of the Furnaces, Migdal hat-
tannurim would naturally fall into the neighbor-
hood of the Jaffa Gate, and may be represented by
the north-eastern tower of the citadel, which Dr.
Robinson identifies with Herod's tower of Hip-
pious. (See Excursus.)
Yer. 12. Shallum, the son of Halohesh.
Halo'hesh, or Hallo'hesh, is another ancestral
name, and not that of an immediate father. (See
ch. x. 24.) He and his daughters not ruling,
but building. The zeal of these women is em-
Ver. 13. The valley-gate. See on ch. ii.
13. Hanun and the inhabitants of Za-
noah. — Hanun is called in ver. 30, " the sixth
son of Zalaph." Zanoah was about twelve miles
west of Jerusalem.
The dung-gate. See on ch. ii. 13.
Ver. 14. The ruler of part of Beth-hacce-
rem, or the ruler of the circuit of Beth-haccerem.
Beth-haccerem was near Tekoa, and was a height
where a beacon could be displayed (Jer. vi. 1).
It is identified by modern travellers with Jebel
Fureidis, or the Frank Mountain.
Ver. 15. Gate of the Fountain. — See ch.
ii. 14. Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, a
Judahite (oh. xi. 5). The ruler of part of
Mizpah, or the ruler of the circuit of Mizpah.
The circuit of Mizpah, and Mizpah itself, had
different rulers. (See ver. 19.) Covered it.
Probably equivalent to "laid the beams thereof"
of vers. 3, 6. The pool of Siloah, by the
king's garden, BerSchath hash Shelah, legan
ham-melek. It is Shiloah in Isaiah, and Shelah
here. The pool is the present Birket Sil-
wan, and probably includes the Birket el-
Hamra. It was outside the city, near the Tyro-
poeon valley, where it enters the valley of the
Hon of Hinnom. Just at this junction was the
king's garden (see 2 Kings xxv. 4, and Joseph.,
A. J. 7, 11), watered by this pool. It receives
its water through a subterranean canal under
the lower end of Ophel (the ridge running south
from the temple-area) from the Fountain of the
Virgin, on the west side of the Kidron valley.
The old wall probably embraced all Zion, run-
ning along its southern brow, and stretched over
to Ophel, in the neighborhood of the pool of
Siloam, the fountain-gate being near by.
The stairs that go down from the City
of David would then be an access to the Tyro-
poeon from Zion, ending in this neighborhood of
the pool. (See Excursus.)
Ver. 16. The ruler of the half part of
Beth-zur, or the ruler of half the circuit of Beth-
zur. Beth-zur is about four miles north of He-
bron. Unto the place over against the
sepulchres of David, and to the pool that
was made, and unto the house of the
mighty. — The sepulchres of David were proba-
bly the same as the sepulchres of the kings (2
Chron. xxviii. 27, et al.), and we may place them
somewhere on Zion (I Kings ii. 10). The part
of the wall here designated would be that on
Ophel, opposite that portion of Zion where the
sepulchres were, the valley of the Tyropoeon
being between. The "pool that was made"
may be the present fountain of the Virgin, wbioh
perhaps Hezekiah formed with its remarkable
galleries (see Capt. Warren's account in "the
Recovery of Jerusalem") for the supply of Ophel
(see 2 Kings xx. 20). The "house of the
mighty" (beth-hag-geborim) we have no clue to.
Ver. 17. The ruler of the half part of Kei-
lah in his part, or the ruler of the half circuit of
Keilah for his circuit. Those of the other half-
circuit of Keilah are next mentioned.
Ver. 19. The ruler of Mizpah another
piece. — The first piece is given in ver. 7. Over
against the going up to the armory at the
turning of the wall. — Rather, from opposite the
ascent of the armory of the corner. The armory of
the corner was perhaps at an angle in the eastern
Ophel wall.
Ver. 20. Baruch the son of Zabbai is ho-
norably mentioned for his distinguished zeal.
He worked at a second piece from the corner
mentioned above to the high-priest's house, which
seems to have been on Ophel. Perhaps this Ba-
ruch's first piece of work has slipped from the
text. Zabbai may be the same mentioned in
Ezra x. 28. Baruch may be the priest of ch. x. 6.
Ver. 21. Meremoth, the son of Urijah, the
son of Koz — See on ver. 4. As a conspicuous
priest, it was appropriate that he should be
connected with the work on the wall in front of
the high-priest's house.
Ver. 22. The men of the plain. — The word
translated "plain" ia Mkkar, which is generally
used for the Jordan valley, but in ch. xii. 28 it
is used of the environs of Jerusalem. It literally
signifies a circuit. As no qualifying word or
phrase is found here, this kikkar is probably the
Jordan valley.
Ver. 23. Benjamin (see on ver. 11) one of
the descendants of Harim. (See Ezra x. 32.)
Hashub was son (or descendant) of Pahath-
moab. (See on ver. 11.) Their house may
refer only to Benjamin, who was a priest (one
of the Bene-Harim), Hashub, perhaps, being in
some way allied to him.
Azariah may be the Levite mentioned in oh.
viii. 7.
Vers. 24, 25. Binnui is the Levite mentioned
in chs. x. 9 and xii. 8. Unto the turning of
the wall, even unto the corner. — Or, unto
the corner of the wall and unto the turret. By this
seems to be intended the corner, where the " tower
which lieth out" (ver. 25) formed a projection.
Capt. Warren found about four hundred feet
south-west of the south-east corner of the temple
area the remains of an outlying tower to the
wall, which he conjectures may be the " tower
which lieth out." This tower is described in
the next verse as the tower which lieth out
from the king's high house. — Solomon's pa-
lace, doubtless, occupied the south-east corner
of the present Haram. It probably had a high
fortified position extending south to the Ophel
is
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
wall (see Capt. Warren's map). This part was
perhaps built by Jotham (2 Chron. xxvii. 3), or
Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 5), or Manasseh (2
Chron. xxxiii. 14). The height of Manasseh's
building is especially mentioned.
The court of the prison is spoken of in
Jer. xxxii. 2 as appertaining to the king's
house.
Ver. 26. Moreover the Nethinim dwelt
in Ophel. Some with the Syriac, insert the
relative and read, " the Nethinim who dwelt in
Ophel," and then supply the verb "repaired."
This is not needed. We may count this an in-
terjected statement, showing what an important
site had been given to the Neihinim. See, more-
over, the nns of ver. 27, referring to Pedaiah.
The water-gate was, perhaps, a gate opening
into the subterranean water galleries, lately dis-
covered by Capt. Warren. If so, then the Ne-
thinim dwelt in all Ophel from a point a little
north of the Fountain of the Virgin to this
"tower which lieth without," that is, along a
distance of about eight hundred feet. This po-
sition of the water-gate answers to the narrative
in ch. xii. 37. (See Excursus.)
The Nethinim (i. e., dedicated ones) were
servants of the temple, who performed the me-
nial duties of the precinct. In Josephus they
are hp66ov\oi (temple-servants). They were ap-
pointed by David (Ezra viii. 20), as another guild
of service (Solomon's servants, or Andhe' Shelo-
moh) was appointed by Solomon (Ezra ii. 58).
The Levites, as compared with the priests, were
called Nethunim (Num. viii. 19), a word of the
same signification as Nethinim. (Comp. the
K'tib of Ezra viii. 17.) Perhaps David's Ne-
thinim were the Gibeonites (hewers of wood and
drawers of water) restored to their service in a
regular manner, after a dispersion of their num-
ber in Saul's time. (See 2 Sam. xxi. 2 )
Ver. 27. The Tekoites repaired their first
piece near the old gate (ver. 5).
The great tower that lieth out is proba-
bly the same as "the tower that lieth out" of
ver. 25.
The wall of Ophel would be the southern
wall of the temple-area where it joined the dis-
trict of Ophel.
Ver. 28. The horse-gate was where Atha-
liah was slain. It. was between the temple and
the palace. This would put it about 200 feet
north of the present S. E. corner of the Haram.
(See 2 Chron. xxiii. 15, and Jer. xxxi. 40). The
part from the " wall of Ophel " to the horse-gate
(Sha'ar Has-susim) was probably in good order,
as it waB the wall of the old royal palace, and
had been occupied by the governors of the city.
Hence it is not mentioned as rebuilt at this time,
but the next builders to the Tekoites begin from
above [i. e., up the Kidron) the horse-gate. (See
Excursus).
Ver. 29. The keeper of the east gate. —
This Sha'ar ham-mizrah is the sha'ar hak-kadmoni
of Ezek. xi. 1, one of the inner temple-gates, not
a city gate. If this Shemaiah, the son of
Shechaniah, is the same as the one mentioned
in 1 Chron. iii. 22, then he was a descendant of
the kings, and his title may have been one of
honor only. He may, however, have been an-
other and a Levite.
Ver. 30. Hananiah. See on ver. 8. Hanun
another piece. — See on ver. 13. Meshullam
the son of Berechiah. See on ver. 4.
Ver. 31. The place of the Nethinim and
of the Merchants over against the gate
Miphkad and to the going up of the cor-
ner. Lit. The house of the Nethinim. and the
traders opposite the gate of the visitation even to the
ascent of the projecting turret. The " house " of
the Nethinim and traders was not their dwelling-
place, but, we suppose, the place where under
the direction of the Nethinim the traders (see
Matt. xxi. 12) brought their doves, etc., for sale
to worshippers. We may place it near the north-
east angle of the Haram. For the gate Miphkad,
see Excursus. The ascent of the turret would be
the stairs at the north-east angle leading up to
a corner-tower, not far from the sheep gate.
Ver. 32. The goldsmiths may have been
also connected with these matters of the Nethi-
nim and traders.
For a plan of the walls of the city, see
Excursus.
From this outline it will be seen that only
those gates whose bars and locks and doors are
mentioned do we consider as belonging to the
city wall, to wit:
1. Sheep-gate, ver. 1.
2. Fish-gate, ver. 3.
3. Old-gate, ver. 6.
4. Valley-gate, ver. 13.
5. Dung-gate, ver. 14.
6. Fountain-gate, ver. 15.
The other gates are not spoken of as now con-
structed, and we take them to be inner gates be-
longing to the inner temple and palace divisions,
to wit:
1. Water-gate, ver. 26.
2. Horse-gate, ver. 28.
3. East-gate, ver. 29.
4. Gate Miphkad, ver. 31.
We also consider the wall along the southern
brow of Zion to have continued across the Tyro-
poeon to Ophel near the pool of Siloam.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. Eliashib's connection with Sanballat and
Tobiah (chap. xiii. 7, 28) must have taken place
at a later date, when Nehemiah had returned to
Susa, and was not expected to revisit Jerusalem.
If the high-priest had already made those scan-
dalous alliances, Nehemiah eertainly would have
taken him to task, and the record of such repri-
mand would have been here given. With a heart
disaffected, Eliashib nevertheless takes his place
in the rebuilding of the wall. His prominence
in the work was doubtless a great help to Ne-
hemiah.
2. It is an interesting feature of this wall-
building that those whose local interests were far
off, as at Jericho, Tckoah, and Beth-zur, took
CHAP. III. 1-32.
19
such deep interest and such oonspicuous part in
the work. The old love for Zion and for the
temple was still warm in the breasts of the re-
turned Jews. They felt that the true life of the
nation flowed from Jerusalem as the central
heart. Their union in this work waB a powerful
means of renewing their pairiotic affection and
strengthening the interests of the commonwealth.
Co-working for defence always brings souls toge-
ther; and when the co-working is in defenoe of
the citadel of religion and oountry, the strongest
bond of union is formed. The wall-buildings
formed a strong basis, on which Nehemiah could
introduce his reforms.
3. However, there must have been many who
refused the servioe, and were apathetic, if not
hostile to thework. Otherwise we should not see
some of them engaged doing a second piece of the
wall, and perhaps a longer list of leaders in the
service would be recorded. It is not to be be-
lieved that, if the high-priest himself was in-
clined to ally himself to Sanballat, there were
not many others who had no hearty interest in
the restoration of Jerusalem' s glory . The nobles
of Tekoah (ver. 5) were but samples of a large
number.
4. And yet, again, the thirty-four leaders
whose names are given us cannot be considered
as the only chief men engaged in the wall-build-
ing. Other prominent men whose names occur
later in the book may have held office under
them, and hence are here unmentioned.
HOMILETIOAL AND PRACTICAL.
Ver. 1. The importance of Zion's walls. 1)
For uniting the congregation, the congregation;
must be able to shut itself off and secure itself
to protect its peculiar goods. 2) For exclusion
of the world, — the world must be kept at a dis-
tance, so long as it only strives tcr rote the good's
of the congregation.
Vers. 1, 2. The precedence- of the high-priest
in making the city of God secure. 1) He him-
self is the first to build. 2) By this he conse-
orates the work of the others. 3) He is a pledge
for the success of the work. — The duty of build-
ing the walls of Zion. 1) For those in authority
(as Nehemiah), who have to incite and uphold
the priests and people in their work. 2) For the
priests who are not exalted above the common,
obligation. — 3) For the people whose members
must not forget in their household and inferior
cares, those which are higher and more uni-
versal.— Beds: Qui portaset turret sedifieant, per
quas vel cives ingrediantur vel arceantur inimici,
ipsi sunt prophetx, apostolir evangelistse, per quos
nobis forma et ordo fidei ox rectse operationis, per
quam unitatem ecclesise sanetse intrare debeamus,
ministrata est, quorumque verbis, qualiter adversa-
ries veritatis redarguamus ac repellamus, discimus.
Qui vera religuis verbis eztruunt, ipsi sunt pastores
et doctores. — Starke: The clergy should set to
work first in building the city of God, and pre-
cede others by a good example. The memory of
those who have rendered services to the church
and to the commonwealth remains, justly,
blessed. Prov. 10: 7. The most powerful and
richest people do, generally, the least in the
temporal and spiritual edifice of the city of God.
Happy he who willingly puts on the light and
easy yoke of Christ at the building of the spi-
ritual Jerusalem.
Ver. 81. The honor of the mechanics and art-
ists. 1) They may be, and shall be at the same
time priestB of God. 2) Their products can and
shall serve for God's honor. 3) Their doing
has in itself worth and reward.
Vers. 33-35. Why the world so easily pretends
that our work will have no result. 1) Because
in truth of ourselves we are not capable of great
efforts : only the sacrifice and the power of Christ
can make us willing and endow us with perse-
verance. 2) Because in truth the work is indeed
altogether too lofty and glorious, — only the Spirit
of Christ can consecrate us to it. 3) Because
the world only sees that which is before its eyes ;
there is, however, something higher. — Starke :
Fleshly-minded spirits consider the undertaking
and the work of God's children as contemptible
and small, and measure it according to their
standard. Wisd. v. 3 ; 2 Kings xix. 10. There
are different degrees among the godless, in re-
gard to their wickedness. The worst are those
who not only do wickedly themselves, but also can-
not bear to see others doing good, and express their
, rage in poisonous jeers. John x. 32 ; Ps. cix. 4.
Vers. 36-38. Prayer is the most powerful
weapon against the enemy. 1) It secures to us
the best allies. 2) It makes us sure of the weak-
Bess of the enemy. If they are God's enemies at
the same time, they have God's holiness opposed
to them, before which nothing which is evil can
endure. 3) It pledges the final victory to us.
They can only escape by change of heart. —
Starke: When we are in the greatest straits,
there God is our safety, our rock, our strength
and refuge, and we must fly to Him in prayer.
2 Chr. xx. 12; Prov. xviii. 10; Nah. i. 3.
Ver. 38. The blessing of the oppression which
the scorn of the world exercises upon us. 1)
We work the more steadily under it, we do not
indeed know how long the evening will permit
us to work. 2} The joy in the work increases as
surely as it is elevating to bear the disgrace of
Christ. 3) The work advances so much the
better. Starke: In the work of the Lord we
must confidently proceed, heedless of all opposi-
tion. 2 Tim. iv. 3-5. At pleasure's call all
work seems small, therefore be not slothful in
what you should do. Bom. xii. 11; Prov. vi. 6.
If God has given us successful progress in our
work, this should be an admonition to us that
we should the more boldly persist in pursuing
our calling.
3
20 THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
Chaptee IV. 1-23.
1 Btrr [and] it came to pass that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall,
2 he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he spake
before his bretnren and tbe army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews ?
Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a
day [by da), i. e., openly]? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the
3 rubbish which are burned? Now [and] Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and
he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their
4 stone wall. Hear, O our God ; for we are despised [a contempt] : and turn their
reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity.
5 And cover Dot their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee;
for they have provoked thee to anger before [they have acted vexatiously against]
6 the builders. So built we [and we built] the wall; and all the wall was joined
together unto the half thereof: for [and] the people had a mind [heart] to work.
7 But [and] it came to pass, that when Sauballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and
the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made
up [that a bandage was applied to the walls of Jerusalem], and that the breaches
8 began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, and conspired all of them together
to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it [to do wickedness to it].
9 Nevertheless [and] we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them
10 day and night, because of them. And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of
burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that [and] we are not able to
11 build the wall. And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we
12 come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease. And
it came to pass, when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten
times, From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you [they
said unto us ten times, i. e., frequently, from all places, Ye shall return unto us].
13 Therefore [and] I set in the lower places [lowest parts] behind the wall [at the
place behind the wall], and in the higher places [in the exposed parts], I even set
14 the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And
I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest
of the people, Be not ye afraid of them : remember the Lord, which is great and
terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives,
15 and your houses. And it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known
unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to
16 the wall, every one unto his work. And it came to pass from that time forth [from
that day], that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of
them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons ; and the
17 rulers were behind all the house of Judah. They which builded on the wall and
they that bare burdens, with those that laded, [while carrying] every one with one
18 of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon. For
[and] the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded.
19 And he that sounded the trumpet was by me. And I said unto the nobles, and to
the rulers, and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are
20 separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place therefore ye hear
21 the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us: our God shall fight for us. So
[and] we labored in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of
22 the morning till the stars appeared. Likewise at the same time said I unto the
people, Let every one with his servant lodge within Jerusalem, that [and] in the
CHAP. IV. 1-23.
21
23 night they may be a guard to us, and labor on the day [by day]. So [and] neither
I, nor my brethren, nor my servants nor the men of the guard whioh followed me,
none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
16. The 1 seems to be misplaced. It should be with Q^JDn, and not with DTIDin. Or the words may have
• • T- • T :T
changed places.
17. In D'toDJ? the t? takes the place of D.
22. Note the absence of 4 with 1Dt?3 and rDxSo.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Hindrances (1) From Sanballat and his allies.
(N. B.— Vera. 1-6 are in the Heb. vera. 33-
38 of oh. 3).
Ver. 1. Mocked the Jews. — Sanballat was
evidently afraid to use violence directly on ac-
count of the favor shown by the Persian monarch
to the Jews. His great rage could exhibit itself
only in mockery.
Ver. 2. Before his brethren, i. e., Tobiah
and his brethren in council. The army of Sa-
maria.— It is likely that Sanballat had actually
brought an armed force in sight of the city to
intimidate the Jews. In a speech to his officers
he uses the language of mockery here given,
Will they fortify themselves? — Perhaps.
will they help themselves? Keil, comparing Ps. x.
14, reads it " will they leave it to themselves?"
which is harsh. (See on ch. iii. 8 for the use
of this word azab). "Will they make an end
in a day ? Rather, will they make an end (i. c,
accomplish it) by day (i. e., openly). So bay-
yom in Gen. xxxi. 40; Prov. xii. 16; Judg.
xiii. 10.
Ver. 3. Now Tobiah the Ammonite was
by him. — The style of phrase in this verse sug-
gests what we have already supposed, that when
Sanballat addressed his armed men he was in
sight of Jerusalem, looking with Tobiah and
others at the Jews' work.
Ver. 4. Hear, O our God. — Eight times in
this book Nehemiah interjects a prayer. They
are prayers while writing, not while acting.
The grounds of this prayer are, (1) God's people
are despised ; (2) excited to fear by the enemy.
As in the imprecatory psalms, there is a pro-
phetic power in this prayer. The prayer anti-
cipates God's justice.
Ver. 5. They have provoked thee to an-
ger before the builders. Rather, they have
vexed (with alarm) the builders. So kaas in Ezek.
xxxii. 9. The leneged is that of hostility as in
Dan. a. 13.
Ver. 6. Unto the half thereof in height.
The people had a mind to work. — The dis-
affected (including probably the high-priest or
at least many of his family) were a few, and they
had to yield to the zeal of the great mass. Pa-
triotism, piety and security made the wall-build-
ing a popular work. (The fourth chapter in the
Heb divisions begins here).
Ver. 7. The Arabians. — Those in Samaria.
See on ch. ii. 19. The Ammonites. — Tobiah's
influence had probably induced many Ammo-
nites to take active part with Sanballat in op-
posing the Jews. If Sanballat was a Moabite (as
we suppose), that fact would account for an Am-
monitish alliance, as the two nations of Moab
and Ammon were always closely united, espe-
cially against Israel. The Ashdodites, with
the Philistine traditional hatred, remained hos-
tile to the Jews until Jonathan, brother of Judas
Maccabeus, three hundred years after this, de-
stroyed Ashdod at the defeat of Apollonius.
That the walls of Jerusalem were made
up. — Lit., that a bandage was applied to the walls
of Jerusalem. So in 2 Chron. xxiv. 13.
Ver. 8. To hinder it. — Lit., to do wickedness
to it. (So the word to' ah in Isa. xxxii. 6). These
various nationalities might suppose that by acting
in concert, they could show to the Persian king
they were only acting in his behalf for the safety
of the empire against an insurrectionary move-
ment of the Jews. An attack of Sanballat alone
might readily be understood at court as a matter
of personal jealousy and aggrandizement. Hence
the confederacy.
Vers. 10-12. And Judah said .... and our
adversaries said . . . the Jews which dwelt
by them said. Here were three sources of
discouragement: (1) The severity of the work.
(2) The threat of destruction by the confederacy.
(3) The recall of the country Jews from the
work by their timid fellows.
They said unto us ten times, From all
places whence ye shall return unto us
they will be upon you. — Rather, They said
unto us ten times (i. e., frequently), From all places
ye shall return unto us. The Jews from the out-
side towns that were near the enemy came to
Jerusalem and endeavored to make their towns-
men desist, through fear of injury from Sanbal-
lat. [The Heb. Asher as in Esther iii. 4.]
Ver. 13. Therefore set I in the lower
places behind the wall and on the higher
places I even set, etc. — Rather, Therefore set I
in the lowest parts at the place behind the wall, in the
exposed parts, I even set, etc. Nehemiah placed
detachments, properly armed, at such points of
the wall as had attained the least height and
were thus most exposed to attack. These de-
tachments were formed of the families who had
been working at the portions of the wall where
these gaps were. There was a temporary cessa-
tion from the work. "The lowest parts" and
"the exposed parts" are in apposition. "The
higher plaoes " (E. V.) is a mistaken rendering.
The word tsehihi means '' a dry or bare place
(oomp. Ezek. xxvi. 4-14), and hence by a meta-
phorical use, an exposed part of the wall.
Ver. 14. And I looked.— Implying perhaps
an observation of some fear on the part of the
22
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
different classes of the community. Or it may
refer to a simple review of the defenders in their
positions.
Ver. 15. We returne d all of us to the wall
every one unto his work. — This shows that
there had been a cessation of the work at the
first alarm.
Ver. 16. My servants cannot be equal to
"my subjects" as some hold, for naar could not
be so used by Nehemiah, nor would he consider
the people of Judah in the light of subjects.
Nehemiah had probably a special band of men
attached to his person, either by order of the
king of Persia, or by the will of the people at
Jerusalem. To these we suspect reference is
hero made. There is a distinction made between
these and the others. These divided themselves
into two parts, the one working while the other
kept guard ; but the others held a weapon while
they wrought (ver. 17). Habergeon. Old Eng-
lish for "coat of mail." From hals (neck) and
bergen (to protect).
Ver. 17. Read The builders of the wall and the
burden-bearers while carrying. The builders and
the burden-bearers each bore a javelin (shelah)
in one hand, the builders (as distinct from the
burden-bearers) also wearing a sword, as we see
in ver. 18.
Ver. 18. For. — Read "And." The signal
trumpet was directly under Nehemiah' s order, as
commander of the defence.
Ver. 22. Lodge -within Jerusalem. — That
is, during the alarm, those that had their homes
in the villages and distant towns Bhould now con-
tinue night and day in the city.
Ver. 23. Only Nehemiah and his immediate
family and attendants are here referred to as not
putting off their clothes. It became them to be
patterns of watchfulness and. and diligence to the
rest. — Saving that every one put them oS
from washing. — A puzzling sentence. It is
literally "man his weapon the water." The
rendering of the E. V. is in accordance with the
old Jewish authorities who regard shilho as a
verb of equivalent meaning with pashat (to put
off). Probably some words are lost.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The wrath and great indignation of San-
ballat prove the insincerity of his taunts. If
the Jews were so feeble a folk in his estimation,
he would not, have sought an alliance (ver. 8) to
fight against them. He had good reason to fear
the sudden restoration of the Jewish power, and
was merely exercising that which is praised as
political wisdom when he used every energy to
thwart Nehemiah's purpose. It is probable
that in Galilee there existed a growing remnant
of Israel (the men of Babylon, Cuthah, Ava,
Hamath and Sepharvaim (2 Kings xvii. 24)
having been settled by the King of Assyria in
Central Palestine), who, of course, sympathized
with the movement at Jerusalem. Sanballat,
6ituated between these two fragments of Israel,
was the more alert to see danger in Israel's
growth. Hence his forwardness to move in the
matter, for he was evidently the chief mover,
although Arabians, Ammonites and Asudodites
Were ready enough to take part. !
2. The prayer of Nehemiah that the enemy's
reproaches might be turned upon their own
head, and that their sin might never be forgiven
(comp. Ps. lxix. 27, 28, and Jer. xviii. 23), can
only be understood by the soul that is so allied
to God as to see His judgments proceeding forth
from His holiness. The final judgment by the
saints as assessors with God (Ps. cxlix. 6-9 and
Rev. iii. 21) has the same character. Where
the natural mind can only imagine revenge, the
spiritual mind sees faith and holiness.
3. Prayer did not slacken the energy of the
Jews. They experienced the redoubled zeal
and activity which all true prayer produces.
They made their prayer to God, and set a watch
against their foes day and night. All the natu-
ral means whether of mind or matter form chan-
nels through which God conveys His grace in
answer to prayer. To stop these channels is to
cancel prayer. Prayer was never intended to
foster idleness or diminish responsibility.
4. The remembrance of the Lord is the sure
safe-guard against our afflictions. David says :
" I have set the Lord always before me ; because
He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved"
(Ps. xv. 8).
Remembering the Lord is an act of faith, a
new grasp upon His divine help, and, at the
same time, a purification of the heart. Forget-
fulness of God is the unguardedness of the
soul.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-17. Our abiding tasks. 1) From work
to conflict. (Vers. 1-8.) a) On account of de-
fying enemies from without and within, b) In
spite of faint-hearted friends, c) With faith in
the Lord. 2) From conflict to work. Vers. 9-
17.) a) Work remains the principal task, b)
It can and must be advanced even during the
preparation for conflict; the preparation for con-
flict does not hinder, but makes us active, zeal-
ous, and strong, c) Laziness and ease must be
renounced, with self denial. Starke: We must
guard ourselves well on all sides, that the devil
may not make a breach, for he goes about us like
a roaring lion, 1 Pet. v. 8. In the common
struggle against Satan and his hosts we must
eupport and help one another. True builders of
the church of Christ must not only industriously
build, i. e., teach and preach, but also diligently
act on the defensive, and resist all the powerful
incursions of the devil, and all godless conduct,
Tit. i. 9. In the church militant we must work
in full armor, and have the sword of the Spirit
at hand, that we may be a match for temptations,
Eph. vi. 16, 17. God can easily put to naught
the crafty attacks of the enemy, Job v. 12.
Vers. 1-8. The assaults of the people of God.
1) How they originate, against it. a) Through
enemies who threaten to undo His work, b)
Through weak friends, who, in spite of, or, on
acoount of watching and prayer, become de-
pressed and dissuaded from the work. 2) How
they are to be overcome, a) By readiness for
the conflict, b) By confidence in the great, only-
to-be-feared God, who fights for His people. —
Bede : Plane hsec ira hmreticorum, hsec verba eorum
sunt, qui se Samaritanos, hoc est, custodcs legit
CHAP. V. 1-19.
2a
Dei, frustra cognominant, cum sint maxime Deo con-
trarii ac legibus ejus, utpotejamdudum a domo David,
hoc est, ab unitate Christi et ecclesise per hsereses aut
schismata aut mala opera segregati; guine sua forte
impugnetur atque excludatur impietas, muros fidei
sedificari metuunt. . . . Tales Solent imbecilles appel-
late Judseos, hoc est, confessores fidei, et facile a gen-
tibus superandos, dum in quotidiano animarum cer-
tamine plus amant vitia quam virtutis victorise pal-
nam obtinere. — Stabkb : To pray and keep good
watch are the best means in the time of danger,
Eph. vi. 18. This iB the way of many people ;
they make, indeed, a good start in the Lord's
work, but when it becomes hard they draw back,
and wish to take no trouble, Matt. xiii. 20, 21.
Honest souls should not allow themselves to be
frightened back by them. Nothing makes one
more courageous in war than to be entirely
aisured that God is with us, and fights for
us, Kom. viii. 31 ; Ps. xxvii. 1. — Our task at
the time of attack. 1) Towards defying ene-
mies— to pray and watch, i, «., to be prepared
for conflict (vers. 1-3). 2) Towards depressed
friends, who yet increase the defiance of the
enemy — to confirm their confidence in Him who
alone is to be feared, and to sharpen their con-
sciousness of the duty of the conflict (ver 8). —
What attacks befall the servants of the Lord
(as Nehemiah) in their work for the honor
of God. 1) Through dangers on the part of de-
fiant enemies, who cannot endure the difference
between the kingdom of God and the world. 2)
From the dejection, hesitation, and foolishness
on the part of weak friends, who easily inter-
rupt the work and put it back. 3) Through the
breaches in the walls of Jerusalem, which ren-
der the defences of the city difficult. — Our
duty to watch and pray. 1) Its cause — the
malice of the enemy, their power, their aim, the
whole attitude of their hearts towards the king-
dom of God. 2) Its result: its fulfilment is diffi-
cult to many, certainly faithlessness, increased
defiance of the enemy, and dissuasion from the
work on the part of weak friends are excited ;
but in contrast to these are a) watchfulness — b)
readiness for the conflict — and c) the increasing
the confidence in the Lord. — Bede : Hoc est uni-
cum adversus hostes universes ecclesise suffugium ora-
tio videlicet ad Deum, el industria doctorum qui die
noctuque in lege ejus meditantes corda fidelium contra
insidias diaboli ac militum ejus prsedicando, conso-
lando, exhortando priemuniant.
Vers. 9-17. What obligation does the enmity
of the world against the building of the kingdom
of God lay upon us? 1) To advance the build-
ing with all our might, in spite of dangers (vers.
9, 10). 2) To be armed while at work (vers. 11,
12). 3) To heed the signal of the leader, when
he calls to conflict (vers. 13, 14). 4) Perseve-
rance in the preparation for war (ver. 15); joy-
ful, sacrificing zeal in the work (ver. 16). In
all positions severity towards ourselves, particu-
larly towards our love of ease, and laziness. —
Starke: The church always needs those distin-
guished people, who can comfort the weak in
faith, and timorous, and can give them a certain
hope in the help of God, 1 Thes. v. 14. In Ne-
hemiah the rulers of the city, and heads of the
church, have an example of godliness in his con-
fidence in God — of foresight and diligent watch-
fulness in his management of this important
work, and his arrangement of such good order
and war discipline, also of courage and boldness
in his proved heroic spirit in the midst of such
great fear, danger, and difficulty as that with
which he was surrounded on every side in this
difficult work. Also in the spiritual conflict it is
obligatory upon teachers and watchmen of the
church that they should set the example in
watchfulness and perception of the public good,
and not allow themselves to be annoyed by any
trouble. Rev. xvi. 15; Luke xii. 35.
Vers. 11, 12. The preparation for war of the
Christian. 1) Why it is necessary the Christian
has to build. His building is an attack uptffi the
world, which is irritated by it to the conflict.
2) In what it consists. The Christian bears, even
at work, the right weapons. 3) At what it aims.
We must and will secure the continuance of the
work, and cultivate the feeling of joy and assu-
rance. God will exercise us at the same time
in sobriety, self-denial, and activity. Vers. 18-
21. The voice of our general in face of the ene-
my ] ) What it takes for granted — that we are
prepared for the conflict, even when at work.
2) Of what it reminds us — of the greatness of the
work which imposes upon us the building of the
kingdom of God in others, and particularly in
ourselves; and on the many dangers connected
with it. 3) What it demands — that we should
heed the signal for conflict, and join ourselves
with all the faithful in the strife. 4) What it
promises — that God will fight for us, and finally
cause our work to succeed.
Chapter V. 1-19.
1 And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren
2 the Jews. For there were that said, We, our sons and our daughters are many ;
therefore we take up corn [perhaps, our sons and our daughters we mortgage, that
3 we might buy corn] for them, that we may eat and live. Some also there were that
said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy
4 corn, because of the dear'h. There were also that said, we have borrowed money
5 for the king's tribute, inJi that upon our lands and vineyards. Yet [and] now our
24
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children [sons] as their children [sons] :
and lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some
of our daughters are brought into bondage already : neither is it in our power [and
our hand is not to God] to redeem them ; for [and] other men have our lands and
6, 7 vineyards. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then
I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto
them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against
8 them. And I said unto them, We, after our ability, have redeemed our brethren
the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen ; and will ye even sell your brethren ?
or shall they be sold unto us ? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to
9 answer [and found no word]. Also [and] I said, It is not good that ye do : ought
ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our
10 enemies? [And] I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants might exact of
11 [have lent] them money and corn : I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Re-
store, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive
yards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the
12 wine and the oil, that ye exact of [lent] them. Then [and] said they, We will re-
store them, and will require nothing of them ; so will we do as thou sayest. Then
[And] I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according
13 to this promise. Also I shook my lap [bosom], and said, So God shake out every
man from his house, and from his labour, that performest not this promise [word],
even thus be he shaken out and emptied [empty]. And all the congregation said,
Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise
14 [word]. Moreover from the time that I was appointed [he (Artaxerxes) appointed
me] to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even unto
the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that is, twelve years, I and my
15 brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor. But [And] the former gover-
nors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of
them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver ; yea, even their servants bare
16 rule over the people : but [and] so did not I, because of the fear of God. Yea,
also I continued in the work of this wall, neither bought we any land : and all my
17 servants were gathered thither unto the work. Moreover [And] there were at my
table a hundred and fifty of the Jews and rulers, besides [and] those that came
18 unto us from among the heathen that are about us. Now [and] that which was
prepared for me (i. e., at my expense) daily [for one day] was one ox and six choice
sheep ; also fowls were prepared for me (i. e., at my expense), and once in ten days
store [large quantity] of all sorts of wine : yet [and] for all this required not I the
19 bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people. Think
upon [remember to] me, my God, for good, according to [oot. according to] all that
I have done for this people.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 5. The E. V. rightly supplies an equivalent to DrH3 7.
3 Ver. 6. 1]7l3'11. This Niphal evidently carries the Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan meaning of the verb-
Comp. Dan. iv. 24 (27) where the derivative noun is used. The literal translation here is " and my heart was con*
suited upon me." Why the lexicographers give it a Kal meaning I know not.
3 Ver. 15. inX is rightly rendered "besides." After the forty shekels salary they received the bread an'
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Hindrances (2) from the Tyranny of Jews over one
another.
It might at first sight seem as if this episodical
chapter was out of place, and should properly
follow chap, viii.; but there is no sound reason
why we should not consider the complaint to
have been made while all were engaged in the
important work of fortifying the city, as a time
When it would be the easier to remedy the evil
under the pressure of the common danger.
Ver. 2. We, our sons and our daughter*.,
are many, etc. The error of the Heb. text here
in writing rabbim for orebim (requiring only one
letter prefixed in the Hebrew) is very evident
(according to Houbigant), so that it should read
in English, we have mortgaged our sons and our
daughters that we might buy corn. Compare the
structure of the next verse. The complaint was
three-fold: 1. We mortgage our children for
food. 2. We mortgage our estates for food. 3.
We mortgage our estates for the royal tribute.
In all these their brethren were the exactors, not
only acting tyrannically towards them, but break-
CHAP. V. 1-18.
25
Jng the written law of God in its spirit (Ex. xxii.
16-27) as well as in its letter (see ver. 7).
Ver. 5. Neither is it in our power. Lit. " and
jp hand is not to God." So Gen. xxxi. 29.
' Ver. 7. Then I consulted with myself. —
\Jhe Niphal use of malak (wayyimmalek) is pecu-
liar, and suggests a peculiar sense in this place.
The Syriac use of the word as ''consult" (see
Dan. iv. 24, 27) is probably the right one here.
Ye exact usury. — The words refer both to the
pledges and the interest (ver. 11). And I set
a great assembly against them. — in the
midst of the necessity of the wall-building Nehe-
miah summons a great mass-meeting of the Jews
(see the word Kehillah in Deut. xxxiii. 4) to have
this fraternal outrage stopped instantly by the
force of public opinion.
Ver. 8. The Jewish colony had probably often
redeemed Jews from captivity.
Ver. 9. Because of the reproach of the
heathen. — That is, so as to avoid giving them
an opportunity to reproach us.
Ver. 10. I likewise, and my brethren
and my servants might exact of them. — ■
Bather: I likewise, that is, my brethren and my
servants exact of them, or rather "lent them."
It is a confession of Nehemiah that he too was
implicated from the fact that he had found hi3
own family engaged in the oppression. Hence
he says: "let us leave off this usury." The
law expressly forbade lending money to Jews
on interest. See Ex. xxii. 25 ; Lev. xxv. 36 ;
Deut. xxiii. 19. All the lands those rich men
had acquired had been obtained in thisway.
Ver. 11. This hundredth part was probably
a monthly interest, that is, an interest at the
rate of twelve per cent, per annum. That ye
exact of them. Rather: "that ye lent them."
Ver. 12. The moral force of the great assem-
bly produced an immediate conformity to Nehe-
miah's demand. His action was a master-piece
of management. The oath would have greater
solemnity as administered by the priests.
Ver. 13. My lap. — This is the bosom of the
outer garment (sinus togse), which was used as a
pocket. (See for this significant action Acts
xviii. 6.)
Ver. 14. This verse and those which follow
form an interruption of the narrative. They
show that Nehemiab. was for twelve years
governor of Judah, and did not write this his-
tory till the expiration of that time. The paral-
lel between Nehemiah and Washington in refu-
sing salary while saving the nation is striking.
Ver. 15. Forty shekels of silver. — This
(like the interest in ver. 11) is probably to be
reckoned for the month. The former governors
had received their table and 480 shekels a year
as salary. The 480 shekels would be only $360
in amount of silver ; but this would represent
in value a large official salary in that day.
Ver. 16. A second point to which Nehemiah
refers with satisfaction and as a proof of his
disinterested conduct is his allowing no specu-
lation in land on his own part or that of his
immediate attendants.
Ver. 17. A third point is his free entertain-
ment of a hundred and fifty Jews, and besides
this visitors from surrounding nations.
Ver. 18. The bondage. — The service needed
to the king of Persia and also that which was need-
ed for the restoration of their national welfare.
Ver. 19. Think upon me, my God, etc.—
Rather: Remember to me for good all which 1 have
done to this people. It becomes necessary some-
times for a man of God to declare his integrity
against the oppositions and insinuations of ene-
mies. In such cases he can without presump-
tion expect God to vindicate His faithfulness.
See Paul's words before the Sanhedrim (Acts
xxiii. 1)( and compare also 2 Cor. i. 12; iv. 4;
2 Tim. i. 3 ; Heb. xiii. 18.
HISTOKICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The advantage taken in troublous times
for men to prey upon their associates and kin-
dred exhibits the deep depravity of humau.
nature. The violence of open enemies and the
presence of surrounding dangers should have
encouraged the virtue and piety of the Jews by
the odiousness of the opposite and their sense
of weakness and need of the Divine help. But
as often sailors on a wreck, or as men (e. g. the
Florentines) in the midst of the plague, have
given themselves up to debauchery and revel-
ling, so the Jewish remnant, persecuted and
straitened, oppressed one another. It was no
little bravery in Nehemiah to face these tigers
of his own nation, while guarding Jerusalem
from the foreign foe. A weak spirit would have
reasoned that it was enough to do the latter,
and that domestic evils must be endured until
a more propitious time for their cure. That
"great assembly" was a grand token of
Nehemiah's marvellous energy and fertile re-
sources.
2. Nehemiah's refusal of official salary was,
like Paul's refusal of support at Corinth and
Thessalonica (2 Cor. ii. 9; 1 Thess. ii. 9; 2
Thess. iii. 8), a waiving of an undoubted right
for the sake of the higher good. Summum jus
summa injuria is a sentiment which every tender
conscience must often put into exercise. It sees
that the only right is to give up right. A sub-
lime spirit discerns when lex, no longer rex,
becomes nex.
3. Nehemiah's soul was frank with God.
There is freedom of access to a throne of grace
for every believer (Heb. iv. 16). "Think upon
me, my God, for good, according to all that I
have done for this people," is not a presumptu-
ous conceit, but a child-like simplicity. The
gross mind of the world would confound the
two. Where we know that God has led us in
paths of righteousness, we may well use that
knowledge and encourage our souls by it. Ne-
hemiah had but few around him who could reach
high enough to sympathize fully with him, and
it was thus his great comfort to pour out his
soul, according to truth, before the God, whose
good hand had guided him. God wishes no
mock modesty from us. His grace in our hearts
and lives should be acknowledged (comp. 1 Tim.
i. 12).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-13. The most powerful hinderances U
the development of the congregation. 1) Tha'
they are discords and separations, but especially
the complaints of the poor against the rich. 2}
25
THE BOOK OP NEHEMIAH.
Whence they arise: from want of love. 3) What
do they teach : they challenge to a more power-
ful proving of love, and lead, when such proof is
given, to a new impulse in the life of the congre-
gation, but particularly to new praising of the
Lord in common.
The old, and ever new, need 1) In what
it consists ; want, poverty, and misery are ever
in the Lord's congregation. 2) Whence this
arises, a) From sin (that of others, but also our
own), from laziness, discontent, ingratitude, etc.
b) From God's wise intention: He knows the
sins, and wishes to remove them; He wishes to
give opportunity to the rich to exercise their
love, and to the poor to struggle against their
discontent. 3) How it is removed: not through
all sorts of new social regulations and laws — not
through home missionary societies, in so far as
their work is scarcely experienced by the poor
as a mark of love, and is easily looked upon by
them as help owed to them, but through an
awaking of the heart to the proving of true love
and benevolence as the Lord ever anew renders
possible. — Starke: God scourges not alone with
a single, but also at times with a double rod, and
sends one cross and misfortune upon another.
Job x. 17. But the godly have great consola-
tions and promises on the other hand. Ps.
xxxiii. 19; Ps. xxxvii. 19, 25. Usury against
our poor brethren is forbidden. Lev. xxv. 36 ;
Ps. xv. 5; Ez. xviii. 13; xxii. 12; for whoever
builds his house with the property of others,
gathers stones for his own grave. Sir. xxi. 9.
It is a bad case when we show ourselves to our
fellow-Christians in such a way that they must
sigh and cry to God against us. Gen. xviii. 21 ;
Sir. iv. 6.
Vers. 7-13. What renders the admonition to
exercise love effective? 1) Mildness in example.
2) Readiness of the preacher and his friends to
take precedence in the example of love (ver. 10).
3) The assurance that God rejects the unloving
from His communion, and robs Mm of His
blessing (ver. 13).
Starke: Anger in office is not, indeed, forbid-
den, yet one should be angry so as not to sin,
Ps. iv. 5, and moderate himself properly. Sir.
xxx. 26. As storming showers beat down the
grain to the earth, but gentle drops, on the con-
trary, revive and ripen it, so is it also with
speech. Friendly language has more effect than
severe rebuke, particularly with the irascible
and people of rank, who cannot submit to hard
reproof.
Vers. 7-19. How important, but how difficult
it is to go forward as an example in true proving
of love. 1) How important (vers. 7-13). a) When
one condemns hard-heartedness, but is himself
hard-hearted, he shows that he was not in earnest
in Mb condemnation, b) When one makes claim
to the God of love against the unloving, but is
himself unloving, he shows that he does not
really possess the fear and faith of God, but
hypocritically pretends to have it. c) Those who
support their word by their actions always make
the greatest impression. 2) How difficult. It is
not sufficient to exercise love in that one particu-
lar in which one desires proofs of love, much
more must love, self-denial, and self-sacrifice be
shown in every relation (ver. 14), and indeed
beyond common obligations (ver. 15), in spite of
particular deeds, on account of which one could
be entitled to make claims (ver. 10) in spite of
the great sacrifice which the willingness for im-
molation imposes (vers. 17, 18). Schluss: The
example of true deeds of love is (ver. 19) par-
ticularly also so important on this account be-
cause it gives us the assurance and the joyful
sentiment of the love and care of God, but it is
always on this account so difficult because with
sin is joined such want of love, so that we Chris-
tians can only find the prayer of Nehemiah (ver.
19) justified in the mouth of Christ, and only for
Christ's sake are allowed to dare to beg for
God's care and love. — Starke: When necessity
or other cogent reasons demand it, one should
willingly forego that which otherwise he would
with good reason demand and take. Matt. x.
10; 1 Cor. ix. 18; 1 Tim. v. 18. He never rules
well who does not do everything he can. God
will reward good works, not according to the
worthiness of the merit, but from grace. Luke
xvii. 18.
Chapter VI. 1-19.
Now [and] it came to pass, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Ara-
bian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall, and that there
was no breach left therein ; (though at that time I had not set up the doors upon
the gates) ; that Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let us meet
together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono. But [and] they thought
to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great
work, so that [and] I cannot come down : why should the work cease, whilst I
leave it and come down to you? Yet [and] they sent unto me four times after
this sort [word] ; and I answered them after the same manner [after this word].
Then [and] sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner [after this word] the
CHAP. VI. 1-19.
27
6 fifth, time with an open letter in his hand ; wherein was written, It is reported
among the heathen [i. e., nations] and Gashmu [i. e., Geshem] saith it, that thou
and the Jews think to rebel : for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou
mayest be their king [and thou art to them for king] according to these words.
7 And thou hast also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying,
There is a king in Judah, and now shall it be reported to the king according to
these words. Come now therefore [and now come], and let us take counsel together.
8 Then [and] I sent unto him, saying, There are no such things done as thou sayest
[there is not according to these words which thou sayest], but [for] thou feignest
9 them out of thine own heart. For they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands
shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done [and it shall not be done].
10 Now therefore, [And now], 0 God, strengthen my hands. Afterward [and] I
came unto the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah the son of Mehetabeel, who
was shut up ; and he said, Let us meet together in the house of God, within the
temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple : for they will come [are coming] to
slay thee; yea [and], in the night will they come [are they coming] to slay thee.
11 And I said, Should such a man as I flee ? and who is there that being as I am
12 would go into the temple to save his life [and live] ? I will not go in. And lo, I
perceived that [And I perceived and lo] God had not sent him, but that [for] he
pronounced this prophecy against me, for [and] Tobiah and Sanballat had hired
13 him. Therefore was he hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that
they might have matter for an evil report [name], that they might reproach me.
14 My God, think thou upon [remember] Tobiah and Sanballat according to their
works, and on the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, that would
15 have put me in fear. So [and] the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day
16 of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. And it came to pass that when all our
enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they
were much cast down in their own eyes : for [and] they perceived that this work
was wrought of our God.
17 Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters unto Tobiah [mul-
tiplied their letters passing to Tobiah] and the letters of Tobiah came unto them
18 [and those which of Tobiah came unto them]. For there were many in Judah
sworn unto him, because he was the son-in-law of Shechaniah the son of Arah ; and
his son Johanan had taken [to wife] the daughter of Meshullam the son of Bere-
19 chiah. Also they reported his good deeds before me, and uttered my words to
him. And Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 2. Dn333, as if from TS3, and not from 123- This peculiarity helps the hypothesis that i"ITi>3
■ • i - • : T T
may be intended.
3 Ver. 3. Brhty- The use of S# for btt. is noticeable. See ver. 17, et al.
a Ver. 6. lo'Wj, for DIM, not after the analogy of the prop, names in ITT (where the variation is owing to a
form of the r'mne"name),'''b'ut rather to be compared with in; (Ex. It. 18) and 11JV (Ex. iii. 1).
* Ver. 8. DN113, Aramaic for DNTI3. See 1 Kings xii. 33,' for the only other use of the verb.
« Ver. 13. W_rh is properly " to toe intent that." The first one here anticipates the other two, thus " To thU
intent he was hired, to the intent that, eic."
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
(3) Hindrances from the Heathen and their Jewish
Ver. 2. The omission of Tobiah's name is an
Indication that he was merely an attache of
Sanballat. Notice also (in the Heb.) that_ the
prep, is not repeated before Tobiah, as it is
before Geshem. — Villages.— Some take this as
a proper name, Chephirim. — Ono, with Lod and
Hadid, is mentioned in oh. vii. 37 between Jeri-
cho and Senaah, as if it might be in the Jordan
depression; but the name of Lod is generally-
identified with Ludd or Lydda in the Sharon
plain, twenty-fire miles north-west of Jerusalem.
If so, the ordinary siting of Ono in that plain is
doubtless correct. Eusebius places it at three
miles from Lydda.
Why Sanballat should select so distant a spot
is puzzling, unless he happened to be stationed
there himself at the time. Otherwise he would
know that the invitation would arouse Nehe-
miah's suspicions. There may be another Ono
near Chephirah, which is ten miles north-west
28
THE BOOK OP NEHEMIAH.
of Jerusalem, and Chephirim (villages) may
stand for Chephirah.
Ver. 5. An open letter, that its contents
might alarm all the Jews, and create opposition
to Nehemiah.
Ver. 6. Gashmu, i. e. Geshem. — According
to these words. — Sanballat throughout makes
no accusation, but refers to rumor. Nehemiah's
answer is (ver. 8) : There is not according to these
words which thou aayest, i. e. there is no such
rumor.
Strengthen my hands. — This interjected
prayer must be taken from Nehemiah's journal
at the time. When he writes the narrative, he
quotes his ejaculation, as showing where hia
dependence was at that trying time.
Ver. 10. Shemaiah evidently (see ver. 12)
was a prophet. The gift of prophecy did not
prevent a, man from selling himself to lie for
others (see 1 Kings xxii. 22). — Shut up. — See
Jer. xxxvi. 5. He was shut up perhaps in per-
formance of a vow ; Keil suggests as a symbol
of his charge to Nehemiah. This use of 'azar is
related to the derivative 'azarrah (a court).
The temple, i. e. the innermost building,
the temple proper.
Ver. 11. Would go Into the temple to
save his life —Lit. : " would go into the temple
and live." The last clause may refer to the
death of any one violating the sanctity of the
temple. See Num. xviii. 7. It may also mean
what our translators give.
Ver. 13. Do so and sin, i. e. shut myself up
in fear, and enter the holy place, into which
only the priests could enter.
Ver. 14. Sanballat evidently had a strong
party in Jerusalem, and among them many of
prophetio rank hired with his money.
Ver. 15. Elul was the sixth month corres-
ponding to parts of August and September. —
Fifty and two days. — Hence the work was
begun on the fourth of Ab, the fifth month.
The work went on during the hottest part of the
year (say, from July 19th to Sept. 8th).
Ver. 16. The marvellously short time in which
the work had been done, and that, too, by Jews,
whom Sanballat knew to be divided into mutu-
ally hostile parties, impressed him and his co-
adjutors with the sense of a divine co-operation
with Nehemiah.
Josephus turns the fifty-two days into eight
hundred and forty days, probably in his desire
to tone down the marvellous for his readers.
Ver. 18. Meshullam. See ch. iii. 4.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. Nehemiah, when persistently declining the
invitation to meet Sanballat at the plain of Ono,
exposed himself to the charge of opposing peace
measures. This is one of the hardest trials of
virtue, to continue steadfast in a true course at
the risk of impugned motives and damaged
reputation. Sanballat's fifth message and open
letter sought to endanger Nehemiah with the
king, while it seemed to Bhow Sanballat's devo-
tion to the king's interests. The refusal now to
attend a conference would appear the worse.
Yet the sturdy patriot and man of God rests
upon his integrity and trusts in God. This
persistence in the right, come what would, makes
Nehemiah a great man as well as a good man.
2. "Shemaiah" was such a common name
among the Jews, that it is impossible to identify
this prophet with any other person of his name
(as e. g. the one in Ezra x. 21). He must, how-
ever, have been a man of prominence, and one,
too, who had been in Nehemiah's confidence, or
else the attempt would never have been made
by Tobiah and Sanballat through him. It may
have been the high position and reputation of
Shemaiah that led the prophetess Noadiah and
the rest of the prophets (ver. 14) into the false
dealings with Nehemiah.
3. The expression of Nehemiah's soul for
their punishment from God is the outcry for
vindication, which one's very purity of heart
demands. In such outcry the persecuted and
innocent soul finds rest. Let none confound
this with revenge.
4. It is not strange that Sanballat saw that
the wall-building was wrought of Israel's God.
The trouble with God's enemies is not that their
knowledge iB defective, but that their hearts
are alienated. Evidences are multiplying con-
stantly before them, but produce no change in
their opposition. Sanballat was vexed because
he was thwarted by the Lord God of Israel.
Those fifty-two days of wall-building wera
clearly to his mind a token of divine assist-
ance ; but this knowledge did not stop his oppo-
sition.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1—3. Can the enticements of the dis-
sembling world really make any impression upon
us ? 1) What are they ? They all come to this
one thing in the end, that we shall care before
all for ourselves, that is, for our temporal well-
being, and therefore shall descend from our due
height as children of God, and they aim not
towards our salvation, but (owards our destruc-
tion. 2) What have we to place in opposition to
them? That we have a, great work to do, the
building of the walls of Jerusalem, that is,
the securing the kingdom of God in others, and
particularly in ourselves, the spreading and the
improvement thereof, only through the most faith-
ful performance of this great, infinite work, can
we reach the high goal of our salvation. — Bede:
Nehemias personam Jidelium doctorum ienenst nequa-
quam ad profanos descendere neque eorum hostiis
inquinari sent.it, sed in conceptis virtutum operibus
devotus persistit; et quo acrius terrere nitebantur
inimici, eo magis ipse bene operando terribilis eisdem
inimicis fieri contendit.
Vers. 1-9. The behaviour of those who grudge
independence to the congregation. 1) They act
as if they wish to aid it. 2) They seek to in-
timidate, as if the representatives of freedom
were rendering themselves worthy of suspicion
in a dangerous way. 3) Their only design is to
rob the congregation of its capable leaders.
Vers. 10-19. The friends of the enemy. 1)
They pretend that they are caring for the well-
being and the security of the good. 2) They
serve the enemy. 8) They only aim at destroy-
ing the good leaders.
Vers. 16-19. The most repulsive enemies. 1)
They are not those from without who are grieved
CHAP. VII. 1-73.
29
when the independence of the congregation is
secured, and its work crowned with success. 2)
They are muoh rather the false brethren, who
always desire to incite the outside enemy anew
to disturbing interference by smooth words. —
Bede: Semper habent electi /oris pugnas, intus
timores; nee solum apostolis, sed et prophetse peri,
eulis ex genere, periculis ex genlibus, periculis ex
falsis fratribus suspeclam vitam agebant. Starke :
What Paul writes concerning false brethren (2
Cor. xi. 26) that has Nehemiah also experienced
for his portion. And it is indeed one of the
heaviest griefs of the true servants of God, when
they must see that that those connected with
them in religion, yes, indeed at times their col-
leagues, who labor with them in the same work,
stand in prejudicial intercourse with the enemies
of Christ and His church, and yet wish to be con-
sidered as co-members, striving for the honor of
God. Those whom God awakens for spiritual
building should conduct themselves circum-
spectly and courageously against the snares of
the enemy, and not allow themselves to be fright-
ened off by their slander, but cheerfully pro-
ceed. In the end the enemy will be cast down
with fear in their consciences, and must ac-
knowledge that the work is of God. Acts v. 39.
When we wander in the midst of anxiety God
refreshes us, and stretches His hand over the
rage of His enemies, and helps us with His right
hand. Ps. xcvii. 11.
Vers. 1-19. Concerning the most critical and
saddest hinderance which opposes us in defence
of the congregation. 1) From whom it proceeds.
Not principally from the outside enemy, not even
then when tbey feign friendship, and, under the
pretence of helping us, aim at the worst, but
much more from false prophets, who make com-
mon cause with the outside enemy, and yet pre-
tend that they wish to protect us from their
snares. They excite our humanity to allow our-
Belves, for our security or ease, that which can
become ruinous to us. 2) How it serves us. Our
zeal, our fidelity and perseverance, and our
watchfulness must be bo much the greater ; we
shall have opportunity to keep ourselves in suf-
ferings, not for our injury, but for our salvalion.
3) How it is to be overcome. Through precau-
tion and fearlessness, through the fear of God in
which are united humility and genuine high
courage, also through great watchfulness. —
Starke: Great lords, who seek to further the
good of the church of God and of the common-
wealth, are a thorn in the devil's eye. The cross
is often never lifted from the godly, that they
may live in continual communion with God. Ah,
my God, I have also a great business to perform,
namely, to save my soul, and better that of my
neighbor. Grant that I may be faithful therein,
then shall it go on well and succeed.
Chapter VII. 1-73.
1 Now [And] it came to pass when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors,
2 and the porters and the singers and the Levites were appointed, that I gave my
brother Hanani and Hananiah the ruler of the palace, charge over Jerusalem, for
3 he was [as] a faithful man, and feared God above [i. e. more than] many. And
I said unto them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot ;
and while [until] they stand by, let them shut the doors and bar them : and ap-
point watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and every
4 one to be over against his house. Now [And] the city was large [broad on both
hands] and great ; but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded.
5 And my God put into my heart to gather [and I gathered] together the nobles,
and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And
I found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first, and found
6 written therein. These are the children [sons] of the province, that went up out
of the captivity of those that had been carried away [of the carrying away],
whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and [who]
7 came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, every one unto his city; who came
with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Kaamiah, Nahamam, Morde-
cai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, Baanah. The number, I say, of the
8 men of the people of Israel was this; The children [sons— so everywhere in this
9 list] of Parosh, two thousand a hundred seventy and two. The children of She-
10 phatiah, three hundred seventy and two. The children of Arah, six hundred fifty
11 and two. The children of Pahath-moab, of the children of Jeshua and Joab, two
12 thousand and eight hundred and eighteen. The children of Elam, a thousand two
go THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
„ . — H
13 hundred fifty and four. The children of Zattu, eight hundred forty and five.
14, 15 The children of Zaccai, seven hundred and three-score. The children of Bin-
nui, six hundred forty and eight.
16, 17 The children of Bebai, six hundred twenty and eight. The children of Azgad,
18 two thousand three hundred twenty and two. The children of Adonikam, six
19 hundred three score and seven. The children of Bigvai, two thousand three-score
20,21 and seven. The children of Adin, six hundred fifty and five. The children
22 of Ater of Hezekiah, ninety and eight. The children of Hashum, three hundred
23 twenty and eight The children of Bezai, three hundred twenty and four.
24, 25 The children of Hariph, a hundred and twelve. The children of Gibeon, ninety
26 and five. The men of Bethlehem and Netophah, a hundred four-score and eight.
27, 28 The men of Anathoth, a hundred twenty and eight. The men of Beth-azma-
29 veth, forty and two. The men of Kirjath-jearim, Ohephirah, and Beeroth, seven
30 hundred forty and three. The men of Ramah and Gaba, six hundred twenty and
31, 32 one. The men of Michmas, a hundred and twenty and two. The men of
33 Beth-el and Ai, a hundred twenty and three. The men of the other Nebo, fifty
34 and two. The children of the other Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty and four.
35, 36 The children of Harim, three hundred and twenty. The children of Jericho,
37 three hundred forty and five. The children of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, seven hun-
38 dred twenty and one. The children of Senaah, three thousand nine hundred and
thirty.
39 The priests : The children of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua, nine hundred
40, 41 seventy and three. The children of Immer, a thousand fifty and two. The
42 children of Pashur, a thousand two hundred forty and seven. The children of
Harim, a thousand and seventeen.
43 The Levites : The children of Jeshua. of Kadmiel, and of the children of Hode-
vah, seventy and four.
44 The singers : The children of Asaph, a hundred forty and eight.
45 The porters : The children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Tal-
mon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai, a hun-
dred thirty and eight.
46 The Nethinim : The children of Ziha, the children of Hashupha, the children of
47 Tabbaoth, the children of Keros, the children of Sia, the children of Padon,
48 the children of Lebana, the children of Hagaba, the children of Shalmai,
49, 50 the children of Hanan, the children of Giddel, the children of Gahar, the
51 children of Reaiah, the children of Rezin, the children of Nekoda, the children
52 of Gazzam, the children of Uzza, the children of Phaseah, the children of Besai,
53 the children of Meunim, the children of Nephishesim, the children of Bakbuk,
54 the children of Hakupha, the children of Harhur, the children of Bazlith, the
55 children of Mehida, the children of Harsha, the children of Barkos, the children
56 of Sisera, the children of Tamah, the children of Neziah, the children of Hatipha.
57 The children of Solomon's servants : The children of Sotai, the children of So-
58 phereth, the children of Perida, the children of Jaala, the children of Darkon,
59 the children of Giddel, the children of Shephatiah, the children of Hattil, the
60 children of Pochereth of Zebaim, the children of Amon. All the Nethinim and
61 the children of Solomon's servants, were three hundred ninety and two. And these
were they which went up also from Tel-melah, Tel-haresha, Cherub, Addon, and
Immer: but they could not show their father's house, nor their seed, whether they
62 were of Israel. The children of Delaiah, the children of Tobiah, the children of
Nekoda, six hundred forty and two.
63 And of the priests : The children of Habaiah, the children of Koz, the children
of Barzillai, which took one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite to wife, and
64 was called after their name. These sought their register among those that were
reckoned by genealogy, but it was not found : therefore were they, as polluted, put
65 from the priesthood. And the Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat
of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim.
66 The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and
67 three-score. Besides their man-servants and their maid-servants, of whom there
CHAP. VII. 1-73.
31
were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven : and they had two hundred
forty and five singing men and singing women. Their horses, seven hundred thirty
and six: their mules, two hundred forty and five: their camels, four hundred
thirty and five : six thousand seven hundred and twenty asses.
And some of the chief of the fathers gave unto the work. The Tirshatha gave
to the treasure a thousand drams of gold, fifty basins, five hundred and thirty
priests' garments. And some of the chief of the fathers gave to the treasure of the
work twenty thousand drama of gold, and two thousand and two hundred pounds
72 of silver. And that which the rest of the people gave was twenty thousand drams
of gold, and two thousand pounds of silver, and three-score and seven priests' gar-
73 ments. So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some
of the people, and the Kethinim, and all Israel, dwelt in their cities ; and when
the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities.
68
69
70
71
TEXTUAL AND GKAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 3. Ifl'J' for V\iO\ «™f Key6nevor. The Targum Jonathan on 2 Kings it. 4, rhin fi"U01 is
REh ra'jni. T '■"■'" !:"T:
T T I • •-*
The watchers were stationed throughout the
city. These were formed of the inhabitants ge-
nerally.
Ver. 4. The houses were not builded.—
A general expression. The city was full of waste
places.
Ver. 6. Here begins a copy of the list of Ze-
rubbabel's company of ninety years before. Sea
Ezra ii. It continues through this chapter.
Verses 6 and 7 form the title of the list. Pro-
vince.— Judea was now a province of the Per-
sian empire.
That went up out of the captivity of
those that had been carried away whom
Nebuchadnezzar, etc. — Rather, that went up
from exile, the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar, etc.
Ver. 7. Nehemiah. — Not the Nehemiah of
this book. Azariah. — In Ezra ii., Scraiah.
Raamiah. — In Ezra ii. rIteclaiah. Nahamani.
— Not mentioned in Ezra ii. Perhaps a mistaken
repetition of Nehemiah. Mispereth. — In Ezra
ii., Mizpar. Nehum. — In Ezra ii., Rehum.
Ver. 10. The 652 of this verse is 775 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 11. The 2818 of this verse is 2812 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 13. The 845 of this verse is 945 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 15. Binnul. — In Ezra ii. Bani. The 648
ef this verse is 642 in Ezra ii.
Ver. 16. Tlxe 628 of this verse is 623 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 17. The 2322 of this verse is 1222 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 1&. The 667 of this verse is 666 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 19. The 2067 of this verse is 2056 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 20. The 655 of this verse is 454 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 22. The 328 of this verse is 223 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 23. The 324 of this verse is 323 in
Ezxa ii.
Ver. 24. Hariph. — In Ezra ii. Jorah.
Ver. 25. Gibeon. — In Ezra ii. Gibbar.
Ver. 26. The 188 of this verse is 179 in Ezra
ii., and divided into two parts. At this verse.
EXEGETICAIi AND CEITICAL.
The Ordering of the City.
Ver. 1. The setting up of the doors on the
gates is anticipated in the description in chap,
iii. (See ch. iii. 1, 3, 6, 13, 14, 15.) It occurred
after the wall was completed. (Comp. chap.
xi. 1). The porters and the singers and
the Levites (comp. ch. xii. 45-47). For the
temple-porters in David's time, see the accounts
in 1 Chron. ix. 17-27, and xxvi. 1-19. The
Korhites or descendants of Korah, who were
porters, were also singers, to whom are inscribed
BO many psalms. All of these porters and sing-
ers were Levites. Hence the threefold titles
might not indicate distinct classes, but we might
read it as a hendiatris " the Levitieal singing
porters." Vet from the later portions of this
book (ch. x. 28; ch. xi. 15-19) we may gather
that the singers and porters formed two distinct
guilds, separate from one another and separate
Srom the other Levites. Hence the three terms
here represent three bodies of men. It is pro-
bable that the opening and shutting of the temple;
gates were made with song. Perhaps -ome of
the psalms inscribed to the Bene-Korah were so
used.
Nehemiah seems to have set these Levitieal
porters at all the city gates, perhaps to give a
more religious aspect to his work of defending
Jerusalem.
Ver. 2. Hanani. — See ch. i. 2. Hananiah's
position as ruler of the palace (sar habbirah)
was probably the old office of the monarchy ('aZ-
labbayith) which Eliakim held (2 Kings xviii. 37)
and which Jotham held while Uzziah still lived
('al beth-hammclek, 2 Chron. xxvi. 21). See note
on ch. ii. 8. The old office was probably retained
and its incumbent acted as vizier or prime officer
to the governor. Nehemiah probably contem-
plated temporary returns to Persia, and there-
fore consolidated the government in this way,
putting faithful men in the highest positions.
Ver. 3. 'While they stand by. — Rather,
until they stand by. The command is, not to open
the gates till high day, and not even then, unless
the guard is ready to stand by and defend them.
32
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
when "children" changes to "men," the names
of towns (instead of those of fathers) begin.
Ver. 28. Beth-azmaveth. In Ezra ii. Azma-
veth.
Ver. 32. The 123 of this verse is 223 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 33. The other Nebo (Nebo A'her). In
Ezra ii. Nebo simply.
Ver. 34. The word "children" resumed, hut
the names of fathers are resumed for two verses
only.
Ver. 37. The 721 of this verse is 725 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 38. The 3930 of this verse is 3630 in
Ezra ii. In Ezra we find " the children of Mag-
bish a hundred fifty and six," which is omitted
In this copy of Nehemiah.
Ver. 43. Hodevah. — In Ezra ii. Hodaviah.
Ver. 44. The 148 of this verse is 128 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 45. The 138 of this verse is 139 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 46. Hashupha. — Heb. Hasupha.
Ver. 47. Sia. — In Ezra ii. Siaha.
Ver. 48. in Ezra we find " the children of
Akkub, the children of Hagab," which is here
omitted. Shalmai. — Heb. Salmai,
Ver. 52. In Ezra we find " the children of As-
ixah," which is here omitted. Nephishesim. —
In Ezra ii. Nephusim (K'ri).
Ver. 54. Bazlith. — In Ezra ii. Bazluth.
Ver. 57. Perida. — In Ezra ii. Peruda.
Ver. 59. Amon. — In Ezra ii. Ami.
Ver. 60. Thirty-five families of Nethinim were
represented, and ten of Solomon's servants.
Hence there was an average of less than nine to
each family.
For the Nethinim see on ch. iii. 26.
Solomon's servants were doubtless those
whom Solomon enslaved of the Canaanites. (See
1 Kings ix. 20, 21). Their descendants were
probably regarded as engrafted into Israel, as
were the Gibeonites.
Ver. 61. Addon. — In Ezra ii. Addan.
Ver. 62. The 642 of this verse is 652 in
Ezra ii.
Ver. 65. The Tirshatha. — This title is given
expressly to Nehemiah in ch. viii. 9, but in this
list of those who came with Zerubbabel nearly a
century before, it, of course, cannot refer to Ne-
hemiah, unless we suppose that both in Ezra's
list and in this of Nehemiah's there had been
interpolated in the original record this 65th
verse, to show a decision made by Nehemiah in
his time. If that be the case, which is perfectly
possible, then the latter part of the 70th verse
is also an interpolation of Nehemiah to Bhow his
gifts to the work of separation in his time. If
we do not accept this explanation, we must be-
lieve that Zerubbabel was the Tirshatha of Ne-
hem. vii., and Ezra ii. Fuerst derives the word
from tarash, and supposes this root means " to
fear," or " to reverence," and refers Teresh
(Esth. ii. 21) to the same. But may it not be
from the more common root ya.rash (to possess) ?
The Persian torsh (revere) is in favor of the
former. It is used as synonymous with pe'hah
(governor). See ch. xii. 26.
Till there stood up a priest •with Urim
and Thummim. — This seems to be a circumlo-
cution for " forever." The Urim and Thummim
(whatever they were) were connected with the
High-priest's breastplate (Ex. xxviii. 30) and
with the oracular response of God on application
by the High-priest (comp. Num. xxvii. 21 and 1
Sam. xxviii. 6). When these responses ceased
or when the Urim and Thummim were lost, we
cannot tell. We hear nothing of them after Da-
vid's reign. The prophets seem to have taken
their place. The Urim and Thummim being ab-
sent, there was no authority in Israel to deter-
mine the priestly status of these unregistered
ones.
Ver. 66. The whole congregation toge-
ther 'was forty and two thousand three
hundred and threescore. — The numbers
given in this chapter, up to this verse, amount
to only 31,089. In Ezra ii. the amount is 29,818.
If we add to the former sum the number of ser-
vants given in ver. 67, we have only 38,671, or
3,689 less than the gross amount of this verse.
We have noted the omission in this list of four
families. The differences in the numbers of the
two lists also show how liable are numbers to
be changed in transcription. The grand total,
being the same in both lists, is probably correct.
Ver. 67. Singing men and singing wo-
men, meshorerim umeskoreroth. Comp. Eccl. ii.
8. These were probably a guild of servants,
dating from Solomon's day.
Ver. 70. The work of restoration. The
Tirshatha. — See on ver. 65.
Ver. 71. The repetition of the chief of the
fathers seems to support the view of the Tir-
shatha sentence being an interpolation by Ne-
hemiah. The 20,000 drams of gold here is 61,-
000 in Ezra ii., and the 2200 pounds here are
5000 pounds there, but if we add the people's
gift of ver. 72 (not found in Ezra) we have here
40,000 and 4200 against 61,000 and 5000 there.
So the sixty-seven priests' garments here are
one hundred there. See remark on numbers in
ver. 66.
The children of Israel were in their ci-
ties.— This seems to be the real ending of the
quotation from the old register of Zerubbabel's
day, and then Nehemiah's narration begins
again, using almost the same words as Ezra's
concerning the first migration. In Ezra it is
wayyeasphu ha' am keish e'hadh, and in Nehemiah
it is wayyeasphu khol ha' am keish e'hadh. This
likeness was doubtless designed.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The walls were not to be substitutes for,
but encouragements of, watchfulness. A perfect
system of opening, shutting, barring and guard-
ing the gates was to follow the successful up-
building of the city-bulwark. Faithful men
were to be put into the highest positions, and a
larger number of Jews were to be induced to
dwell in Jerusalem in order to its defence. The
order, security and growth of Jerusalem, as the
city of the Great King, Jehovah of Israel,
formed the undivided aim of the son of Hacha-
liah.
2. The genealogies occupied an important
place in Israel. They oontained the certificate
of church-membership for eaoh Israelite. They
CHAP. VII. 1-78.
33
also contained the claims to official dignity that
belonged to priest and Levite. The family-idea
thus received a marked emphasis in God'B re-
demptive government — an emphasis which is
eohoed by Malachi (Mai. iv. 6) and the angel
that appeared to Zacharias (Luke i. 17). The
appearance of the Nethinim in the genealogies
is a forcible illustration of the impartial grace
of God. That grace which would bring in all
the Gentiles as children was foretokened by the
brotherly position of the Nethinim (of Gentile
blood) among the people of God, the children of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
3. Those priests whose names were not in the
lists were counted the same as polluted, that is,
not simply as having a blemish (see Lev. xxi. 17-
21), for such priests could eat of the holy things,
but as having an uncleanness (see Lev. xxii. 8-6),
which prevented all contact with holy objects.
This shows the prominence of externals in the
Jewish religion — a necessary prominence where
the externals had a precise spiritual significance.
For, after all, it was the spiritual truth which
was the basis of such exactness, and by no
means the mere intrinsic value of externals.
4. The entire number of Jews who returned
in Cyrus' day to Jerusalem was small — about
60,000, out of millions. Piety, patriotism and
desire for change were three motives at work in
the 50,000. But what a vast mass were unmoved
by any of these motives, and were well satisfied
with their exile! Some, however, like Daniel,
remained from high and holy motives. The
Jewish people is a remnant.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
The Lord, on His side, appoints watchmen on
the walls of Jerusalem, who must allow them-
selves no rest day or night, and must not
even give the Lord Himself any rest until He
fortifies Jerusalem, and makes it for a praise in
the earth. Isa. lxii. 6, 7. But now, when Jeru-
salem is scantily rebuilt, Nehemiah appoints
watchmen, who shall guard the city and its gates.
The first thing necessary for the congregation
is praying hearts, whose petitions shall not
slacken until the Lord is persuaded ; these the
Lord Himself must give. But when the prayers
have been granted care must be taken for the
preservation and using of that which has been
granted. That the congregation itself must see
to. And that they themselves can and must
watch, that they must remain separated from the
world, and that they will be secured in the main-
tenance of their peculiarity and independence, is
their honor and joy. 2. There are always two
tasks in the congregation, or church, of the
Lord. As there are always enemies remaining
(so long as the kingdom is not of God and of
His Christ), who cannot endure the spread of
the blessing, which might prooeed from the
church, who would much rather indeed win its
possessions and gifts, and would wish to make it
like the world, so these enemies, especially then,
when the powers of life are most active in it,
come out to attack it most energetically, and fall
upon its representatives most sharply in word
and deed, therefore it must always have some to
keep watch, to protect it, and fight the enemy.
But again : so long as everything is in embryo,
and the conclusion has not been reached, and
there are yet those to be found capable of re-
ceiving and becoming participants in the goods
and gifts of the ohurch and in the salvation of
the Lord, that is, those who can and will enter
the congregation of the Lord, and increase
and extend the Lord's kingdom, therefore, just
on this account, such are necessary as will be
engaged in the winning and reception of new
members to the kingdom, who understand the
situation, and can point out the spot where they
also can build. 3. As Jerusalem, in Nehemiah's
time, extended far on both sides, and was scan-
tily populated, so also the city of God in all
times has had space for new additions to its po-
pulation. For, in truth, the rich possessions
which God has prepared in His church for man-
kind, would only then be sufficiently turned to
profit when every one called man should enjoy
them, and it were itself full and sufficiently built
out, and all had entered in. For that God, who
has made all things for Himself, and for that Lord
who has redeemed all, the totality alone, from
which none is lost, forms a sufficiently great peo-
ple.— Bede : Prtecepit autem Nehemias, ne aperian-
tur porix Hierusalem usque ad calorem soils, hoc est
toto tempore noctis, ne videlicet aut obtecius tenebris
hostis erumpat, aut eerie aliquis incautus eziens ah
hoste captus pereat. Quod eiiam in huj'us sseculi
nocte tota cusiodes animarum debenl solerter agere,
ne observantia pix conversationis neglecta diabolus
aut cohortem fidelium perturbaturus subiniret aut de
ipsorum numero fidelium quempiam perditurus rapiat.
Apparente autem sole justitix et clarescente luce fu'
iurx beatitudinis jam non opus erit claustris conti-
nentix ; quia nee adversaries ultra dabitur facultas
impugnandi sive ientandi fideles, utpole sempiterna
cum suo principe ultione damnatis. JJnde in Apoca-
lypsi sua Joannes de futura ejusdem sanctx civitatis
gloria dicit; et porix ejus non claudentur per diem;
nox enim non erit illic. — Stabke: This is the final
cause why cities and countries, kingdoms and
principalities are founded, and filled with people
that God may dwell there, and His church may
have a certain shelter. God provides help, pro-
tection, and rest for His church, and as human
protection is very insignificant, God with His
angels is the best watchman.
34 THE BOOK OP NEHEMIAH.
Chaptee VIII. 1-18.
1 And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that
was before the water-gate ; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book
2 of the law of Moses, which the Lokd had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the
priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all
that could hear with understanding [that understood in hearing] upon the first
3 day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before
the water-gate from the morning until midday [from the light until half of the
day], before the men and the women, and those that could understand [and the
understanding] ; and the ears of all the people ivere attentive unto the book of the
4 law. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit [tower] of wood, which they had
made for that purpose ; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah,
and Urijah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand ; and on his left hand
Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Zechariah
5 and MeshuW&m. And Ezra opened the book in the sight [to the eyes] of all the
people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people
6 stood up. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people an-
swered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands : and they bowed their heads,
7 and worshipped the Loed with their faces to the ground. Also [and] Jeshua, and
Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita,
Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to under-
8 stand the law : and the people stood in their place. So [And] they read in the
book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to under-
9 stand the reading. And Nehemiah, which is the' Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest
the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This
day is holy unto the LoRr> your God ; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people
10 wept, when they heard the words- of the law. Then [And] he said unto them, Go
your way, eat the fat [fat things], and drink the sweet [sweet things], and send
portions unto them [him] for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto
11 our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Loed is your strength. So
[And] the Levites stilled all the people, saying, Hold your peace, for the day is
12 holy ; neither be ye grieved. And all the people went their way to eat, and to
drink, and to send portions and to make great mirth, because they had understood
13 the words that were declared unto them. And on the second day were gathered
together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests and the Levites, unto
14 Ezra the scribe, even to understand [consider] the words of the law. And they
found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by [by the hand of]
Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh
15 month ; and that they should publish and proclaim [cause the voice to be heard
and to pass] in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount,
and fetch olive branches, and pine [oil-tree] branches, and myrtle branches, and
palm branches, and branches of thick [thick-leaved] trees, to make booths, as it is
16 written. So [And] the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves
booths, every one upon the roof of his house [upon his roof], and in their courts,
and in the street [square] of the water-gate, and in the street [square] of the gate
17 of Ephraim. And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the
captivity made booths, and sat under the booths : for since the days of Jeshua, the
son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was
18 very great gladness. Also [And] day by day, from the first day unto the last
day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days;
and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly according unto the manner [statute].
CHAP. VIII. 1-18.
35
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 6. ^nn^l }*1pB1. This frequent combination, the former verb being never without the latter, indi-
cates the two steps of the movement : "they stooped and bowed down." The verbs nnK?, HHty and T\W are
T T " T ~
stronger than ITp.
-It
2 Ver. 7. The Hiphil of p3 is used in vers. 7, 8, 9, with the true Hiphil force ; but in vers. 2, 3, 12, it has the
Kal sense.
* Ver. 10. 'iS j'lJJ r^S for lS |13J pN "IE7N1?, by suppression of the relative, which is far harsher than
the Eng suppression of the antecedent, e. g. " Honor to whom honor is due." Comp. 1 Chron. xv. 12.
* Ver. 17. Notice the alliterative use of the three roots 712$, 3$'' and 2W.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Instruction of the People.
Ver. 1. Street. — Rather " square " or plaza.
The ■water-gate, according to our view (see
on ch. iii. 2o and xii. 37), was an inner gate
connected both with the temple and with the
subterranean water galleries of Ophel, by which
there seems to have been a large open square
for public assemblies. (See Excursus). Ezra
the scribe, Ezra hassophtr. In the next verse
it is Ezra the priest, Ezra hakkohen. This is
the first mention of Ezra in the book of Nehe-
miah. He had come to Jerusalem thirteen years
previously, with about three thousand returning
Jews (1754 males), holding a commission from
Artaxerxes to appoint magistrates in Judsea.
He had forced the Jews to separate from their
heathen wives, and had then probably returned
to Persia, as we find the Jews had relapsed into
their former condition. As we do not meet with
his name in Nehemiah till now, it is probable he
followed Nehemiah to Judea to assist him in an-
other movement of reform.
Ver. 2. All that could hear with under-
standing.— Lit., All that understood in hearing,
i. e., those old enough to understand. The first
day of the seventh month. — This was a spe-
cial "Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trum-
pets, a holy convocation." (Lev. xxiii. 24). A
specific offering was appointed for that day, be-
side the burnt-offering of the month. (Numb.
xxix. 1-6).
Ver. 3. From morning. — Lit., from the light,
i. e., from daylight or an hour as early as was
available. The reading must have occupied at
least six hours. About one-quarter of the Pen-
tateuch might be read in that time.
Ver. 4. Pulpit. — Probably the same that is
called stairs in ch. ix. 4. The word here is
strictly tower and there ascent. It was doubtless
a very high platform so as to overlook a large
crowd. (Comp. ver. 5). Anaiah. — See chap.
x. 22. TJrijah.-^See ch. iii. 4. Hilkiah. — Not
the Hilkiah of xii. 7. He lived in Zerubbabel's
day. Maaseiah. — See xii. 41. Malchiah. —
See x. 3. Zechariah.— See xii. 41. Meshul-
lam. — See x. 7. All these named as standing
with Ezra may have been priests. If so, the
Anaiah of ch. x. 22 must be a different one from
this one here named. As far as we can trace the
other names, they appear to be priests.
Ver. 7. Jeshua. — See ch. x. 9. Banl. — See
ch. x. 13. Sherebiah.— See ch. x. 12. Ja-
min. Perhaps the Benjamin of ch. iii. 23.
Akkub.— See ch. xii. 19. Shabbethai.— See
ch. xi. 16. Hodijah.— See ch. x. 10. Maa-
seiah.— Probably not the Maaseiah of ver. 4, or
of ch. x. 25, or of ch. xi. 5, but possibly the Maa-
seiah of eh. iii. 23. Kelita. — See ch. x. 10.
Azariah. — Perhaps the priest mentioned ch. x.
2. Jozabad. — See ch. xi. 16. Hanan. See
ch. x. 10. Pelaiah. — See ch. x. 10. And the
Levites, i. e., and other Levites, for the thirteen
mentioned were Levites. These Levites seem to
have read after Ezra and to have explained it to
different parts of the crowd, while the Amens,
the lifting up of the hands, the bowing and the
worshipping (in ver. 6) occurred at intervals
during the reading. The explanation may have
been principally of archaic Hebrew words.
Ver. 8. So they read. — That is Ezra read
and the 'Levites re-read and explained where
necessary.
Ver. 9. The Tirshatha. — See on ch. vii. 65.
The holiness of the day is used as an argument
against mourning. Note the fact that the high-
priest on whose mitre was written " Holiness to
the Lord," was forbidden to mourn. (See Lev.
xxi. 10. Comp. Lev. x. 6).
Ver. 10. Send portions. — See the spirit of
this enjoined in Deut. xvi. 11, 12, with regard
to the Pentecost season.
The joy of the Lord is your strength,
i. e., a mirtbfulness which springs from right re-
lations to God is an element and sign of spiritual
strength.
Ver. 13. To understand. — Rather, "to con-
sider."
Ver. 14. In the feast of the seventh
month, i. e., the feast of tabernacles. See Lev.
xxiii. 34-43.
Ver. 15. This is a pregnant sentence, thus:
And that they should publish and proclaim in all
their cities (Lev. xxiii. 4); so they proclaimed in
Jerusalem, etc. The order is given on the 2d of
Tisri, and the work is. done in readiness for the
15th. The narrative runs the two together, con-
fusing the time to the careless reader. Unto
the mount, i. e., mount of Olives. Pine
branches, 'ale 'elz shemen, branches of the oil-
tree (Isa. xii. 19). Mr. Houghton (in Smith's
Diet.) thinks it may be the Zackum or Balanites
^Egyptiaca. Branches of thick trees, 'ale
>etz 'avoth; either specifically " branches of the
Avoth tree," or branches of tangled trees."
In Lev. xxiii. 40, the command is to use,
1. The fruit of goodly trees.
2. The leaves of palm trees.
3. The boughs of Avoth trees.
4. Willows of the brook.
9
86
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
Here the olive tree, the oil tree, and the myrtle
would come under the first head (" fruit" being
used for any produce), while the willow-tree is
omitted, perhaps because there happened to be
none near Jerusalem at that time.
Ver. 16. Street of the water-gate. — See on
ver. 1. Street of the gate of Ephraim. —
From 2 Kings xiv. 13 and Neh. ch. xii. 39, we
see that this gate was near the north-west cor-
ner of the city, between "the broad wall" and
the " old gate," the "old gate" and "corner-
gate" being perhaps the same. According to
Keil, the Gate of Ephraim may have been at-
tached to the broad wall and not have been de-
stroyed. Hence it is not mentioned in chap. iii.
There was, we may suppose, a large open place
in the N. W. part of the city, corresponding to
that by the water-gate in the S. E. part.
Ver. 17. Done so. — That is, kept the feast cf
Tabernacles with such gladness.
Ver. 18. He read, i. e., Ezra.
They kept the feast, i. e., of tabernacles.
They had been from the second day (ver. 13), to
this the 15th day of Tisri (Lev. xxiii. 34) pre-
paring for it. The solemn fast-day of the 10th
of Tisri had doubtless been excepted. It is
passed over without mention in the narrative.
A solemn assembly, atzereth (comp. Lev. xxiii.
36; Num. xxix. 35; Deut. xvi. 8; Jer. ix. 2;
Amos v. 21). It seems to have been something
more than the " mikra-kodesh" (holy convoca-
tion), and yet what more we cannot say. It is
applied to the last day of the feast of tabernacles
and to the last day of the passovcr week. Jose-
phus (Ant. 3, 10, 5) applies it to Pentecost (in
the Greek form Asarth"), as especially belonging
to that day, which is the use of the word b" the
later JewB.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The constant study of God's word by the
people was always, and is still, a distinguishing
characteristic of the Jewish nation. The Le-
vites were originally entrusted with the duty of
reading the law before Israel every seventh year
(Deut. xxxi. 9-13), and when Jehoshaphat (2
Chron. xvii. 7-9) sent Levites throughout all the
cities of Judah to teach the people from the
book of the law of the Lord, he was doubtless
using the Levites in a way familiar to the nation
from the first. God's people were to keep in
mind that they were not to follow the light of
nature, but to consult the divine oracles for all
their guidance (Rom. iii. 2).
Redemption was a plan, and the Church was
a scheme, and the soul of the scheme was the
written word of God.
2. The tears of penitence naturally lead to
joy. When men mourn for sin, the Lord com-
forts them, saying: "Go your way, eat the fat
and drink the sweet." The sinfnl woman who
bathed our Saviour's feet with tears heard him
say: "Go in peace" (Luke vii. 50). There
may have been much that was only mere excite-
ment, without a religious basis, both in the
weeping and the merriment of this month of
Tisri; yet we cannot but believe that there was
a nucleus of true devotion in the movement, a
mark of the holy succession that reached down
to Simeon and Anna.
3. The booths of the tabernacle-feasts were
memorials of the booth life of Israel (on leaving
Egypt) that began at Succoth. The memory
would encourage humility and gladness, bring-
ing the thoughts of the people back to first prin-
ciples, and making them to feel the Divine pre-
sence and protection (see Lev. xxiii. 43). The
roofs of the houses were battlemented so as to
preclude danger (Deut. xxii. 8) and the houses
were low. The building of booths on the roofs
was therefore a very natural thing. They would
not be in the way of the multitude, and would
have in each case somewhat of domestic pri-
vacy.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-12. The holiday of the Lord's congre-
gation. 1) Its cause: the exterior one lies in
the time, it is the seventh month, the true one in
the proofs God has given, since He has secured
the existence of the congregation before the
world, fortified their city, etc. 2) Its celebra-
tion. The congregation shows a longing for
God's word, uses it in good order, and listens to
it with reverence. 3) Its blessing: Badness
turned into joy. The ever permanent elements
in the true service of God. 1) On the side of
the congregation: hunger for the word of God.
2) On the side of the teachers — the right hand-
ling of the word of God — commences with the
praise of God, which awakens the assenting ac-
knowledgment of the congregation, communica-
tion of the divine word, the explanation and ap-
plication of the same. On both sides resignation
to God's word and being. — Bede: Rogaverunt ipsi
ponlificem suum, ut allato lihro mandata sibi legis,
quse agere debeant, replicaret, ut cum civitate tediji-
cata, operis quoque placiti Deo structura consurgeret,
ne sicut antea propter negligentiam rcligionis civitatis
etiam ruina sequeretur. — Starke : Even the com-
mon peoplo must take care that they shall have
the word of God pure and clear. Young people
should be made to listen to the divine word from
their childhood, that they may learn to fear
God. If in the Old Testament all without excep-
tion have been obliged to listen to the law, how
inexcusable it is if the papacy does not allow this
to the people. Hearers should not become tired
and impatient even if the sermon is rather long.
The principal part of the service of God consists
in praise, and in this we resemble the God-
praising angels. The singing of Collects, pray-
ers and Thanksgivings should be in an intelligi-
ble language, that the hearer may understand
and be able to respond Amen. The Amen in a
public assembly should be sung by each and all.
If we should bow the knees of our hearts in par-
ticular before the Lord, it is proper that in out-
ward gestures also we should show our humility
before God. Preachers must not forget prayer
in the arrangement of divine service. If teach-
ers publicly kneel down and pray to God, it is
proper that the hearers also should fall upon
their knees with them. Teachers should aim
at lucidity in explaining the word of God. If
God gives us a joyful day we should not forget
the poor.
Rejoice in the Lord always ! That is 1) possi-
ble, for in communion with the Lord we have
CHAP. IX. 1-38.
37
consolation, promise, help, refreshment, etc., in
Bpite of all the calamities and difficulties of earth.
2) Necessary ; for every day is holy to the Lord,
and our conduct must always honor the Lord.
3) Wholesome; for joy in the Lord is our
strength, and puts us in the position to wait with
patience, makes us skilful, and guards us from
all straying. Joy in the Lord is our strength,
for 1) in ourselves we are weak and hesita-
ting. 2) In the fulness of the Lord is grace
for grace. 3) Precisely the joy in the Lord is
fitted to cause us to have all that is comprehended
in strength. With the prayer, gladden me with
Thy help, and let my joy in Thee be my strength,
can one gain anew each day consolation and joy,
whatever task be before him.
Vers. 13-18. The festival of the people. 1)
Its foundation — the divine command — God wishes
that the congregation should celebrate the holi-
day. 2) Its form; it exhibits itself also exter-
nally; in the Old Testament by booths, which
have their signification ; in tho New Testament
through other ceremonies, which are not less full
of meaning. 3) Its effect. Resignation to God's
word and will, and from that a glorification of
the entire life. — Starke : Christians have in the
world no continuing city, and their life is vain
and fleeting. Well for them, then, if they strive
to dwell in the eternal tents. Heb. xiii. 14. As
the Jews had their holidays and festivals, so
have we Christians, but upon the condition of
Christian freedom. Coloss. ii. 16. The exercise
of true religion gives a tranquil heart and joyful
conscience; but false worship gives much annoy-
ing trouble, and tortures the conscience.
Chapter IX. 1-38.
1 Now [And] in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel
were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them [i. e., upon
2 their heads]. And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers [sons
of strangeness], and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.
3 And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the Loed their
God one fourth part of the day ; and another fourth part they confessed, and wor-
4 shipped the Loed their God. Then [And] stood up upon the stairs of the Levites,
Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and
5 cried with a loud voice unto the Loed their God. Then [And] the Levites Je-
shua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah and Petha-
hiah said, Stand up and bless the Loed your God for ever and ever [from eternity
to eternity], and blessed be [they blessed] thy glorious name [the name of thy
6 glory], which [and if] is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou,
art Loed alone ; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host,
the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, and thou
7 preservest them all ; and the hostof heaven worshippeth thee. Thou art the Lord
the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chal-
8 dees, and gavest him the name of Abraham ; and foundest his heart faithful before
thee and madest a [the] covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the
Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to
9 give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words ; for thou art righteous :
and didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the
10 Red Sea [Sea of weeds]. And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on
all his servants, and on all the people of his land : for thou knewest that they dealt
proudly against them. So didst thou [and thou didst] get thee a name, as it is this
11 day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that [and] they went through
the midst of the sea on the dry land ; and their persecutors thou threwest into the
12 deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters. Moreover [and] thou leddest them in the
day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in
13 the way wherein they should go. Thou earnest down also [And thou earnest down]
upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right
14 judgments and true laws [laws of truth], good statutes and commandments: and
madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts,
38 THE BOOK OP NEHEMIAH.
15 [and] statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant: and ga vest them bread
from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock
for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land
16 which thou hadst sworn [lifted up thy hand] to give them. But [And] they and
our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy
17 commandments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful cf thy wonders that
thou didst among them; but [and] hardened their n:cks and in their rebellion ap-
pointed a captain to return to their bondage [in place of "in their rebellion," in
Egypt] ; but thou art a God ready to pardon [a God of pardons] gracious and mer-
18 ciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Yea, when
they had made [Yea, they even made] them a molten calf, and said, This is thy
God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought [and wrought] great pro-
ly vocations ; yet [and] thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wil-
derness : the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the
way ; neither the pillar of [the] fire by night, to show them li ~ht, and the way
20 wherein they should go. Thou gavest also [And thou gavest] thy good Spirit to
instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them
21 water for their thirst. Yea forty years [And forty years] didst thou sustain them
in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and
22 their feet swelled not. Moreover [And] thou gavest them kingdoms and na-
tions, and didst divide them into corners [or districts] : so they possessed the land
of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon [perhaps, the land of Sihon, the king
23 of Heshbon], and the land of Og, king of Bashan. Their children also multipliedst
thou [And their children thou didst multiply] as the stars of heaven, and brought-
est them into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers, that
24 they should go in to possess it. [So [And] the children went in and possessed the
land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land ; the Canaanites,
and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that
25 they might do with them as they would. And they took strong cities, and a fat
land, and possessed huuses full of all goods, wells digged [cisterns hewn], vineyards
and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance: so [and] they did eat, and were filled,
26 and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness. Nevertheless
[And] they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind
their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee,
27 and they wrought great provocations. Therefore [And] thou deliveredst them into
the hand of their enemies who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble when
they cried [their oppressors who oppressed them : and in the time of their oppres-
sion they cried] unto thee, [and] thou heardest them from heaven ; and according
to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand
28 of their enemies [oppressors]. But after they had rest, they did evil again [they
returned to do evil] before thee : therefore leftest thou [and thou leftest] them in
the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them yet when
[and] they returned, and cried unto thee, [and] thou heardest them from heaven ;
29 and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies ; and testifiedst
against [to] them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law : yet [and]
they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but [and] sinned
against thy judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them [which a man shall
do and live in them], and withdrew the shoulder [gave a resisting shoulder], and
30 hardened their neck, and would not hear [did not hear]. Yet [And] many years
didst thou forbear them [i. e., act forbearingly towards them], and testifiedst against
[to] them by thy Spirit in thy prophets [by the hand of thy prophets] ; yet would
they not give ear [and they did not give ear] therefore gavest thou [and thou
31 gavest] them into the hand of the people of the lands. Nevertheless [And] for
thy great mercies' sake [in thy great mercies] thou didst not utterly consume them,
32 nor forsake them ; for thou art a gracious and merciful God. Now therefore [and
now], our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, wio keepest covenant
and mercy [the covenant and the mercy], let not all the trouble [distress] seem
little before thee, that hath come upon us [found us], on our kings, on our princes,
CHAP. IX. 1-38.
39
and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people,
33 since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day. Howbeit [And] thou art just
in all that is brought [comes] upon us ; for thou hast done right, but [and] we have
34 done wickedly : neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers
kept [done] thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies,
35 wherewith thou didst testify against [to] them. For they have not served thee in
their kingdom and in thy great goodness [blessings of prosperity] that thou gavest
them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, neither turned
36 they from their wicked works. Behold, we are servants this day, and [_as]for the
land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof,
37 behold, we are servants in it: and it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom
thou hast set over us because of our sins : also [and] they have dominion over our
38 bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress. And
because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it ; and our princes, Levites,
and priests seal unto it [are on the sealed covenant].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Confession.
The confession recorded in this chapter uses
largely the language of the older Scriptures. For
ver. 6 see Ps. lxxxvi. 10; Ex. xx. 11, and Deut.
x. 14. For ver. 9, see Ex. Hi. 7. For ver. 10,
see Jer. xxxii. 20. For ver. 11, see Ex. xv. 5,
10. For ver. 12, see Ex. xiii. 21. For ver. 13,
see Ex. xix. 20. For ver. 15, see Ps. cv. 40, 41.
For ver. 16, see 2 Kings xvii. 14. For ver. 17,
see Ps. lxxviii. 11 ; Ex. xxxiv. 6. For ver. 25,
see Deut. vi. 10, 11. For ver. 27, see Judg. ii.
14, 18. For ver. 29, see Lev. xviii. 5. For ver.
33, see Ps. cvi. 6. For ver. 35 and ver. 36, see
Deut. xxviii. 47, 48.
Ver. 1. The twenty and fourth day of
this month. — The 'Atzereth was the 22d day
of Tisri. Two days after is this special day of
fasting and confession. It must not be con-
founded with the Yom-hak-kippurim or Day of
Atonement, which was the 10th of Tisri.
Earth upon them, i. e., on their heads (see
1 Sam. iv. 12). Both earth and ashes were used
on the head as a sign of sorrow. Comp. 2 Sam.
xiii. 19. Our Eng. version has written here
sackclothea, but everywhere else has used
sackcloth for the Heb. plural.
This fasting, mourning and confession was not
a swing of the pendulum to the other extreme
from the joy and gladness of the Tabernacle's
f.'ast, but the action of the same religious spirit
which recognized God's greatfavors, but which at,
the same time recognized the great errors of the
people.
Ver. 2. The Bene-nechar or strangers were
foreigners who had become mixed with the Jews
by commercial interest or by marriage. Comp.
chap. xiii. 3, 27.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 8. r\)-\3 inf. abs. for r\*0.
T T -T
3 Ver. 22. D^DO^l. This Aramaean form is found in Judges v. 14, where it is poetical.
■ t -:~
3 Ver. 26. DU, In this phrase (see 1 Kings xiv. 0 ; Ezra xxiii. 35, and here) the Tsere becomes Pattahh, aa
if from 1 J not 1J.
* Ver. 28. D'fly fite^ for D13T D'!"^-
5 Ver. 38. njr3N. That this is not an adjective with fV"13 understood is evident from its use in chapter
tt": • :
xi. 23.
Ver. 3. And read.— Probably as before, Ezra
reading from the high platform to the great mul-
titude, and the Levites explaining in different
parts of the crowd. One-fourth part of the
day. — Probably half way to noon. Another
fourth part. — Probably the rest of the time till
noon. Comp. chap. viii. 3.
Ver. 4. Stairs. — See on chap. viii. 4. Je-
shua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Shere-
biah appear again in ver. 5, but Bunni, Bani
(2) and Chenani are replaced there by Hash-
abniah, Hodijah, and Pethahiah. So there
appears to have been two movements. The Le-
vites mentioned in the fourth verse openei the
service with a loud cry, perhaps a doxology, and
then the Levites mentioned in the fifth verse be-
gan the confession. Bunni is perhaps Binnui
of chap. x. 9. Bani (2) is perhaps Benina of
chap. x. 13. Chenani is probably Hanan of
chap. x. 10.
Ver. 5. Hashabniah. — In chap. x. 11 Hasha-
biah. Hodijah. — See chap. x. 10. Pethahiah.
— Perhaps Pelaiah of chap. x. 10. The only Le-
vites mentioned as sealing in chap. x. who are
not mentioned here are, then, Kelita, Micha, Re-
hob, Zaecur, Shebaniah (2), Hodijah (2).
Stand up and bless the Lord your God
for ever and ever.- — This the eight Levites cry
out to the people (some having perhaps seated
themselves), and then they make the confession
to God, doubtless from a written document pre-
pared for the occasion, so that all the eight speak
together, and eo make a strong voice lo be heard
by all. The Hebrew of this confession is quite
pure and largely borrowed from the older
books.
And blessed be thy glorious name. — •
Here the Fut. Piel is, with wav conversive, an as-
seriion made by Nehemiah himself in an ejacu-
latory form to God, thus: "The Levites said,
40
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
Stand up and bless the Lord, etc., and they [i. e.t
the people] blessed thy glorious name, which is
exalted above all blessing and praise." The
words of the people then begin with ver. 6.
Ver. 6. Heaven of heavens. — Intensive, for
the unseen as well as seen heaven. Host of
heaven — i.e., the angels.
Ver. 7. Ur of the Chaldees cannot be Mug-
heir by the Persian gulf, as is the present pre-
vailing theory. The Chaldees or Casdim in
Abraham's day (or in Moses' day) were not bo
far south. Ur was more likely in northern Me-
sopotamia, though scarcely so near to Haran as
Oorfa. The Semitic stock to which. Abraham
belonged seem to belong to northern Meso-
potamia.
Ver. 8. The Hivites are left out of this enume-
ration, perhaps to please their descendants, the
Nethinim. (See Josh. is. 7.)
Ver. 11. Mighty — in the sense of violent.
Comp. Ex. xv. 5 for the figure.
Vers. 13, 14. Judgments, laws, statutes,
commandments, precepts. — In Hebrew the
words are (in the singular) mishpah, torah, hole,
mitzwah. The last word is translated in E. V. by
"commandments" and "precepts." The mish-
pah has the idea of discrimination and decision
in it. The torah is a code. The hok is a sepa-
rate decree. The mitzwah is a simple order. The
adjectives "right," "true," and "good," are ex-
actly appropriate.
Ver. 17. Appointed a captain. — In Num.
xiv. 4 it is only stated that they proposed to ap-
point one. The proposition had been really car-
ried out. In their rebellion. — LXX.: h Al-
y'vTTTci, reading Dnm for Dnn. The LXX. is
probably right. Comp. Num. xiv. 4. The words
in Heb. come after "to their bondage."
Ver. 18. This is thy God. — Here "this thy
Elohim," and in Exod. xxxii. 4 "these thy Elo-
him." In each case only one God is referred to.
The plural style of the sentence in Exodus, both
as to the demonstrative and the verb, is simply
a conformity to the plural form of Elohim. The
molten calf may have been a copy of Apis or
Mnevis, or it may have been a cherub. Indeed
Apis and Mnevis may have been Egyptian forms
of the primeval cherubim.
Ver. 19. To show them light and the way
wherein they should go. — Better: to shed
light on them and the way, etc.
Ver. 20. Thou gavest also thy good Spi-
rit.— Referring to the event described in Numb.
xi. Comp. Isa. lxiii. 11.
Ver. 22. And didst divide them into cor-
ners.— Rather: And didst distribute them into dis-
tricts. The words "and the land of the," welh
eretz, before "king of Heshbon," seem to be an
error of transcription. "The land of Sihon, king
of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Ba«han "
is probably the right reading (comp. Deut. ii.
26, 30, and 36), or the old formula may have
been corrupted, "the land of Sihon, king of the
Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon,'' Deut. iii. 2tetc.
Ver. 24. With their kings. — Rather, both
their kings.
Ver. 25. Became fat. — This is Hiphil as in
Isa. vi. 10, and must be strictly rendered ''made
fat," i.e., themselves.
Ver. 26. Slew thy prophets. — See 1 Kings
xviii. 4; 2 Chron. xxiv. 21.
Ver. 27. Their enemies who vexed them,
and in the time of their trouble. — Better:
their oppressors, who oppressed them, and in the time
of their oppression.
Ver. 29. Testifiedst against. — Rather, tes-
tifiedst to. — So in ver. 30 and ver. 34.
Ver. 32. Since the time of the kings of
Assyria, i. e., the days of Pul and Tiglath-pile-
ser (2 Kings xv. 19, 29). This time was more
than three centuries before Nehemiah's day.
Ver. 35. In thy great goodness that thou
gavest them. — That is, in the great prosperity
{from thee) which thou gavest them. So in ver. 25.
" Thy goodness" is not God's moral attribute,
but the prosperity He gave them.
Ver. 38. This verse is the first of the tenth ch.
in Heb. Although the word "covenant" is in-
serted, it is warranted by the use of the verb
''carath," the full expression being "carath
berith."
HISTOEICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. If we marvel at the readiness of Israel to
fall away into alliances with the heathen, we
must also marvel at their readiness to return to
their separation before the testimony of their
law. There is no greater wonder displayed to
us in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah than the
Bpeediness of the work of these reformers in
drawing away the people of Israel from alliances,
where pecuniary interest and personal affection
had formed a double and most potent bond.
There must have been a prodigious vitality in the
old Mosaic commonwealth. No mere philosophic
reformers would have dared to venture on so
radical a movement against the deep-seated ten-
dencies of the people, and no people but those
who had a truly divine side to their life would
have hearkened to such a proposition. With all
their errors, how much there is to admire in
Israel !
2. Every covenant with God must, on man's
side, be founded on penitential confession of sin.
For God's grace, which is the content of His
part of the covenant, cannot enter a soul that
harbors its wickedness. When David acknow-
ledged his sin unto God, God's forgiveness poured
in upon his soul. (Ps. xxxii. 5.) After this
chapter of confession comes the chapter of the
covenant, with its natural issues of reform.
3. This confession is a prayer, although it has
no petition in it. It is the laying of the soul before
God in the attitude of awaiting. Often the best
part of a prayer is its rehearsal of God's good-
ness and our own short-comings. This increases
the receptivity of the soul. It removes worldli-
ness, increases faith, makes the spiritual eye-
sight clearer, and brings it en rapport with
heaven.
4. The distress of Israel under its political
burdens is recognised as part of the discipline
which God had exercised over the nation through
its entire history. The covenant is not consi-
dered as broken by God in all this. He had
been faithful. In this way Israel sees God's
grace in the midst of the afflictions. An infidel
heart would have regarded God as abandoning
CHAP. IX. 1-38.
41
His people, and have seen in their vicissitudes
only the ordinary fate of nations. Events are
to be judged not by their outward appearance,
but by the subjective truth, on which they really
depend. A godly soul understands this secret,
and draws from it great peace and strength.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-3. Tho penitential and fast-days of the
Lord's congregation. 1) Their time and cause.
They must alternate with facts and festivals ;
even God's favors must prompt us to observe
them. 2) Their aim — to confess sins, our own
as well as those of our ancestors, and to praise
God's mercy as contrasted with them (ver. 2).
3) The manner of their celebration. Occupation
with God's holy law forms the foundation which
help3 us to a right understanding of sin, and a
right appreciation of the grace. The aim is pe-
nitence, as also faith, which worships the Lord
(ver. 3). — Bede: Manifestius ostenditur, quanta
gratia devotionis omnes eorum personee novum post
festa skenopsegia conventum fecerint, ut videlicet
se iota inteniione a scelerum contagiis expurgaios
divino fcederi conjungcrent, ipsamque sancii fcederis
eonditionem et sermone confirmarent et scripto, acH
ab impiorum consortio separati securiores implerent
opus, quod jam dudum cceperant; id est, congruos
factse urbis cives de numero piorum instituerent. —
Starke: Confession of our sins before God is an
effect of true contrition for the same. Such con-
fession is necessary 1). As regards God who de-
mands ft (Jer. iii. 12, 13), who also wishes to be
recognised by men as holy, just, and true, and
will not forgive any sin without confession.
(Ps. xxxii. 5.) As regards the Mediator; for as
He confessed our sins and tbe sins of the whole
world before God, with words and deed through
suffering punishment for His people, so must we,
much more, confess our own sins, if indeed we
wish to be partakers of the merit of Christ. (1
John i. 7, 8.) 3) As regards the Holy Spirit's
office of correction, whose work it is to convince
the sinner. 4) As regards ourselves, for if we
will not confess we remain under God's wrath.
(1 John i. 8). 5) As regards our neighbor: for
if we have provoked him, such provocation must
be done away, and thereby the honor be given
to God. God wishes that public assemblies
should be held in the church. Heb. x. 15. When
we keep penitential and fast-days, or go to the
holy communion, we should fast, lay aside all
adornment, and appear in plain dress, with
honest, humble hearts.
Vers. 4—15. God's faithfulness to the covenant.
1) Its preparative activity. It lets itself far
down, and gives the prospect of great and glo-
rious things (vers. 4-8). Its saving activity
(vers. 9-11). It takes pity upon misery, over-
comes the oppressor, and removes hinderances
and perplexities even in nature. 3) Its preserv-
ing and perfecting activities. It shows the way,
and provides for God's flock, in body and soul,
and incites it to appropriate the promises (ver.
8.) The goal of the Old and New Testament
covenant life is, the earthly and heavenly in-
heritance. 1) The promise of the same. At the
calling of Abraham; then in the gospel. 2) The
way to it. Through the wilderness of Arabia ;
then through tho wilderness of life. 3) The
power which proceeds from it, particularly for
Israel alter it had obtained the same for us
already, while we yet hope for it. — Starke :
Our good, heavenly Father gives earthly goods
in possession to His children, in order that they
may have good hope of the heavenly inheritance.
Vers. 16-25. God's pardoning grace. 1) He
does not refuse it in spite of our disobedience
(ver. 16), in spite of faithlessness (ver. 17), in
spite of open backsliding (ver. 18). Much more,
He shows His gracious presence to lead us to the
high prize of the calling (ver. 19), gives His good
and Holy Spirit for instruction; gives also the
bread and water of life for hunger and thirst
(ver. 20). 2) He punishes indeed, but affords,
even in the time of punishment experiences,
proofs, and advances of grace (vers. 21-23). 3)
He brings us richly blessed to the prize of the
calling (vers. 24, 25).
Vers. 20, 21. God's gracious care. 1) He pro-
vides both for bodily and spiritual necessities.
2) He provides it by great aud small, startling
and insignificant miracles. 3) He provides it
during the march through the wilderness, that
He may bring His people into Canaan..
Ver. 21. The wisdom of the divine care. 1)
Its manner: God often helps, not in a startling,
but in an insignificant way, quietly, yes, secretly
blessing. 2) Its reason. The faith of His people
is best tried, exercised, and strengthened in this
way. 3) Its aim. That the godly may accustom
themselves in all things, even in the insignificant,
to perceive God's helping father hand, and shall
learn the art to let all and everything, even the
daily common-place, be a cause of thanks and of
joy. — Starke: God punishes the persecutors of
His people energetically. Our pillar of cloud,
which shows us the way to our everlasting father-
land, is the ministry of the gospel, in which God
is truly present and powerful. Although God
does not immediately place all the godly in fruit-
ful and pleasant places, nor give them bread
from heaven, nor water from the rock, still He
gives them, notwithstanding, necessary nourish-
ment and clothing wherewith they should be sa-
tisfied. Matt. vi. 31,32; 1 Tim. vi. 8. Thewicked-
ness of mankind is so great when left to itself,
that they are not bettered by the divine benefits,
but indeed become worse, and in the highest in-
gratitude towards our God, return evil for good.
Although with us is a multitude of sins, with
God is plenteous redemption. Ps. exxx. 7. Let
no one therefore say with Cain, My Bins are
greater than it is possible to forgive. Gen.
iv. 13.
Vers. 26-31. God's educating wisdom. 1)
God indeed chastises, but He again has mercy
(vers. 26, 27). 2) God has mercy many times,
but He also admonishes to follow His precepts,
in the observance of which man has his life (vers.
28, 29). 3) He admonishes a long while, and
punishes and increases His punishment to the
utmost if He is not listened to, but nevertheless
He never gives him entirely up whom it is possi-
ble to help (vers. 30, 31).
Vers. 26-37. The grounds for the petition for
forgiveness and mercy. 1) God's unwearied
mercy in the past (vers. 26-31). 2) God's jus-
tice and our guilt in the present, particularly aa
42
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
they are to be recognised in connection with our
troubles (verses 32-35). 3) The greatness of
our need and trouble (vers. 36, 37).
Vers. 32-37. The debasement of the congrega-
tion at the present time. 1) Wherein it consists.
2) What is its cause. 3) What its aim. — Starkk:
It is very consoling to think of the mercy of
God which He has shown to our ancestors, for
the same God lives yet. We must hold ourselves
in true faith to the promises of God, for they will
never fail. When the godly are involved in the
greatest danger God cares for them the most,
and knows how to rescue them. We are chas-
tised by God that we may not be condemned with
the world. When God wishes to deliver His
people, He does not look at what they have de-
served, but at what His immeasurable mercy
demands. Those who have provoked God to
anger by their sins have little happiness to ex-
pect so long as they go on without penitence.
True confession — confession of the name of God
and believing prayer, are the right means by
which the enemy are again to be driven away.
Lord, when trouble is present, they seek thee,
etc. Isa. xxvi. 16. Although a false religion
may have a great appearance of sanctity and
piety before people, yet is it in the sight of God
a great abomination. What beautiful surnames
has God. Oh soul I mark them well, that tlum
mayest remember them when conscience accuses,
and when thou art in trouble, that thou mayest
not despond.
Chapter X. 1-39.
1 Now those that sealed [and on the sealed documents] were Nehemiah, the Tir-
2 shatha, the son of Hachaliah, and Zidkijah [i. e., Zedekiah] Seraiah, Azariah, Je-
3, 4, 5 remiah, Pashur, Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, Harim,
6, 7 Meremoth, Obadiah, Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin,
8, 9 Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah: these were the priests. And the Levites : both Je-
10 shua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel ; and their bre-
11 thren, Shebaniah, Hodijah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan, Micha, Rehob, Hashabiah,
12, 13, 14 Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, Hodijah, Bani, Beninu. The chief of the
15, 16 people : Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zatthu, Bani, Bunni, Azgad, Bebai, Ado-
17, 18 nijah, Bigvai, Adin, Ater, Hizkijah [i. e., Hezekiah], Azzur, Hodijah, Hashum,
19, 20, 2 1 Bezai, Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai, Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir, Meshezabeel,
22, 23, 24 Zadok, Jaddua, Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah, Hoshea, Hananiah, Hashub, Hal-
25, 26 lohesb, Pileha, Shobek, Behum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah, and Ahijah, Hanan,
27 Anan, Malluch, Harim, Baanah.
28 And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the
Nethimm, and all tbey that had separated themselves from the people of the lands
unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters every one having
29 knowledge and having understanding ; they clave to their brethren, their nobles,
and entered into a curse and into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given
by [the hand of] Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the com-
30 mandments of the Lord our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes; And that
we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daugh-
31 ters for our sons: And if the people of the land bring -ware or any victuals on the
Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath or on the
holy day : and that we would leave [i. e., leave the land to lie untitled] the seventh
32 year and the exaction [loan] of every debt [hand]. Also [And] we made ordi-
nances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the ser-
33 vice of the house of our God; for the shewbread [the bread of arrangement], and
for the continual meat-offering, and for the continual burnt-offering of the Sabbaths,
of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin-offer-
ings, to make an atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.
34 And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood-
offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at
times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the Lord our God, as it is
35 written in the law: And to bring the first-fruits of our ground, and the first-fruits
CHAP. X. 1-39.
4S
36 of all fruit of all trees, year by year, unto the house of the Loed: also the first-
bom of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of
our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, unto the priests that
37 minister in the house of our God : and that we should bring the first-fruits [begin-
ning] of our dough [groats], and [o/] our offerings [oblations], and [o/J the fruit
of all manner of trees, of [new] wine and of oil, unto the priests, to the chambers of
the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same
Levites might have the tithes [perhaps, and they the Levites pay tithes] in all the
38 cities of our tillage [service]. And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the
Levites, when the Levites take [perhaps, pay] tithes : and the Levites shall bring
up the tithe of the tithes [tithe] unto the house of our God, to the chambers, into
39 [belonging unto] the treasure house. For the children [sons] of Israel and the
children [sons] of Levi shall bring the offering [oblation] of tne corn, of the new
wine, and [of] the oil, unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary,
and the priests that minister, and the porters, and the singers : and we will not for-
sake the house of our God.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 31. f-Sj N&D1 [or Nt^DlJ nnfWn nji^nnX tfBJV The ellipsis is to be filled from Ex. xxiii.
YTT- .T- • ■ I " TT " -*!
U. H1WDJ1 njapErfl fiyatyni, where the pronoun refers to SIX of the preceding yerse.
» Ver. 37. Dpjj/ypn here and 1^3 in ver. 38. (Piel part, and Hiph. inf. of ~\\gy\ if we followthe analogy
of Deut. xiv. 22, and xxvi. 32, must refer to the paying and not to the receiving tithes.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Covenant.
Vers. 1-8. Because of these twenty-three names
fifteen are supposed to be fouud in the list (ch.
xii. 1—7) of the priests who came with Zerubba-
bel in the preceding century, it is held by many
that this list contains only family names, and that
these families were represented by descendants
in the signing, Ezra, for example, signing for his
ancestor Seraiah. But as we find Nehemiah in
the list, and also the very Levites (vers. 9-13),
who individually stood upon the stairs on the
24th of Tisri (chap. ix. 4, 5), it is better to sup-
pose that the similarity of the names is acciden-
tal, and that family names only occur in the list
of the people, vers. 14-27, if even there. The
only alternative is harsh in two features: first,
that the Levites on the stairs should be called, in
a plain historical statement, by their family
names; and secondly, that family names and
personal names should be so strangely mixed.
Moreover, it is to be noted that the family names
of chap. vii. and of Ezra ii. are not all repeated
here. We have abundant evidence of the very
common use of the same names among the Israel-
ites, and a theory, which that fact will explain,
seems the easier one here.
Vers. 9-27. See above note.
Ver, 28. The rest of the people, i.e., besides
the chiefs given in vers. 14-27. The word rest
(Heb. shear) seems to carry its force to the other
classes enumerated, to wit, the rest of the priests,
etc.; that is, besides those enumerated. Every
one having knowledge and having under-
standing.— This evidently qualifies the general
phrase before it. Not all the rest, but those who
had knowledge and understanding, joined their
brethren in the reform.
Ver. 29. Clave to their brethren, their
nobles. — That is, to their brethren, the chiefs
above mentioned. Commandments, etc. — See
on chap. ix. 13, 14.
Ver. 31. We would leave the seventh
year and the exaction of every debt. — The
verb natash (leave) here seems to have a pregnant
meaning. We would leave fallow the land each
seventh year (comp. Exod. xxiii. 11), and remit at
that time (lit.) the debt of every hand. See Deut.
xv. 2.
Ver. 32. The third part of a shekel.— This
tax, thus first laid, became afterward a half she-
kel. (See Matt. xvii. 24, where the Greek is
didrachma, i.e., a half Bhekel.) The half shekel
tax of Ex. xxx. 13 is another matter, not an an-
nual tax, but ransom money to be taken at a
census as a mark of the Lord's ownership.
Ver. 33. The shew-bread. — Heb. lehem ham-
maareketh (bread of arrangement). The older
phrase is lehem happanim (bread of the face).
The continual meat-offering. — Heb. minhath
hattarnidh. — The continual burnt-offering.
— Heb. olath hattarnidh. So the shew-bread is
called lehem hattarnidh (Num. iv. 7). So called as
oft-recurring in distinction from the occasional
offerings. Here, as we see, the offerings are
those of each day, of the sabbaths, and of the
new moons. — The set feasts are mentioned
separately with lamedh (for).
Ver. 34. Tor the wood-offering. — Heb. kur-
ban haetzim. The feast of the wood-offering (Jo-
sephus, B. J., II. 17, 6) on the 14th of Ab arose
from this institution of Nehemiah. It was the
day when those assigned to the duty brought in
the wood for the altar. (See Lev. vi. 12 )
Ver. 35. The first fruits of all fruits of all
trees.— See Lev. xix. 24 and comp. Deut. xxvi. 2.
Ver. 36. The first born of our sons. — That
is, by bringing redemption-money, as ordered in
Numb, xviii. 15, 16. Cattle. — Heb. behemoth.
Here unclean beasts, as contrasted with the herds
and flocks below. These were also redeemed.
(See Num. I. c.)
44
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
Ver. 37. First fruits of our dough (groata
or ground meal). — See Num. xv. 20. Offerings
— i. e., all special offerings. Chambers. — Heb.
lishcoth. The cells or chambers in the courts of
the temple. Might have the tithes. — Many
read might pay tithes, anticipating the statement
of the next verse. Tillage. — There may be a
reasonable doubt whether anodhah ever means
tillage, unless, as in 1 Chron. xxvii. 26, it is
qualified by another noun. It may mean here
"service" in the relation of servants to God, as
elsewhere. To suppose that the cities of work or
service must mean the country towns, is scarcely
credible.
Ver. 38. To the chambers, into the trea-
sure house. — Rather, to the chambers of the trea-
sure house, one of the buildings in the temple area.
The tithe of the tithes belonged to the priests
(Num. xviii. 26-28), the children of Aaron.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The natural leaders of a people are largely
responsible for the people' s conduct. The priests,
Levites, and chiefs, the nobles of the nation rea-
dily find a following. Nchemiah, as Tirshatha,
puts his own name first to the solemn reform-
document, and then he causes the nobles to set
their names to the instrument. A reform begun
the other way in the lower circles of society is
apt to degenerate into the excesses of revolution.
The healing salt should be thrown in at the
sources of the streams, if the waters are to be
cured.
2. The points specially indicated, wherein the
reform was most pressing, are (1) marriage al-
liances, (2) Sabbath-observance, (3) usury, (4)
temple-taxes of the third part of a shekel, of
first-fruits and of tithes. On these points wo
may believe the people had been especially re-
miss. They were the points where their covet-
ousness would operate to undermine their piety,
and thus the integrity of the commonwealth.
Was not that, which has become a distinctive
trait of the Israclitish rac, already in Nehe-
miah's time beginning to develop itself?
3. When a people grow remiss in the support
of religious privileges, the foundations of society
are shaken. The moral tone of any people can
only be cultivated and sustained by systematized
methods, for natural depravity must take advan-
tage of the lack of discipline, and prove too
strong for morality. Religion, in any true and
high sense, is an exotic, and must be tenderly
cared for in this sin-grown earth. The zeal of
Nehemiah and other reformers for the thorough
establishment of religious rites is a wise exam-
ple to all who come after them. Where the state
cannot enforce such a result, public opinion can
be made.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Ver. 1. To what the consideration of the Lord's
faithfulness to the covenant leads us: 1) To pe-
nitence and conversion which shows itself through
obedience. 2) To faith — particularly in the fact
that the Lord always keeps His covenant with
us, and that it is only necessary that we on our
part should confirm and maintain it. 3) To hope
that the Lord will set us free, and evermore
aid us to the glorious liberty of the children of
God.
Vers. 31, 32. The principal duties of the con-
gregation and its members: 1) To keep them-
selves unspotted, and particularly separated
from the world. 2) To practice communion
with the Lord, and especially in the way that is
beneficial to us in this mortal state. Bede:
Porro sabbatismus orationum ac dcvolwnis nostra;,
in qua vacamus a temporalibus agendis, ut oztermla~
tis gaudia dulcius gustarc mereamur, recte diei septv-
mo adsignatur quia futurce quietem vitce ac beaten
laudationis imitatur: sed diem sabbathi cdienigeiKS
qucerunt profanare, cum terrence cogitationes in tem-
pore nostrce orationis importune nos conturbant, et
memoria sive delectatione temporalium rcrum ab
amore intimo nituntur extrahere. — Imponunt asinis
vinum, uvas et feus et omne onus, et inferunt in
Hierusalem, cum oblectamentis carnalibus stultos
animi nostri motus onerantes, per hose et hujus modi
tcntamenta quietem nostri cordis deo debitam violare
conantur. Comp. chap. xiii. 15.
Vers. 33-40. The tasks to which each member
of the congregation must submit himself. 1) The
offerings which must be made directly to the
Lord for the erection of His buildings, expenses
of the service, etc. 2) The doing that which as-
sists the servants of the Lord. Stakke; My
God ! I remember that I too made a covenant with
Thee at my baptism. I beseech thee seal the
same also in me, and give me in my heart the
pledge, the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. i. 21, 22; 2 Cor.
v. 5). We must not only ourselves have a Chris-
tian zeal for true religion, but also incite others
to it, and admonish them (Heb. x. 24; Ps. xlix.
2). Marriages with the godless are displeasing
to God, and dangerous (1 Tim. ii. 14). Nothing
must be so near to us that it withdraws us from
the service of God.
CHAP. XI. 1-36.
45
Chapter XI. 1-36.
1 And the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem : the rest of ttie people also
[and the rest of the people] cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem, the
2 holy city, and nine parts to dwell in [the] other cities. And the people blessed all
the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem.
3 Now [And] these are the chief of the province that dwelt in Jerusalem: but in
the cities of Judah dwelt [and which dwelt in the cities of Judah] every one in his
possession in their cities, to wit, Israel [i. e., the people], the priests, and the Le-
4 vites, and the Nethinim, and the children [sons] of Solomon's servants. And at
Jerusalem dwelt certain of the children [sons] of Judah, and of the children [sons]
of Benjamin. Of the children [sons] of Judah; Athaiah, the son of Uzziah, the
son of Zechariah, the son of Amariah, the son of Shephatiah, the son of Mahala-
5 leel, of the children [sons] of P.rez (t. e., Pharez): and Maaseiah, the son of Ba-
ruch, the son of Col-hozeh, the son of Hozaiah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Joia-
6 rib, the son of Zechariah, the son of Shiloni [Shelah's family]. All the sons of Pe-
rez that dwelt at Jerusalem were four hundred three-score and eight valiant men.
7 And these are the sons of Benjamin; Sallu the son of Meshullam, the son of
Joed, the son of Pedaiah, the son of Kolaiah, the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ithiel,
8 the son of Jesaiah [i. e., Isaiah]. And after him Gabbai, Sallai, nine hundred
9 twenty and eight. And Joel the son of Zichri was their overseer: And Judah the
10 son of Senuah was second over the city [was over the second city]. Of the priests :
11 Jedaiah the son of Joiarib, Jachin. Seraiah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Me-
shullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, was the ruler of
12 the house of God. And their brethren that did the work of the house were eight
hundred twenty and two : and Adaiah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Pelaliah, the
13 son of Amzi, the son of Zechariah, the son of Pashur, the son of Malchiah, and his
brethren, chief of the fathers, two hundred forty and two: and Amashai, the soa
14 of Azareel, the son of Ahasai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer, and their
brethren, mighty men of valour, a hundred twenty and eight, and their overseer
was Zabdiel, the son of one of the great men [son of the mighty].
15 Also [And] of the Levites : Shemaiah the son of Hashub, the son of Azrikam,
16 the son of Hashabiah, the son of Bunni ; and Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chief
of the Levites had the oversight of [were over] the outward business of the house of
17 God. And Mattaniah, the son of Micha, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, was
the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer [perhaps, the chief of the prai e-
song who gave thanks at prayer-service] : and Bakbukiah the second among his
brethren, and Abda the son of Shammua, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun.
18, 19 All the Levites in the holy city were two hundred fourscore and four. More-
over [And] the porters, Akkub, Talmon, and their brethien that kept the gates,
were a hundred seventy and two.
20 And the residue of Israel, of the priests, and the Levites, were in all the cities of
21 Judah, every one in his inheritance. But [And] the Nethinim dwelt in Ophel :
22 and Ziha and Gispa were over the Nethinim. The overseer also [and the overseer]
of the Levites at Jerusalem was Uzzi, the son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the
son of Mattaniah, the son of Micha. [Some] Of the sons of Asaph, the singers
23 were over the business of the house of God. For it [there] was the king's com-
mandment concerning them, that a certain portion should be for the singers [and
a sure ordinance concerning the singers] due for every day [the thing of a day on
24 its day] . And Pethahiah, the son of Meshezabeel, of the children of Zerah, the son
of Judah, was at the king's hand in all matters concerning the people.
40
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
25 And [As] for the villages with their fields, some of the children [sons] of Judah
dwelt at Kirjath-arba and in the villages [daughters] thereof, and at Dibon, and in
26 the villages [daughters] thereof, and at Jekabzeel and in the villages thereof) and
27 at Jeshua, and at Moladah, and at Beth-phelet, and at Hazar-shual, and at Beer-
28 sheba, and in the villages [daughters] thereof, and at Ziklag, and at Mekonah, and
29 in the villages [daughters] thereof, and at En-rimmon, and at Zareah, and at Jar-
30 muth, Zanoah, Adullam, and in their villages, at Lachish and the fields thereof, at
Azekah, and in the villages [daughters] thereof. And they dwelt from Beer-sheba
into the valley of Hinnom.
31 The children also of Benjamin [and the sons of Benjamin] from Geba
dwelt at Michmash [dwelt from Geba to Michmash] and Aija, and Bethel, and in
32 their villages [daughters], and at Anathoth, Nob, Ananiah, Hazor, Kamah, Git-
33, 34, 35 taim, Hadid, Zeboim, Neballat, Lod, and Ono, the valley of craftsmen.
36 And of the Levites were divisions in Judah, and in Benjamin [divisions of Ju-
dah were to Benjamin].
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 Ver. 17. rnnfin instead of being an error for rwPinn, may be for ri7nfi3,
T • : ~ T * : - T • ; -
prayer he gave thanks."
' chief at the beginning of
EXEGKETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The Places of Abode.*
Ver. 1. The rest of the people also. —
And the rest of the people — that is, other than the
rulers.
Ver. 2. That willingly offered them-
selves— i. e., those of the people, beside the
tenth part chosen by lot, who also consented to
dwell in Jerusalem as the place of greatest dan-
ger and need. (See chap. vii. 4.)
Ver. 3. The relative construction should be
used with both clauses, thus: now these are the
chiefs of the province who dwelt in Jerusalem, and
those who dwelt in the cities of Judah (every one in
his possession in their cities) — to wit, Israel, etc.
Israel — -i. e., the people of Israel as contrasted
with priests, Levites, etc. The children of
Solomon's servants. — See on chap. vii. 57.
Ver. 4. Athaiah was chief of the Bene-Pha-
rcts, or children of Perez (Pharez). See Gen.
xxxviii. 29; 1 Chron. iv. 1. In 1 Chron. ix. 4
he is called JJthai, and his genealogy traced by
a different line.
Ver. 5. Maaseiah was chief of the Shilonites
or children of Shelah. His grandfather Colho-
zch is probably the same as the father of Shallun
in chap. iii. 15. He is called Asaiah in 1 Chron.
ix. 5. Shiloni. — Heb.: hash-shiloni. Not a
man's name, but -,i family's title, to wit, the
children of Shelah, Judah's son. See 1 Chron.
ix. 5. These descendants of Shelah are counted
with those of Pharez. Athaiah and Maaseiah
were thus the chiefs of Judah. Jcuel of the sons
of Zerah, mentioned in 1 Chron. ix. G, is omitted
here.
Ver. 6. This verse appears to be out of its
place. It should precede ver. 5.
* This chapter is intimately connected with chapter
vii. 4, showing Nohemiah's plan of increasing the popu-
lation of the city. The genealogies and then the con-
fession and covenant came in parenthetically — the for-
mer as part of the process in the plan, and the latter as
chronologically happening while Nehemiah was ma-
turing the plan.
Ver. 7. The family of Jesaiah in Benjamin,
of which Sallu was chief, is not otherwise
known. Sallu's pedigree is differently reckoned
in 1 Chron. ix. 7. The text in Chronicles is pro-
bably defective.
Ver. 8. Gabbai and Sallai are other Benja-
mite chiefs.
Ver. 9. Joel the son of Sichri was overseer
(Heb.: pakid, emaKoirog) over both the Judahitea
and Benjamites of the city. His office was pos-
sibly a police one. Judah the son of Senuah
was over the second city (not second over the
city). — The second city was a well-known part
of Jerusalem. It was there Huldah the pro-
phetess lived in .Tosiah's time. See 2 Kings xxii.
14, where the Eng. vers, has "college" for the
Heb. mishneh. In Zeph. i. 10 the Eog. vers, has
''second." It was probably the part of the city
built up north of the temple. The parallel chap-
ter in 1 Chron. (chap, ix.), which seems to be
very corrupt in its reading, appears to have
"Joel, the son of Zichri," in "Elah, the son of
Uzzi, the son of Michri," and to have "Judah,
the sou of Senuah," in "Hodaviah, the son of
Hasenuah," the former a Benjamite, and the
latter an ancestor of Sallu. That list also intro-
duces as Benjamites " Ibneiah, the son of Jero-
ham," and "Meshullam, the son of Shephatiah,
the son of Keuel, the son of Ibnijah."
Joel and Judah were the two inspectors or
overseers over the Judahitea and Benjamites in
the entire city.
Vers. 10, 11. There is great oonfusion in this
part of the record, and we are not helped much'
by 1 Chron. ix. Both lists have been copied
probably from a defective record. Jedaiah,
Joiarib and Jachin were the heads of three
of the twenty-four courses of priests in David's
time (1 Chron. xxiv. 7, 17). Seraiah was
high-priest before the captivity (1 Chron. vi. 14).
These names appear to be fragments of a record
which in its fulness showed the heads of these
families in Nehemiah's time. The phrase "ruler
of the house of God (negid beth ha-elohim) can
belong to Ahitub or Seraiah. The Eng, verB.
wrongly inserts " was." It is a title of the high-
CHAP. XI. 1-36.
47
priest. See 2 Chron. xxxi. 13. Also compare
1 Chron. ix. 11. Also see 1 Chron. xii. 27,
where Jehoiada {negid of the Aaronites) seems to
be the same as Ahitub the father of Zadok.
In ver. 10 Jedaiah, the son of Joiarib, is
doubtless wrong, ami the form in 1 Cliron. ix.
10 should be followed, to wit, Jedaiah and Jeho-
iarib. In ver. 11 (as in 1 Chron. ix. 11) the
words the son of Meraioth are out of place
and should follow "Ahitub," as Meraioth was
grandfather (1 Chron. vi. 7) or great-grandfather
(Ezra vii. 3) of Ahitub. For this last discrep-
ancy we may suppose the two sequences in the
high-priesthood of "Amariah, Ahitub, Zadok"
(one before Solomon, and the other after Solo-
mon) are the occasion. One list has taken the
latter, where Ahitub's grandfather is Azariah,
and the other has taken the former where Ahi-
tub's grandfather is Meraioth. [We use ''fa-
ther" and "grandfather" in the formal sense,
denoting the proximity of the names in the re-
cords, not the actual relationship.]
Ver. 12. And their brethren — i. e., the bre-
thren or kinsfolk of the chiefs of the priests
whose names are lost in the above record (as we
have seen in the preceding note). Adaiah was
chief of the children of Malchiah, the head of the
fifth oourse in David's day (1 Chron. xxiv. 9).
Ver. 13. Chief of the fathers. — This clause
seems to be out of place, for we can hardly sup-
pose that the Malchiah family were all chiefs.
Adaiah had 242 in his kinsfolk, over whom he
was chief, just as the representatives of the high-
priest's family and the families of Jedaiah, Joia-
rib and Jachin had 822 in their kinsfolk (ver.
12). This phrase "chief of the fathers" be-
longs to all these head men of families, and was
probably at the head of the list originally. It
may have found its place here from the analogy
of the phrase "mighty men of valour" in ver.
14. See 2 Chron. xxvi. 12 for a collocation of
the two phrases. Amashai (Maasiai in 1 Chron.
ix. 12) was chief of the children of Immer, the
head of the sixteenth course in David's time.
His pedigree in 1 Chron. ix. is merely a corrup-
tion of this one.
Ver. 14. Their brethren. — Probably an er-
ror for "his brethren" — that is, Amashai's.
Their overseer -was Zabdiel. — He was pakid
(see on ver. 9) of all the priests. He is called
son of the mighty ones — a phrase that seems to de-
note a remarkable ancestry. The numbers here
and in 1 Chron. ix. 13 differ by 568. Errors in
numbers and in names are almost necessities in
transcribing.
Vers. 15-17. This list of Levites omits the
names of Heresh, Oalal and Berechiah, given in
1 Chron. ix. 15, 16; but contains the names of
Shabbethai and Jozabad not mentioned there. In
this list (ver. 14) we have the son of Bunni
(i. e., Bnni, one of the families of Merari), where
in 1 Chron. ix. 14 we find "of the sons of Me-
rari." Bakbukiah here is Bakbakkar there.
Zabdi here is Zichri there. Abda here is Oba-
diah there. Of the Levitical chiefs, Shabbethai
and Jozabad had the oversight of the out-
ward business of the house of God. — That
iB, attended to the secular department of service
as directors therein (comp. 1 Chron. xxvi. 29).
The principal to begin the thanksgiving
in prayer. — Literally ''the chief of the begin-
ning gave thanks to prayer." Some would read
tehillah instead of tehhillah, a most natural cor-
rection. We should then have "the chief of the
praise-song [who] gave thanks (as introductory)
to prayer."
Ver. 18. These six (or nine) Levitical chiefs
had a constituency of 284.
Ver. 19. Akkub, Talmon.— The list in 1
Chron. ix. adds Shallum (as chief of all) and
Aliiman, and makes the number 212 instead of
172. The account in 1 Chron. is much more ex-
tended on this matter of the porters, thus show-
ing that this record (as is that also) is but a
fragment of an older document. Both copies
have been marred in the transcribing.
Ver. 20. This verse belongs between ver. 24
and ver. 25, after Jerusalem is disposed of.
Ver. 21. Nethinim — Ophel. — See on chap,
iii. 26.
Ver. 22. The pakid (see on ver. 9) of all the
Levites, including the Nethinim, was Uzzi.
The last clause should read: The singers of the
sons of Asaph (or some of the sons of Asaph, the
singers, — see same construction in ver. 25) were
over the business of the house of God. This "busi-
ness" is not the "outward business" of ver. 16.
If (with Kcil) we disregard the Athnahh, we
may consider Uzzi's pedigree as goiug on in this
last clause, thus: "the son of Micha, of the sons
of Asaph the singers in the service of the house
of God." In this case the parallel with ver. 17
would be striking. There may be an omission
in that verse before Mattaniah, and this Uzzi
may be the first of the three leading singers —
Bakbukiah and Abda being the other two. But
see next note.
Ver. 23. Read : for it was the king's command-
ment concerning them and a sure ordinance for the
singers for each day's duty (lit. "the thing of a
day on its day "). Uzzi was pakid of the Levites
generally, but the Asaphites took turns in di-
recting the Levitical work. This 23d verse —
making the singers (in the plural) the main sub-
ject, seems to show that our E. V. is right in
stopping Uzzi's genealogy (in ver. 22) at Micha,
and then beginning a new passage. The Maso-
rites took this view, as the Athnahh with Micha
shows. There is probably some confusion be-
tween ver. 22 and vers. 15 and 17, if we may
judge from the names. Compare the passage in
1 Chron. ix.
Ver. 24. Pethahiah of the Zerahites (or Zar-
hites) was at the hand of the king. — This
does not mean that he was at Susa, but that he
was the king's special agent. Comp. 1 Chron.
xxiii. 28, where the Levites are said to be at the
hand of the sons of Aaron. Pcthahiah's office
may have taken him often to Susa, and he would
thus be the go-between between the king and
Nehemiah.
Ver. 25. Kirjath-Arba — i. e., Hebron (Josh,
xiv. 15). The villages thereof. — Lit. the
daughters thereof. The word is a different one
from that at the beginning of the verse (hatz'er).
It is repeated after Dibon, but the other word
returns after Jekabzeel. This use of daughters
for dependent towns is common in the earlier
books. Dibon. — Doubtless the Dimonah of
48
THE BOOK OP NEHBMIAH.
Josh. xv. 22. Jekabzeel. — The Kabzeel of
Josh. xv. 21.
Ver. 26. Jeshua. — Probably the Shema of
Josh. xv. 26, the letters in Hebrew being easily
mistaken in transcription. Moladah is El
Milh. Beth-phelet— The Beth-palet of Josh,
xxi. 27.
Ver. 27. Hazar-shual — like all the above,
except Hebron and Moladah, is unknown.
Beersheba is Bir es-Seba, twenty-five miles
eouth-west of Hebron, and ten miles west of
Moladah.
Ver. 28. Ziklag, conspicuous in David's his-
tory (1 Sam. xxx.), is supposed to be Asluj, on
the road from El Milh to Abdeh. Mekonah —
possibly a mistake for Madmannah of Josh. xv.
30. It only requires a mem dropped and a daleth
changed to a kaph.
Ver. 29. En-rimmon is spoken of in Josh. xv.
32 as two places. Keil supposes them two towns
closely neighboring which finally grew into one.
Zareah. — Zoreah (Josh. xv. 33) or Zorah (Judg.
xiii. 2) is Zurah, fourteen miles west of Jerusa-
lem. Jarmuth is 16 miles south-west of Jeru-
salem, on the slope of the mountain country, and
about eight miles from the Shephelah or Philis-
tine plain. It is 15 miles from Hebron.
Ver. 30. Zanoah is Zanua, or, perhaps, Kh.
Sanut. Adullam — identified by Ganneau with
Sh. Mudhkur, on the east side of Wady Sur, near
Socoh. Lachish — 36 miles south-west of Jeru-
salem. Azekah is Deir el Aashek. From
Beersheba unto the valley of Hinnom (or valley
of the sons, or son, of Hinnom) is a distance of
nearly 50 miles.
Ver. 31. Read: and the children of Benjamin
dwelt from Oeba to Michmash and Aija and Bethel
and her villages. G-eba is Jeba. Michmash is
Mukhmas. Aija or Ai is probably Tell el Hajar,
as Van de Velde thinks. Bethel is Beitin.
Ver. 32. Anathoth is Anata, Jeremiah's
birth-place. Nob is probably Neby Samwil, ac-
cording to Lieut. Conder's suggestion {Quarterly
Statement of Pal. Expl. Fund. London, Jan. 1876).
Ananiah is unknown.
Ver. 33. Hazor is not identified. Ramah is
Er-Ram. Gittalm is unknown.
Ver. 34. Hadid is supposed to be near Lydda.
Zeboim is not identified. Neballat is Beit
Nebala, near Lydda.
Ver. 85. Lod is Lydda (Ludd). Ono is be-
lieved to be near Lydda, at Kefr Auna. (See
Van de Velde.) The valley of craftsmen —
i. e., Charashim (see 1 Chron. iv. 14) was proba-
bly in the vicinity of Lydda.
Ver. 36. Read: And of the Levites divisions of
Judah went to Benjamin. These Levites were
transferred from former stations in Judahite
towns to stations in Benjamite towns.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. Jerusalem was peculiarly the post of labor
and danger, — of labor, because the fortifications
•would require constant guarding, and of danger,
because the enemies of the Jews would naturally
concentrate their efforts against the holy oity.
A willing offering of any to dwell in Jerusalem
was therefore a mark of self-denial for the sake
of country and religion. 'The popular blessing
fell upon such. Even those who did not so vo-
lunteer could not but admire this devotion, and
join in the general admiration. Happy is the
people, where there is such a cause for the pub-
lic favor.
2. The additional population of Jerusalem in-
cluded men of Judah, men of Benjamin, Levites,
and Nethinim. There were, doubtless, remnants
of the ten tribes with preserved pedigrees min-
gled with the returned Jews, as we find four cen-
turies later Phanuel mentioned as of the tribe of
Asher (Luke ii. 36), but none of these seem to
have been reckoned in the public genealogies.
They had not come back with Zerubbabel, for it
is not probable that many (if any) from the rem-
nant of the ten tribes went into captivity under
Nebuchadnezzar, unless we consider the coming
to Jerusalem of "divers of Asher and Manasseh
and Zebulun" in Hezekiah's day (2 Chron.
xxx. 11) was a coming for a permanent abode.
But we may believe, that, after the return,
stragglers from the remnant of the northern
kingdom joined the Jews at Jerusalem, for that
in the north a remnant preserved the truth
against all the immigration of heathen nations
is evident from the appearance of Galilee in the
New Testament period, which could not be
owing simply to the Maccabean influences, such
as are described in 1 Maccab. v. 21, seq.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1, 2. It might be very difficult for the
poorer families of the congregation to find means
of subsistence in Jerusalem, as there was no
longer a royal court there, and a troop of higher
officers, who could afford work and gain to the
lower classes. They might find it much easier
to get along in the country, where they could
cultivate the ground. Nevertheless Nehemiah
and the heads of the congregation had to insist
upon it that as many .as possible should settle
again in Jerusalem. For this there were very
urgent reasons. It was not the consideration
alone that the congregation would only then be
worthily represented to the neighboring people,
and would only be in part secure, if it possessed
a large, mighty, and flourishing chief city, to
which, in times of danger, it could withdraw aa
to a trustworthy asylum. The main point was,
that as many as possible of the congregation
must live in direct proximity to the Temple and
its service, that their connection with God could
the better be furthered and fortified, and be pro-
moted and consecrated, which was so desirable
for it. There was the consideration that above
all upon Zion and the mountain of the house of
the Lord rested the promises of the prophets,
and that especially from them the law and the
word of the Lord should go forth. (Isa. ii. 2-4;
Micah iv. 1.) The congregation should feel itself
called upon, as much as lay in its power, to help
in the fulfilment of such promises, also to further
as much as possible, the honoring of the Lord
there in Jerusalem. It had certainly in the
prophetio word a warrant that the Lord would
here protect and bless it. At least equally ur-
gent calls has Christendom not to scatter itself
hither and thither into all sorts of sects and com-
munities, neither to be satisfied with the observ-
CHAP. XII. 1-47.
49
anoe of religion in their houses, but to hold faith-
fully to the one church, which is founded on
God's word and provided with His promises, and
instead of despising it on account of its insigni-
ficance, poverty, and needs, all the more to raise
it by all self-consecration and gratitude, even if
one should thereby suffer disadvantages, and
even dangers, in worldly things, and should
draw upon himself slights and persecution.
"And let us hold fast the profession of our faith
without wavering, for He is faithful that pro-
mised ; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the manner of some is." (Heb. x.
23-25.) That in which a sect has appeared to
be preferable in power of love and sanctity has
proved itself generally, in groat part to be mere
empty appearance.
Vers. 3-19. It is very worthy of notioe that in
the numbering of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
not the priests but the tribes of Judah and Ben-
jamin take the lead, and only then follow the
priests and Levites; so much the more worthy
of notice, because in the new congregation, fol-
lowing the captivity, according to the entire
direction which its development took, and accord-
ing to everything which was considered as of the
greatest moment, the high-priests, and the priest-
hood in general, had a particularly high signifi-
cance. It is as if the consciousness were indi-
cated, that the priests and Levites, in spite of
their distinction, which the Lord had apportioned
to them in the affairs of Israel, had been never-
theless nothing at all, if they had not had a con-
gregation near and around them, and if they had
not succeeded in obtaining satisfactory fruit for
their activity, namely, a genuine and true piety,
which should substantially prove they were not
there in vain. Would also that Christian priests,
that is, preachers of the gospel, might preserve
a lively consciousness that it is not enough for
them to have fellowship with their brethren in
office, that they are nothing, and can profit and
signify nothing, if not some, if only a small con-
gregation stand by them, in whom the seed which
they sow, springs up, grows, and bear3 fruit.
Starke : Ver. 3. In every time there are some
pious and God-fearing people who separate them-
selves from the world, and seek the good of their
souls rather than of their bodies.
Vers. 25-36. When one looks at the space
which the Jewish congregation inhabited round
Jerusalem, how very small was the territory
occupied by the people of God, the only raco
which possessed a clear knowledge of the
only true and holy God ! A few miles, from
three to six, north and Bouth, east and west,
comprised the entire district. Compared with
our countries, yes, even with our provinces, this
district appears to us almost as a vanishing
nothing. And nevertheless what powers for the
subjugation of entire humanity, for the trans-
formation of all its relations, and for the subdu-
ing of all circumstances, has God the Lord been
able to put in the people of this oasis, in the, at
the same time insignificant, and in many respects
miserable race, which cultivated the ground there
or raised cat tie ! If any where surely here arises a
testimony for Paul's word, "God hath chosen the
weak' things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty." (1 Cor. i. 27.) A consoling
promise also for Christendom in those times in
which it appears as though it were being com-
pressed on all sides, and when it is in truth
losing position after position. Let it lose in
length and breadth, in order afterwards to gain
so much the more in height. Even the gates of
hell cannot swallow up the church of the Lord.
Starke: Ver. 25. God collects to Himself a
church from among many peoples by the word
of the gospel, that the heavenly Jerusalem may
be filled.
Chapter XII. 1-47.
1 Now [And] these are the priests and the Levites that went up with Zerubbabel
2 the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua : Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Amariah, Malluch, Hat-
3,4, 5 tush, Shechaniah, Kehum, Meremoth, Iddo, Ginnetho, Abijah, Miamin, Maa-
6, 7 diah, Bilgah, Shemaiah, and Joiarib, Jedaiah, Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, Jedaiah.
These were the chief of the priests and of their brethren in the days of Jeshua.
8 Moreover [And] the Levites : Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, an d
9 Mattaniah, which was over the thanksgiving, he and his brethren. Also [And]
10 Bakbukiah and Unni, their brethren, were over against them in the watches. And
Jeshua begat Joiakim, Joiakim also [and Joiakim] begat Eliashib, and Eliashib
11, 12 begat Joiada, and Joiada begat Jonathan, and Jonathan begat Jaddua. And
in the days of Joiakim were priests, the chief of the fathers : of Seraiah, Meraiah ;
13, 14 of Jeremiah, Hananiah; of Ezra, Meshullam ; of Amariah, Jehohanan ; ofMe-
15 lieu, Jonathan; of Shebaniah, Joseph; of Harim, Adna ; of Meraioth, Helkai ;
16, 17 of Iddo, Zechariah; of Ginnethon, Meshullam ; of Abijah, Zichri; of Minia-
18, 19min, ofMoadiah, Piltai; of Bilgah, Shammua ; of Shemaiah, Jehonathan ; And
50 THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
20, 21 of Joiarib, Mattenai; of Jedaiah, Uzzi; of Sallai, Kallai; of Amok, Eber ; of
22 Hilkiah, Hashabiah ; of Jedaiah, Nethaneel. The Levites in the days of Eliashib,
Joiada, and Johanan, and Jaddua were recorded [according to the] chief of the
23 fathers : also [and] the priests, to the reign of Darius the Persian. The sons of
Levi, the chief of the fathers, were written [recorded] in the book of the Chronicles
[book of the events of the times] , even until the days of Johanan, the son of Elia-
24 shib. And the chief of the Levites : Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua the son of
Kadmiel with their brethren over against them to praise and to give thanks, ac-
cording to the commandment of David the man of God, ward over against ward.
25 Mattaniah, and Bakbukiah, [and] Obadiah, [were singers]. Meshullam, Talmon,
Akkub, were porters keeping the ward at the thresholds [treasuries] of the gates.
26 These were in the days of Joiakim the son of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and in
the days of Nehemiah the governor, and of Ezra the priest, the scribe.
27 And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sought the Levites out of
all their places to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness
[to keep the dedication and festivity], both with thanksgivings and with singing,
28 with cymbals, psalteries and with harps. And the sons of the singers gathered them-
sslves together, both out of the plain country [circuit] round about Jerusalem, and
29 from the villages of Ketophathi ; also [and] from the house of Gilgal [Beth-gilgal],
and out of the fields of Geba and Azmaveth : for the singers had builded their vil-
30 lages round about Jerusalem. And the priests and the Levites purified themselves,
31 and purified the people, and the gates, and the wall. Then [And] I brought up
the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies of them
that gave thanks, whereof one went on the right hand upon the wall toward the dung
32 gate [rubbish gate]. And after them went Hoshaiah, and half of the princes of
3 J, 34 Judah, and Azariah, Ezra, Meshullam, Judah, and Benjamin, and Shemaiah,
35 and Jeremiah, and certain of the priests' sons with trumpets; namely [the priests'
names have fallen out — here follow the Levites' names] Zechariah the son of Jonathan,
the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Michaiah, the son of Zaccur,
36 the son of Asaph : And his brethren, Shemaiah, and Azarael, Milalai, Gilalai,
Maai, Nethaneel, and Judah, Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the
37 man of God, and Ezra the scribe before them. And at the fountain gate, which
was over against them, [and over the fountain gate and in front of them], they
went up by the stairs of the city of David, at the going up of the wall, above the
house of David, even unto the water gate eastward.
38 And the other company of them that gave thanks went over against them, and I
after them, and the half of the people, upon the wall from beyond [past] the tower
39 of the furnaces even unto the broad wall ; and from above [past] the gate of Eph-
raim, and above [past] the old gate, and above [past] the fish gate, and the tower
of Hananeel, and the tower of Meah, even unto the sheep gate : and they stood
40 still in the prison gate. So [And] stood the two companies of them that gave thanks
41 in the house of God, and I, and the half of the rulers with me : And the priests ;
Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Michaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah with
42 trumpets; and Maaseiah, and Shemaiah, and Eleazar, and Uzzi, and JehohanaD,
and Malchijah, and Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sang loud [made their voice
to be heard], with Jezrahiah their overseer.
43 Also [And] that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced : for God had
made them rejoice with great joy : [and] the wives also and the children rejoiced :
so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.
44 And at that time were some [men] appointed over the chambers [which were]
for the treasures, for the offerings, for the first fruits, and for the tithes to gather
into them out of [according to] the fields of the cities the portions of the law [i. e.,
appointed by the law] for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced [the joy of
Judah was] for the priests and the Levites that waited [that stood at their posts].
45 And both the singers and the porters kept the ward of their God, and the ward of
the purification [And they kept the ward (or charge) of their God, and the ward
of the purification, and so did also the singers and the porters keep their ward], ac-
46 cording to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son. For in the days
CHAP. XII. 1-47.
51
of David and Asaph [see note] of old, there were chief of the singers, and songs of
47 praise and thanksgiving unto God. And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel, and
m the days of Nehemiah, gave the portions of the singers and the porters, every
day his portion [the thing of a day on its day], and they sanctified [dedicated, as
m 1 Chron.xxvi. 28] holy things unto the Levites ; and the Levites sanctified them
unto the children of Aaron.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
Ver. 38. SKID1? for Sk'TO from the root hi<\ according to Ewald. The usual form la SlD or Vto- May
it not be from ^N, formed like a Hoph. participle !
EXEGETIOAL AND CRITICAL.
The Dedication of the Walls.
Before the ceremony of the dedication is re-
hearsed, a preliminary statement regarding the
priests and Levites, as chief actors in the dedi-
cation, is made.
Vers. 1-9. This is a list of the principal priests
and Levites who came with Zerubbabel from Ba-
bylon in the preceding century.
We have already spoken of the accidental iden-
tity of names, in many of these, with those who
sealed the Covenant (ch. x. 1-8). If the question
is here asked, " Why, then, are not the names
of the sealers put down in vers. 12-21, as the
representatives of the old priestly houses of Ze-
rubbabel's day?" the reply is that the sealers
were in Eliashib's day, but the representatives
of the priestly families in vers. 12-21 were of
Joiakim's day, Eliashib's father. The persons
were not the same, and hence we do not look for
the same names. We have three sets of names.
In ch. xii. 1-7 we have those of Jeshua's time (i
e., Zerubbabel's) ; in ch. xii. 12-21, we have also
those of Joiakim's day. In ch. x. 1-8 we have
those of Eliashib's day.
But another question is raised by the fact that
in Ezra ii. 36-39 and Neh. vii. 39-42 only four
orders of priests are said to have come up with
Zerubbabel, to wit, those of Jedaiah, Immer,
Pashur, Harim, i. e., the 2d, 3d, 5th and 16th or-
ders, Pashur representing Malchijah, (see Neh.
xi. 12), while here are twenty-two families. The
answer is suggested by Keil that those four re-
present grand families (and not the four priestly
orders) and these represent an inferior division
into twenty-two, two of the names, Jedaiah and
Harim, being accidentally the same with two of
the four. I know not, however, why the four
courses or orders may not be intended in ch. vii.
39-42 and the twenty-two families belong to these
four. Keil's reasoning seems defective.
Ver. 7. And of their brethren. — This does
not refer to the Levites, for they are especially
mentioned immediately afterward. It is a phrase
in apposition, thus " chief of the priests, namely,
their brethren."
Jeahua or Joshua, the high-priest at the re-
turn from Babylon under Cyrus (B. C. 536),
nearly a hundred years before.
Ver. 8. We have already shown that the iden-
tity of names here with those in ch. x. is acci-
dental. See notes on ch. x. 1-13, and the first
note in thia chapter. Hence the identification
of Judah, Mattaniah and Bakbukiah with Hodi- '
jah (ch. x. 10), Mattaniah of ch. xi. 17, and
Bakbukiah of ver. 25 (which identification Keil
suggests) is an error, as these last three were
men of Nehemiah's time (see ver. 26), while the
first three were of Jeshua's day, (see vers. 1, 7).
This Mattaniah and his brethren were over
the thanksgiving ('al huyyedoih) in Jeshua's
clay. The Mattaniah of ch. xi. 17 was '' the prin-
cipal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer " (rosh
hat-tehillak ychodheh lat-tephillah) in Nehemiah's
day. The phrases are not identical. One refers
to several men, the other to one.
Ver. 9. Bakbukiah and Unni were chiefs of
the Levitical relays, who, in Jeshua's day, kept
the watches over against the Levites commis-
sioned to sing the thanksgivings. Mishmar must
mean a watch or guard, even in ch. xiii. 14 and
in Ezek. xxxviii. 7.
Vers. 10, 11. The pedigree of the high-priests
from Zerubbabel's time to the time of Alexander
the Great, i. e., from B. C. 536 to B. C. 332. As
Nehemiah's government of Jerusalem was B. C.
446—434, we have this genealogy carried a cen-
tury beyond him by a later hand. Jonathan
is evidently a mistake in transcription for Joha-
nan, as in vers. 22 and 23.
Vers. 12-21. A list of the representatives in
Joiakim's day of the priestly houses whose names
are obtained from those chiefs of the priests who
came with Zerubbabel, as given in vers. 1-7.
Melicu = Malluch. Hattush is omitted (see
ver. 2). Shebaniah = Shechaniah. Harim =
Rehum. Meraioth = Meremoth. Miniamin
= 3Iiamin. Miniamin's representative is omit-
ted, — dropped accidentally in transcription.
Sallai = Sallu. These changes in a list evi-
dently intended to be a copy of one immediately
preceding form a good instance of the uncer-
tainty of names in these old genealogical re-
gisters.
Vers. 22, 23. An interjected statement by the
later hand. The Levites were regularly to the
time of Alexander the Great recorded by the
names of their chiefs, and the priests also, that
is, to the reign of Darius (Codomannus). But the
book of the Chronicles (1 Chron. ix.) only con-
tained their names to Johanan's high-priesthood.
That is, probably in Jaddua's time the record
was no longer engrossed. Keil's effort to make
these verses refer to Nehemiah's time as the ul-
timate is ingenious but forced. The days of Jo-
hanan and the days of Jaddua cannot mean the
days in which they were living as young men or
boys, but the days of their active high-priesthood.
Henoe the Darius is not Nothus, but Codo-
10
62
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
Vers. 23-26. The Levites in Joiakim's day and
in Nehemiah's time. Hashabiah = Hashab-
niah in ch. ix. 5.
Sherebiah (see eh. ix. 5). Jeshua, the
son of Kadmiel. See ch. ix. 4, where Jeshua
and Bani and Kadmiel is probably for " Jeshua
ben Kadmiel." These were leaders of the sing-
ing Levites.
Mattaniah is put probably by mistake among
the porters. He was a singer, (see ch. xi. 17).
The same remark may be made of Bakbukiah
and Obadiah (Abda). See, as before, ch. xi. 17.
Meshullam is Shallum in 1 Chron. ix. 17.
Porters keeping the -ward at the treasuries
of the gates. — See 1 Chron. xxvi. 15, 17. These
were the store-chambers attached to the various
gates, inner and outer, belonging to the temple.
Ver. 26. Joiakim was probably high-priest
when Ezra arrived at Jerusalem, Eliashib his
son soon succeeding.
Ver. 27. The preliminary statements regarding
the priests and Levites being ended, here begins
the account of the dedication of the walls. Out
of all their places, for the Levites were scat-
tered throughout the province (see ch. xi. 3).
To keep the dedication ■with gladness. —
Instead of supposing a preposition wanting, we
may take sim'hah as a concrete and read to keep
tbe dedication and festivity.
Psalteries and harps differed but slightly
from one another. The nebel or psaltery had
more strings than the hinnor or harp. They
both rather resembled our guitar than our harp.
Ver. 28. The sons of the singers. — Heb.
Bent hamshorerim. That is the guild or company
of singers of the three great Levitical families
of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun. The plain
country round about Jerusalem. — Heb.
hakkihkar sevivoth ycrushalayim. There is no
plain country round about Jerusalem. The kik-
kar must here be simply "circuit" (Trepixopoc) .
Compare ver. 29.
If kikkar is to have here its specific meaning
of ''the valley of Jordan" (as Keil insists), then
we must insert umin 'hatzrd between hakkihkar
and sevivoth (for an omission likely to happen)
and read "the valley of Jordan and from the
villages round about Jerusalem." The idea that
the valley of Jordan at Jericho could be said to
be sevivoth yerushalayim (round about Jerusalem)
is absurd.
Netophathl, the gentile noun without ar-
ticle, ieems to be for Netophah, a place near
Bethlehem (ch. vii. 26). Beit Netif, which is
fourteen miles west of Bethlehem, seems too
far off.
Ver. 29. And from the house of Gilgal. —
Bather, and from Beth-haggilgal or Beth-Gilgal.
Although we should look for a Jiljilia or a Beit-
Jiljilia for the modern name of this place, yet as
no such name occurs near Jerusalem, we may
suppose Beit-Jala close to Bethlehem to be the
modern representative.
Geba is now Jeba, six or seven miles north
of Jerusalem. Azmaveth is not identified.
Ver. 80. The purification of priests, Levites,
people, gates and wall was accomplished, doubt-
less, by a series of prescribed sacrifices.
Ver. 31. Bead literally, appointed two great
thanksgivings, i. e., two great thanksgiving-com-
panies. Perhaps the thodhoth in ver. 27 has this
concrete meaning.
Judah is used in this verse for the whole
people of Israel.
Whereof one •went on the right hand. — ■
Literally, and processions on the right hand. The
whole passage should read, and appointed- two
thanksgiving - companies and processions. On the
right hand, etc. (i. c, the one on the right-hand).
Although it is not mentioned, yet it is clear
that the two processions started at the valloy-
gate, the same at which Nehemiah had started
to examine the ruined walls of the city on his
arrival (chap. ii. 13). The valley-gate was at
or south of the present Jaffa Gate (see on chap.
ii. 13). Dung-gate. — (Seel, c.)
Vers. 32-34. There followed the one thanks-
giving company of Levites to the right (i. e., to
the South) one-half the prince3 of Judah (»'. «.,
chiefs of the entire Jewish people) with Ho-
shaiah at their head. The names in vers. 83 and
34 are the names of these princes. The names
of Judah and Benjamin are not the tribal names.
Ver. 35. And certain of the priests' sons
with trumpets. — This should close a section,
as the names that follow are not of priests but of
Levites. The priests' names have probably
dropped out. In the corresponding list of the
other procession the priests' names are given
(see ver. 41). Priests' Sons, i. «., sons of the
priest3, i. «., priests.
Zechariah, an Asapliite, i3 leader of those
who bear the Davidic instruments of music.
Ver. 36. Zechariah had eight with him, asJcz-
rahiah had eight with him in the other band
(see ver. 42).
Ezra the scribe went before all except the
thanksgiving-company of ver. 31, just as Nehe-
miah took thi3 position in the other band (see
vers. 38, 40).
Ver. 37. The fountain-gate we believe to
have been near the pool of Siloam, and the ■wa-
ter-gate to have been an interior gate not fir
from the present south wall of the Haram. (See
for these and the stairs of the city of David the
notes on ch.iii. 15,26; also see Excur.). We may
read this verse, and over the fountain gate and in
front of them they went up over the stairs of the city
of David at the going up of the wall above the house
of David even unto the water-gate eastward. We ex-
plain this description thus ; that the procession
kept along the south wall of Zion until it reached
a point on the descent of that wall over against
the fountain-gate and the pool of Siloam. There
it would be over the fountain-gate. At this point
it turned north (" in front of them"), leaving
the main wall and passing up over the line of
the great stairs that led up to the city of David
(Zion), where an inner wall ran up and along
the eastern crest of Zion. This inner wall had a
place called Beth-David below it on the side of
the Tyropceon valley. (Or if me' a? be translated
"past," then the Beth-David may be placed
above). The procession would thus pass along
Zion's eastern front and cross over to Ophel and
the water gate at a point where the Tyropoeon
was not so deep and broad.
Ver. 38. And the other company of them
that gave thanks. (See on ver. 81).
Bead and the second thanksgiving company which
CHAP. XII. 1-47.
53
went in the opposite direction, and which I followed
and half the people (went) upon the wall past the
tower of the furnaces even to the broad wall. By
"the people" are meant those who formed the
procession, not the people at large. The Heb.
me'al here when used before " the tower of the
furnaces " must mean "past." We cannot con-
ceive the procession's passing oyer a tower. (See
note on ver. 37, where the phrase "above the
house of David " occurs). For "the tower of
the furnaces" and "the broad wall," see on ch.
ii. 8, 11. Also see Excursus.
Ver. 39. The gate of Ephraim must_have
been at the north-eastern extremity of the broad
wall. The prison gate was on the north side
of the temple, not connected with the palace
prison of Jer. xxxii. 2. See Excursus. (For
the other localities here mentioned, see on ohap.
ii. and Excursus.)
Vers. 40-42. The latter part of ver. 40 and
verses 41 and 42 belong before the former part
of ver. 40. There may have been an error of
transoription, or it may be a roughness of rhe-
toric.
Comp. ver. 41 with the first part of ver. 35, and
Verse 42 with vers. 35 and 36.
Ver. 43. Great sacrifices, i. c., thank-offer-
ings which were eaten by the offerers in a happy
feast, after " the food of the offering made by
fire unto the Lord " (Lev. iii.)
Ver. 44.* At that time. — Evidently the time
of the dedication. Some. — Heb. "men." The
treasures (or stores) comprised the three sorts
enumerated, to wit, the first-fruits, the tithes, and
the free-will offerings. Out of the fields. —
Rather, according to the fields. The portions
of the law, i. e. the portions appointed by the law
(as in margin). For Judah rejoiced for the
priests and Levites that waited. — Rather,
for Judah rejoiced in the priests and Levites who
stood at their posts. The people gladly gave the
prescribed offerings for the priests and Levites,
so that there was no sense of burden upon them,
nor any friction between the Levites and the
people.
Ver. 45. The singers and the porters formed
two important bodies of Levites. They kept
the ward, that is, performed their appointed
duties. The verse is improperly divided in the
E. V. It should read, And they (the priests and
Levites of ver. 44) kept the ward of their God and
the ward of the purification, and so did also the sing-
ers and the porters keep their ward. The priests
and Levites attended to their duties of pub-
lic worship and purifying, and the singers
and porters observed their appropriate func-
tions.
Vers. 46, 47. The wav before " Asaph" is ge-
nerally supposed an error, and the verse is read
" for in the days of David, Asaph of old was
chief." This will explain the singular " chief,"
(the plural K'ri being unsupported). But still
* The opinion that vers. 44-47 are an insertion by an-
other hand than Nehemiah's is founded on the change
from the 1st person to the 3d person, and from the as-
sumption that here is described the same transaction
as in ch. xiii. 10-13. The former argument is too weak
to trust anywhere. (How would it apply to Ezra ch. vii. ?)
The latter argument is baseless, tor the passage xiii.
10-13 refers to a different event.
it is difficult to see why Asaph's headship should
be mentioned just here. It may be suggested
that the Masorites are wrong, and that the 46th
and 47th verses (Silluk being removed) should
run together, "all Israel" being subject in both,
anticipated in ver. 46, from ver. 47, thus: for in
the days of David and Asaph, of old, chief of the
singers and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto
God, — and all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and
in the days of Nehemiah gave, etc. From David's
day to Nehemiah's the care of Israel for the Le-
vitical singers and porters was marked.
Sanctified, i. e., Brought as consecrated or dedi-
cated. As in 1 Chron. xxvi. 28.
The Levites brought as dedicated to the priests
the tithe of that which was dedicated to them.
(Num. xviii. 26.)
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. Both the Heb. hanukkah and the Greek
enkainia define a "dedication" as the initiation
or beginning of a new thing. There is no notion
of consecration in the word. There is no grace
conferred or new nature implanted. Even in
the dedication of the temple, it was only the
Lord's miraculous presence which consecrated
the place. The dedication of the walls of Jeru-
salem by Nehemiah and his brethren was simply
a joyful religious celebration of the work achieved
under the gracious providence of God. The
priests indeed purified the walls, but so they pu-
rified the people. Everything Jewish was puri-
fied; so that this purification is no distinct part
of the dedication. The primal element in the
dedication was joy, exhibited in music, vocal
and instrumental, and in thanksgiving. There
was a formal recognition of God's mercy and
loving-kindness by the assembled people.
2. The culminating point in the day's observ-
ance was certainly when the two processions,
after each passing over half the wall, met at the
temple and united their praises with new em-
phasis, while "great sacrifices" were offered on
the brazen altar. The high position of the tem-
ple would add much to the imposing character
of this service.
3. The ministers of religion were not consi-
dered as useless, "non-producing" men by the
godly Jews. Even the singers were reckoned
worthy of a public support. It is a low, mate-
rialistic philosophy that cannot see the moral
importance of leaders and teachers of religion in
a community, and that without them material
accumulation will only expedite national de-
struction.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
Vers. 1-26. It was without doubt a matter of
piety that in the time after the exile, they re-
stored more and more the old classes of priests
and Levites which had existed before the exile.
It was a necessity for the congregation, which
deserved all consideration, to have again an
equally manifold-numbered, complete equipment
for the establishment of the beautiful service of
the Lord, as before the exile. It was also for
the priests and Levites themselves most import-
ant and wholesome that they should find them-
selves together again in the old divisions, and
54
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
should also acknowledge their venerable ances-
tors as their heads. Who can estimate the bless-
ing there is, when descendants remain conscious
that they are preceded by many and ancient an-
cestors in piety and the service of God, when in
families piety too becomes a matter of tradition,
when the children know that parents and grand-
parents have prayed for them, and particularly
for their spiritual prosperity, and when they feel
themselves called upon by this to pray again in
turn for their children and grandchildren. It was
an enviable time when in the Christian church
likewise there were Aaronic families, when the
children received an impulse from the example
of parents and ancestors to devote themselves to
the service of the word, and when the parents
knew no higher joy than to see their children
advancing to the same high office which their
fathers had occupied. The first condition of a
proper, worthy exercise of the office, which shall
be rich in blessing, is indeed the pouring out of
the Spirit, and the Spirit breathes where He
listeth, but even in the Christian church the or-
dained ways hold an important position by the
side of extraordinary ones. In connection with
the fact that the number of the priests' classes
was about the same as before the exile, Beda's
remark is applicable: "Sic ssepe sancta ecclesia ex
detriments suis majora recepit incremented, cum uno
per incuriam lapse in peccatum plures exemplo ejus
territi ad persislendum in castitatejideifiunt cautiores.
Ssepe idem ipsi, qui peccaverunt, majores post actam
pcenitentiam bonorum operum fructus ferre incipi-
unt, quam ante incursum peccati ferre consuerant.
Ssepe ab htvreticis ecclesia vastata, postquam instan-
lia catholicorum doctorum lucem veritaiis recepit,
plures ad cognoscendam tuendamque rationem recu-
perantes ejusdem veritatis filios procreavit. Neque
enim unquam beati patres Athanasius, Ambrosius,
Bilarius, Augustinus, et ceteri tales lot et tarn mag-
nificos in sanctam scripturam tractatus conderent,
si non contra fidem rectam tarn multifarius hzeretico-
rum fuisset error ortus."
Vers. 27-43. The feast of dedication. 1. Whose
part is it? The congregation's, to which God
has anew given protection and power against its
enemies, but also the individual believer's, when
the Lord has secured to him his position, and
has even enclosed it with a wall. 2. How is it
to be celebrated? In that we purify ourselves
from all that displeases the Lord, that we thank-
fully conseorate His gifts, that is, put them at
His service, that we rejoice in them as a proof
of the grace that desires our salvation, and
thereby cause our faith to be strengthened, etc.
3. What blessing has it? It appropriates thus
truly God's gifts to us, and enkindles thus our
zeal to honor God with new desire by oonsecra-
tion, devotion, and homage. — Beda : Facta au-
tem civitas sancta dedicatur, cum, complete in fine
sseculi numero electorum, ecclesia universaliter in
cadis ad visionem sui conditoris introdueitur. —
How must the congregation celebrate the feast
of dedication? 1. With joyful thanks, that the
power and salvation of the Lord has sur-
rounded them as a wall for their protection
against the world, and for their separation from
the same. 2. With firm trust, that the Lord will
still farther protect them. 3. With the sincere
vow to hold themselves separate from the world,
and to live to the Lord. True joy. 1. Its right,
the God who has given us life, wishes also that
it shall move joyfully ; the God who always anew
overwhelms us with favors, wishes that they
should fulfil their mission, that is, make us hap-
py, in the end holy. 2. Its occasion is God'a
grace, which has strengthened, protected, as-
sured, or elevated our lower or higher life. The
chief sites in Jerusalem testified to this, and in
the Christian church, yes, indeed, in our lives,
all the heights testify thereof. 3. Its kind —
it raises itself to God, is a joy in Him, that is,
becomes a service to God and our neighbor. — ■
Beue: Hequiruntur et Levitce spirituales, hoc est,
assumpli in sortem regni de omnibus locis suis, quando
mittet filius hominis angelos suos et congregabit elec~
tos suos a quatuor ventis, a summo terns usque ad
summum cccli. Faciunt UK dedicationem in fc-
titia, cantico, gratiarum actione, atque in organis
jnusicormn variis, cum in perceptione asternce vitie
invicem gaudebunt. — Starke : Dedications shall
take place with praise and thanks, singing and
praying, not with sins and wantonness. That
should be the delight and joy of our hearts when
we see that the city of God, that is, the Christian
church, is protected by God within by the defence
of faithful authorities. (Ps. lviii. 2.) Christian
joy, at the proper time, does not displease God.
Vers. 44-47. What is also needful: 1. That
there should be teachers and servants in the
church. 2. That they should perform their ser-
vice without being hindered in it by lower cares.
3. That the congregation should joyfully supply
them with what is necessary for their support. —
Bedb : Sujus autem capituli nobis expositio allego-
rica in promptu est; quia dominus statuit eos, qui
evangelium annuntiant, de evangelio vivere. Sed
vse illis sacerdotibus ac ministris sanctorum, qui
sumptus quidem cum gaudio debitos sumtre a populo
delectantur, sed nihil pro ejusdem populi student sa-
lute laborare, non aliquid sacri ducaius ei recte vi-
vevdo prsebere, non de suavitale regni cceleslis ei quip-
ptiam dulce prxdicando canere, sed nee januam ei
supernce civitatis aperire, municipatum in cozlis ha-
bendo, verum potius occludere perverse agendo pro-
bantur. — Starke: It is God's will and command
that with the treasure of the godly word and for
the maintenance of the same, we should make a
provision that churches, schools, and those who
serve in them may be supported. (1 Chr. xxvii.
20 ; 2 Chr. xxiv. 8 ; xxxi. 4 ; xxxiv. 9.)
CHAP. XIII. 1-80. 65
Chap. XIII. 1-30.
1 On that day [of dedication] they read [it was read] in the book of Moses in the
audience [ears] of the people ; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite
2 and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever ; because
they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but [and] hired Ba-
laam against them, that he should curse them : howbeit [and] our God turned the
3 curse into a blessing. Now [And] it came to pass, when they had heard the law,
that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.
[Events of 12 years' later date],
4 And before this, [in the face of this], Eliashib the priest, having the oversight
of [being set over] the chamber [chambers] of the house of our God was allied unto
5 Tobiah: And he had prepared [and he prepared] for him a great chamber, where
aforetime they laid the meat-offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the
tithes of the corn, the new wine, and the oil, which was commanded to be given to
6 the Levites, and the singers, and the porters; and the offerings of the priests. But
[and] in all this time was not I at Jerusalem ; for in the two and thirtieth year of
Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, came I unto the king, and after certain days [at the
T end of days] obtained I leave of the king : And I came to Jerusalem, and under-
stood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the
8 courts of the house of God. And it grieved me sore : therefore [and] I cast forth
9 all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then [and] I commanded,
and they cleansed the chambers : and thither brought I again the vessels of the
10 house of God, with the meat-offerings and the frankincense. And I perceived that
the portions of the Levites had not been given them: for [and] the Levites and the
11 singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field. Then [and] contended
I with the rulers, and said, "Why is the house of God forsaken ? And I gathered
"° them [i. e., the Levites and singers] together, and set them in their place. Then
brought all Judah [And all Judah brought] the tithe of the corn and the new wine
13 and the oil unto the treasuries. And I made treasurers over the treasuries, Shele-
miah the priest, and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah : and next to
them [at their hand] was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah : for they
were counted faithful, and their office was [and it was upon them] to distribute unto
14 their brethren. Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my
good deeds [kindnesses] that I have done for the house of my God, and for the
15 offices thereof. In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the sab-
bath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also [and besides] wine, grapes,
and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought [and bringing them] into
Jerusalem on the sabbath day : and I testified against them in the day wherein they
16 sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein [And the Tyrians dwelt
therein], which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto
17 the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then [And] I contended with the nobles
of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the
18 sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil
upon us, and upon this city? yet [and] ye bring more wrath upon Israel by pro-
19 faning the sabbath. And it came to pass that when the gates of Jerusalem began
to be dark [were shaded] before the sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be
shut [and the gates were shut], and charged [commanded] that they should not be
opened till after the sabbath, and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there
20 should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day. So [and] the merchants and
21 sellers of all kinds of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or [and] twice. Inen
56
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
[and] I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about [before] the
wall ? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came they no
22 more on the sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse them-
selves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath day.
Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare [pity] me according to
the greatness [abundance] of thy mercy.
23 In those days saw I also [the] Jews that had married [carried to dwell with them]
24 wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab : and their children spake half in the
speech of Ashdod (and could not speak [were not acquainted with speaking] in the
Jews' language), but [and] according to the language [tongue] of each people [of
25 people and people]. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote
certain [men] of them, and plucked off [tore out] their hair, and made them swear
by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their
26 daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin
by these things? yet [and] among many nations was there no king like him, who
[and he] was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel : never-
27 theless even him did outlandish [foreign] women cause to sin. Shall we then [and
shall we] hearken unto you to do [hear that ye do] all this great evil, to transgress
28 against our God in marrying [carrying to dwell with us] strange wives? And one
of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high -priest was son-in-law to Sanbal-
29 lat the Horonite ; therefore [and] I chased him from me. Remember them, 0
God, because they have defiled [on account of the defilings of] the priesthood, and
30 the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites. Thus cleansed I [And I
cleansed] them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the
Levites, every one in his business ; and for the wood-offering, at times appointed,
and for the first-fruits. Remember me, O God, for good.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 [Ver. 6. "•fibm^J. The lexicographers interpret this Niphal as Kal. But both here and in 1 Sam. xx. 6, 28
(the only places where the Niph. occurs), the meaning " to receive permission" seems to be necessary. It would
be a quasi passive of the Kal meaning.
a Ver. 10. ")E?S omitted before tf'O'-K'S.
'■'*.. T
8 Ver. 22. D'HDIS'. Wav omitted. Yet we may read "come as keepers of the gates."
* Ver. 24. DiTJD? stands absolutely, for H31D being singular takes '^n as its nominative.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Ver. 1. On that day, i. e. the day of dedica-
tion of the walls, as in xii. 43, 44.
The part of the law which forbade mingling
■with the other nations was specially read on
the dedication-day. Deut. xxiii. 3 would natu-
rally be read, as also Deut. vii. 1-6. The refer-
ence to the former passage here uses the words
adh olam (forever), which are not found alone in
Deuteronomy. There it reads: "Even to their
tenth generation shall they not enter into the
congregation of the Lord forever," where the
"forever" seems to signify the perpetuity of
this ordinance, and not the perpetuity of their
exolusion. It is quoted here in brief, without
any design to change the meaning. No Moabite
or Ammonite family could be admitted to the
privileges of Jewry until in the tenth generation
after quitting heathenism and formally allying
itself with Israel.
Ver. 2. The reference to Deut. xxiii. 3-5 con-
tinues through this verse, the passage being
condensed throughout. In the Heb. we have
the singular, he hired (i. e. Balak) as in Deut.
xxiii. 4.
Ver. 3. The result of this reading was a care-
ful exclusion of the mixed multitude [erev) from
Israel. This was a different act from that of
the 24th of Tisri. Then Israel separated itself
from the strangers. Now they separate the erev
from Israel. The former was a withdrawal;
this an expulsion. For erev, see Ex. xii. 38.
Nehemiah' s Reform Movement on his Return to
Jerusalem.
Ver. 4. Before this. — This should be "in
the presence of this" [in conspectu ejus), with
the circumstantial and not the temporal signifi-
cation of liphne mizzeh. For Eliashib' s evil con-
duct occurred while Nehemiah was away on his
visit to Susa in Artaxerxes' thirty-second year,
and not before the dedication-day. The meaning
is, that Eliashib, the high-priest, notwithstand-
ing all this reform wrought by Nehemiah in
Artaxerxes' twentieth year, in the face of it all,
dared, twelve years after, when Nehemiah was
far away, to introduce Tobiah into the courts
of the temple.
Nehemiah closes his record with a brief sketch
of a new reform movement which he had to
make twelve years later, owing to a long absence
from Jerusalem at the Persian Court, in which
CHAP. XIII. 1-30.
57
time evil men had sought to undo his former
work.
Between ver. 8 and ver. 4 we have therefore
a gap of twelve years in the chronology.
We have no reason to suppose that Eliashib
allied himself with Tobiah or (through his
grandson) with Sanballat until this season of
Nehemiah's absence, when Eliashib may have
Bupposed that he would never return.
Nehemiah in all probability did not write this
book of his doings at Jerusalem till late in life
when his second visit to Jerusalem was a thing
of the past, as well as his first visit.
Eliashib, the priest (i. e. the high-priest),
having the oversight of the chamber of
the house of our God. — The participle is
being set over (as in the margin). The " cham-
ber " {lishcah) is used oollectively for the " cham-
bers." As high-priest, he would have control
of all the various buildings in the temple-courts
where the treasures of corn, oil and wine were
preserved.
Was allied to Tobiah. — In what way we
know not. Karov Ictoviyyah. A predicate ad-
jective after so long a sentence, not in apposi-
tion ("being allied"), but as in E. T. a distinct
assertion ("was allied"). A new fact is stated,
and we are led to believe that this alliance
marked a fearful period of falling away, after
Nehemiah had turned his back. If it had ex-
isted before, we should have had mention made
of it.
Ver. 6. A second fact in the miserable busi-
ness. The high-priest prepared for Tobiah a
great chamber, probably by knocking many
into one (see ver. 9), in which Tobiah resided
when at Jerusalem (see ver. 8). This desecra-
tion Eliashib may have defended on the score
of Tobiah being by blood a Jew (see on ch. ii.
10), and the necessity of keeping on good terms
with the influential men of the surrounding
provinces.
These chambers had held all the unbloody
sacrificial offerings and the tithes.
The Levites are distinguished from the singers
and porters, although the singers and porters
were Levites. So, on the other hand, the Le-
vites are distinguished from the priests, although
the priests were Levites. The Levites, as here
designated, were those engaged in the more
immediate sacrificial services, in attendance on
the priests.
Ver. 6. In the two and thirtieth year of
Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, i. e. in B. C.
434-3. Probably the "time set" by Nehemiah
and approved by the king (ch. ii. 6) was twelve
years. At the expiration of this term he was
obliged to leave the superintendence of affairs
at Jerusalem and return to the court. Arta-
xerxes is called "king of Babylon," instead of
"kiug of Persia," probably because at this time
of Nehemiah's return the court was removed to
Babylon for some special state reason.
After certain days. — Lit. at the end of days,
a very general expression, and may here mean
several years.
Obtained I leave, to wit, to return to Je-
rusalem.
Ver. 8. This decided action shows that Nehe-
miah returned with full powers from the Court.
Ver. 9. The chambers. See on ver. 5.
The tithes are omitted in the enumeration, be-
cause, as we see by the next verse, the people
had ceased paying tithes, and hence there were
none to put in the store-chambers.
Ver. 10. For the Levites, etc., were fled.
Rather: and the Levites, etc., were fled. They
fled to their own fields to work for their living,
because their tithes were withheld. Their ow°n
fields wero those belonging to the Levitical
cities.— The singers, that did the work, is
a pregnant phrase for "the singers and porters
who performed service."
Ver. 11. The rulers iseganim). The Pers.
word does not necessarily refer to rulers set
over the people by the Persians, although it
may include such, but extends to all who might
exercise authority by birth, election or other-
wise. The Pers. word is used as a familiar
term for magistrates.
Set them in their place. — That is, put the
Levites back into their positions.
Ver. 12. Unto the treasuries for store-
houses). Or for stores.
Ver. 13. I made treasurers. — The Hiphil
of Atzar, "to store." Lit.: "I caused to store
over the store-houses." That is: "I placed
men over the store-houses, whom I caused to
store the stores in them."
Shelemiah. — See ch. iii. 30.
Zadok. — See ch. iii. 29.
Fedaiah. — See ch. iii. 26 and ch. viii. 4.
Next to them. — Lit. at their hand, as their
assistant.
Ver. 14. This prayer is not one of self-glorifi-
cation, but of faith in God's truth. A man who
knows he is doing right in the sight of God can
say so to God without presumption. It is a
testimony of God's grace, and he can rejoice
in it.
Ver. 15. In those days of my return to
Jerusalem. The Sabbath had become desecrated
in Nehemiah's absence, so that in some cases
the works of tho farm were wrought on that
day, and produce brought to Jerusalem, and
there sold on the Sabbath.
Ver. 16. Tyrian traders in fish and other pro-
ducts were plying their trade in the city on the
Sabbath.
Ver. 17. The nobles (horim), not the
"rulers" of ver. 11, but the higher classes
generally.
Ver. 18. See Jer. xvii. 20-27.
Ver. 19. When the gates of Jerusalem
began to be dark before the Sabbath. —
This seems to show that the day among the
Jews did not begin at sunset. For here after
sunset when it began to be dark, it was before the
Sabbath. Only a special Sabbath was counted
from the evening before. See Lev. xxiii. 32.
Ver. 20. The merchants, or traffickers. — On
arriving with their wares, according to their
wont, they find the gates shut, and are obliged
to pass the night outside the walls until the
Sabbath is over.
Ver. 21. When this hint was not enough,
Nehemiah sends them word that if they mako
their appearance again before the gates on t'ae
Sabbath to lodge there, they will be arrested.
This broke up the evil.
68
THE BOOK OP NEHEMIAH.
Ver. 22. Cleanse themselves, as for a holy
service, and so guard the Sabbath by guarding
the gates. For the prayer, see on ver. 14.
Ver. 23. In those days of my return from
Jerusalem. As at ver. 15.
Jews that had married. — With the article,
the Jews thai had married. As the children's
speech was affected, these Jews must have lived
on the outskirts of the Jewish province near the
Philistines, Ammonites and Moabites. For chil-
dren will always know the prevailing language
of a district. Ashdod seems to stand for all
Philistia, at this time probably the most con-
spicuous Philistine town.
Ver. 24. And could not speak in the
Jews' language. — A parenthetical phrase. — ■
The succeeding "but" should be "and." — Of
each people, i. e. Amnion and Moab.
Ver. 25. Here is described the action not of a
private man in his ungovernable rage, but of a
public officer in the faithful use of his power.
Notice the word contended. In ver. 11 Nehe-
miah contends with the rulers regarding the
neglect of the tithes ; in ver. 17, he contends
■with the nobles regarding the profanation of
the Sabbath, and here he contends with the
Jews who had married heathen wives for this
open disregard of the law.
Ver. 26. Beloved of his God. — Comp. 2
Sam. xii. 24. This does not imply saving grace
on God's part or holiness on Solomon's part.
It only denotes special favor and privilege.
Compare Mark x. 21.
Outlandish, i. e foreign.
Ver. 27. Shall we then hearken unto
you to do, etc. (welakhem hanishma laasoth). —
Lit. : And for you is it heard to do, etc., i. e. " do
we hear that you do all this great evil?"
Although it is not stated expressly, it is im-
plied in ver. 30, that Nehemiah insisted on a
separation from the "outlandish" wives, as did
Ezra many years before (Ezra x. 3).
Ver. 28. Finding that Eliashib's grandson
had married Sanballat's daughter, Nehemiah
makes a public example of so glaring a case of
defiance to the law, for here the special sanc-
tity of the priesthood was desecrated (Lev. xxi.
6-8).
I chased him from me (abrihehu me alai).
Lit.: "I made him flee from off me." Nehe-
miah forced him to leave Jerusalem, and be no
longer a burden to his government.
Ver. 29. The covenant of the priesthood and
of the Levites was, first, the general covenant
with the tribes as Israel's teachers and God's
special servants (Deut. xxxiii. 8-11), and, second
the special covenant of priesthood (Lev. xxi.
6-8).
Ver. 30. Thus cleansed I them from all
strangers — The irregularities regarding tithes,
the Sabbath, and the marriages were all attri-
butable to connection with strangers. When
this was stopped, the careful ordering of the
priestly and Levitical work was made easy,
which had all been disarranged and much
neglected in Nehemiah' s absence.
Ver. 31. The wood-offering (see on ch. x.
34) and the first-fruits are mentioned for all
the offerings, as those most apt to be neglected.
Remember me, O my God, for good. —
See on ver. 14.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL.
1. The severe exclusion of the Moabite and
Ammonite was an enacted token against sin.
Even these blood relations of Israel were to bo
kept away as polluted, because they showed no
sympathy with Israel, and made a deliberate and
vile attempt to plunge Israel into sin. A per-
manent horror was to be erected between Israel
and these monsters of iniquity. The key to
many of the stern Mosaic statutes is to be found
in the necessity of holding up the heinousness of
sin, which men are ever ready to make light of.
(See the exegetical commentary for an explana-
tion of this statute.)
2. The lapse of Israel on Nehemiah's return
to Persia throws into clear light the immense
work which Nehemiah had wrought, and the re-
markable power of the man. His influence had
worked the reform and had upheld it, and when
his presence was removed the structure at once
began to crack and crumble. A generation later
Malachi lamented over the spiritual waste that
Judah presented. Great as Nehemiah was, he
could not make healthy the diseased body of
Jewry. He eould only, by the force of his cha-
racter, rouse the people to a decent semblance
of righteousness. And yet, while he was pow-
erless to renew the nation, we may believe that
his influence ran down private channels in fami-
lies and humble houses to the very time of the
Messiah, making green lines of spiritual growth
amid the arid desert of Judaism.
3. Ezra had effected a reform a dozen years
before Nehemiah came to Judah. He had sepa-
rated the Jews from the heathen people, and in
this reform had forced the highest in the land to
dissolve their wicked matrimonial alliances.
The book of Ezra concludes with this statement.
When Nehemiah arrived there was a new sepa-
ration from strangers effected. (Ch. ix. 2.)
Whether the mingling with the heathen had
again amounted to marriage alliances we may
not say. It may have only involved mercantile
partnerships. A dozen years later again on Ne-
hemiah's second visit, there is a necessity for a
most stern application of Nehemiah's personal
and official power to cure the same old evil,
which seems to have been bolder than ever.
4. There are times when good men must as-
sume great severity of manner and allow a holy
indignation to fire their souls. Gentleness of
style before barefaced villany is weakness and
inefficiency. Had Nehemiah acted with a soft
and effeminate method, the offenders would have
laughed at him. God loves to guide with HiB
eye, but sometimes He uses the thunderbolt.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.
' Vers. 1-3. The duty of the church to purify
itself constantly anew. 1. In regard to those
with whom they assimilate themselves; in the
Old Testament, in regard to the Ammonites, etc.,
not on account of their nationality, but on ac-
count of their ways; in the church, in regard to
those who not only go astray, but also who will
EXCURSUS ON THE GATES, ETC.
59
not allow themselves to be bettered, and who
thus exclude themselves. 2. Whereon it grounds
itself; not only on the right of self-preservation,
but also upon God's word. 3. What it aims at;
namely, that the church set forth more and more
what it should be as Christ's spotless bride.
Starke: One cannot read or preach God's
Word too often, for one always finds something
which one had not noticed or known before.
What God has commanded one must perform,
even though it may seem hard to us, and we may
draw upon us the enmity of others in its per-
formance.
Vers. 4-9. The sanctity of holy places. 1.
That upon which it is grounded ; in the Old Tes-
tament, upon the fact that God had connected
His peculiar presence with the temple; in the
Christian dispensation, upon the fact that God's
honor dwells in the churches, that is, is cher-
ished there. 2. What it binds us to; to uphold
the churches in a condition corresponding to
their aim, or where they are lacking to restore
them in a worthy manner. 3. What blessing it
has for us; it reminds us of the holiness, the
majesty and the glory of our God, and fosters our
regard therefor ; it works frequently by elevating
and edifying, whereas an unworthy desecration
of ohurches only promotes the crudity from
which it has sprung. Bede: Et til quidquid inter
fideles infidelitatis et imrnunditice reperie continuo
prqjice foras, ut immundatls credentium cordibus,
quae sunt gazophylacia Domini, cum virtutumfuerint
plena divitiis, vasa Domini inferantur ; hoc est, ilia
ipsa corda quae paullo ante vasa erroris fuerant per
culpam denuo vasa Domini fiant per correctionem;
ibiqua sacrificium bonce operationis et thus puroz
orationis, ubi pridem spelunca erat latronum, inve-
niatur.
Vers. 80, 31. The retrospect of a servant of
God upon his life and his usefulness. 1. It ele-
vates him, because God' s grace was with him, and
made him worthy to engage in the cause of God
and the salvation of mankind. 2. It humbles
him, because he was so unworthy of this grace,
and moreover because he has fallen so far short
of what he might have been able to accomplish
through its means. 3. It drives him to prayer,
that God would also be merciful to him at the
last for Christ's sake, whose righteousness is
also his.
EXCURSUS ON THE GATES, ETC.
1. The Sheep -Gate. — Heb. ]K'3?n IjPBf.
LXX. ij TtVkri r/ wpoPaTMT]. It is mentioned in
Neh. iii. 1, 32, and xii. 39. It is probably the
same as $ irpo/SaTcic^ of John v. 2. In Nehemiah
it is mentioned as near to the tower of Meah,
and that is near the tower of Hananeel. From
the fact that it seems to have had no locks and
bars (see Neh. iii. 1, and comp. iii. 3, 6, 13, 14,
15), we conjecture that it led directly into the
temple-precinct, where a Levitical guard was
always present in place of locks and bars. Its
name was doubtless given because through it
the flocks were driven for the sacrifices, or
because they were kept in pens by this gate.
The present St. Stephen's gate is usually sup-
posed to mark the site of the sheep-gate, and if
so, the Bethesda pool (John v. 2) would be the
Birket Israil, which is now satisfactorily proved
not to be a moat. Eusebius describes Bethesda
as two pools, and the Bordeaux pilgrim (about
the same time) speaks of it as twin fish-pools.
The Birket Israil may have been divided into
two by a transverse wall in their day, or they
may have counted the Birket Hammam Sitti
Mariam, just north of the St. Stephen's gate
and outside the walls, as one of the two pools ;
or, again, they may have intended by Bethesda
the twin-pools under the convent of the Sisters
of Sion near the north-west corner of the Haram,
the position defended by Mr. Geo. Williams.
The account in Nehemiah makes it necessary to
place the sheep-gate somewhere in the region of
the St. Stephen's gate; but if our argument
concerning the absence of locks and bars is
worth anything, we must put the gate to the
south of Birket Israil. To add to this necessity,
we may doubt if the city wall extended further
north than the temple-precinct corner, until
long after Nehemiah's day, when Agrippa built
the third wall. If the Fountain of the Virgin is
Bethesda, as Dr. Robinson thinks, then the
■KpofiaTiufi of John v. 2 is another gate than that
of Nehemiah, situated on Ophel.
On the whole, we are inclined to place the-
Sheep-Gate in the north wall of the temple-pre-
cinct, and in close neighborhood to the Birket
Israil. In that case the two towers of Meah
and Hananeel would be parts of the old Baris
or fortification north of the temple, which after-
ward became altered and enlarged into An-
tonia.
2. The Fish-Gate.— Heb. u<]jn 1£» —
LXX. ij irvlij ij ixBvTipa (Ix^vpa, xii. 39: IpfivuA,
2 Chron. xxxiii. 14 ; in Zeph. i. 10, it is wvlr/
axoKevTovvrov, gate of the stabbers, probably
DU"\n being read for DUIil). It is mentioned
in 11. cc. It was between the sheep-gate and the
old gate, as we see from the Nehemiah passages.
The Zephaniah passage does not help us. The
passage in 2 Chronicles seems to describe the
building of the second wall (comp. Joseph, v. 4,
2) by Manasseh ("on the west to Gihon in the
valley, and on the east to tn"e entering in at the
fish-gate"). If so, it would put the fish-gate
63
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
near the Baria, where that wall ended (Jos.
I. c).
3. The Old Gate.— Heb. nwn "lptf. LXX.
T T : - - - .
rj ■Kvkn 'laoaval. Keil insists that rU^TI is
TTJ"
genitive, and follows Arnold in supplying iTOin,
thus calling it "the gate of the old wall."
Schultz says: "the gate of the old town." If
we take it as a genitive, it may be " the gate of
Jeshanah," a name given because the road
through it led to Jeshanah in Ephraim (2
Chron. xiii. 19), mentioned by Joseph. Antiq.
8, 11, 3, and 14, 15, 12. The LXX. seem to
have taken this view. But it need not be a
genitive, as we have in Is. xiv. 31 "Ijyy / ?D
(the ~^yjB being treated as feminine) and
rVD'33n "\])JB (Ezek. viii. 3).
We are inclined to identify this gate with the
"corner gate" of Zech. xiv. 10 and Jer. xxxi.
38 (nJ3H TUtf or D'|3n 1£Bf), and so to let it
mark the north-east corner of the city-wall.
The cited passages in Zechariah and Jeremiah
seem to put the gate in relation with the tower
of Hananeel. If the Fish-gate were close to
that tower, then it would be very natural to
mention the Old Gate or Corner Gate next to
the tower, in describing a section of the wall.
In 2 Kings xiv. 13 the "corner gate" is only
four hundred cubits from the gate of Ephraim,
but in which direction we cannot tell. If east-
ward, then it was very likely the same as the
Old Gate; but if westward, then the gate of
Ephraim, and the corner-gate may be unmen-
tioned in Nehemiah's account of the rebuilding,
because belonging to the undestroyed portion
of the wall on the western end of the north wall,
which part many suppose is the "broad wall"
of Nehemiah. Of course in this case, the corner
gate and the old gate are different gates. We
can, at any rate, quite confidently claim that the
corner-gate was at either the north-east or the
north-west corner of the city.
i. The Valley-Gate.— Heb. N'jn "ijpip
LXX. 7/ nvXjj rijc; fapayyog. In ch. ii. 13 ij irvXri
tov TalriXh (by joining N'J and TVT'j as one
word). This gate (mentioned in ch. ii. 13, 15;
iii. 13; 2 Chron. xxvi. 9) was evidently north
of the dragon-well (['inn j\y), wherever that
was. If the Birket Sultan is the Dragon well
(which is very doubtful), we may put the valley
gate about a thousand feet south of the present
Jaffa Gate. The "tower of the furnaces"
would correspond to the north-east tower of the
present citadel, perhaps is identical with this
very ancient piece of masonry. It does not
Beem possible by any scheme to identify the val-
ley-gate with the Gate Gennath of Josephus, for
that must have been east of the western starting-
point of the first wall, where the name of valley-
gate would have been a misnomer. If the val-
ley-gate were just north of the northern end of
the Birket Sultan, the Dung-gate would come
exactly at the southern extremity of Zion, over
the deep ravine of Hinnom. The name of val-
ley-gate was doubtless derived from the broad
and deep Wady er Itababi (Hinnom), out to
which it led.
The most natural point for a gate on this side
the city is where the present Jaffa Gate is. If
we put the Valley-gate there, then the Dung-
gate will come opposite the Birket Saltan.
5. The Dung-Gate.— Heb. nswrj *yjBf.
In Neh. iii. 13, r\2U/n 1J?B>. LXX. \ vvXri rfc
KOKpicu;. The Heb. is not so strong a word as
the Greek, and may be rendered Rubbish-gale.*
This gate was a thousand cubits from the Val-
ley-gate (ch. iii. 13). The extreme southern
point of Zion would be a very natural place,
from which to empty rubbish down into the
deep valley below. Here we might place the
Dung-gate, making it the same as the (later)
Gate of the Essenes. With Bobinson, we would
consider the Belhso of Josephus the Heb.
ilNlS JT3 or Dung-place. The Dung-gate, how-
ever, must be opposite the Birket Sultan, if the
Valley-gate is placed at the present Jaffa Gate.
See the preceding note.
6. The Fountain-gate. — Heb. \yjl Ijy?.
LXX. f; iriiXri T?j<; nrjyij^. In Neh. ii. 14 ij niXij
tov Aiw (untranslated). In Neh. xii. 37 tov
alvelv by a gross error. That this was close to
the pool of Siloam (the ''King's pool" of ch. ii.
14, the "pool of Siloah by the king's garden,"
comp. ch. iii. 15), there can be no doubt. In 2
Kings xxv. 4 it is called "the gate between two
walls, which is by the king's garden." It was
a gate down in the Tyropoeon Valley, and at a
corner, as the expression in 2 Kings xxv. 4
indicates.
7. The Water-gate. — Heb. D;Bil "TJW.
LXX. fi nv'ki) tov MaTOf;. At this gate one pro-
cession halted at the dedication-service, while
the other halted at the Prison-gate (ch. xii. 37,
39). This would place the Water-gate at the
south of the temple, and the Prison-gate at the
north of the temple. They could scarcely have
been in the city-wall, but were probably gates
leading from the inner temple-enclosure to the
outer. The water-gate may have derived its
name from its leading to the remarkable cisterns
lately discovered by Capt. Warren south of the
Haram. It will be noticed that nothing is said
of rebuilding either of these gates. We would
put the Water-gate at the southern limit of the
"mountain of the house," near the present
entrance to El-Aksa. This accords with the
Talmud, Mid. 2, 6.
8. The Prison-Gate.— Heb. niBDn lyjff.
This is referred to in the last section. It was
probably the same as the IpilQri Tjn? of ch.
iii. 31 (i. e. gate of visitation of punishment).
If we follow the course of the second dedica-
tive company (eh. xii. 38, 39), we are constrained
to put this gate between the sheep-gate and the
temple, probably at the north limit of the
" mountain of the house." But in ch. iii. 25 we
find the "court of the prison" mentioned, as in
Jer. xxxii. 2; xxxiii. 1, and xxxvii. 21. This
* [The " east gate " of Jer. xix. 2 is in Heb. 1_yt»
^P^DD" which is indicative of either niDlnil *)VV>
or rrtnnn "\J7Ijr. If the former be the right reading,
then this gate (" the pottery-gate ") may very likely be
the same as the dung or rubbish-gate.— T*. J
EXCURSUS ON THE GATES, ETC.
61
was attached to the king's palace, and was
therefore at the south of the Haram. This
prison, into which Jeremiah was cast, was pro-
bably the State-prison, while another prison,
near the "prison-gate" (whence it derived its
name), was a temple-prison, for offenders against
the worship.
9. The Gate of Ephraim.— Heb. DnSN *yw.
LXX. i} vbXri ''Eippatfi. Neh. viii. 16; xi'i. 89;
2 Kings xiv. 13. This gate was four hun-
dred cubits from the corner-gate (wherever
that was), and had an open square near it
like that at the water-gate. It was also between
the broad wall and the old gate. So much
the cited passages show. It doubless derived
its name from the fact that the main northern
road to the Ephraimite country led through it.
For a like reason it may have been called the
" gate of Benjamin " (Jer. xxxvii. 13 ; Zech. xiv.
10), the Benjamite country lying north of the
city, and the road through this gate leading to
its chief cities. This gate was not rebuilt by Ne-
hemiah, because, probably, it was in the " broad
wall" ft. «., as Keil and others hold, in that 400
cubits of wall which Joash broke down, and
which Uzziah rebuilt in a stronger manner. 2
Chron. xxvi. 9). It probably coincided with the
modern Damascus Gate, at which ancient sub-
structions are found.
10. The first Gate. Heb. jitfsqn "IJW LXX.
fj wiXr/ 17 ■Kp&Tri, (Zech. xiv. 10). From this only
mention of this gate, we would naturally place it
between Benjamin's gate and the corner gate. If
the Old Gate and Corner Gate are the same, then
we should have to suppose an important gate on
the north of the city not elsewhere mentioned.
But may not the peculiar phraseology of the Ze-
chariah passage lead us to identify the first gate
and the corner gate? The words are " unto the
place of the first gate unto the corner gate."
That may mean " unto the place where the first
city gale is, beginning at the north, to wit, unto
the corner gate." The adjective "first" seems
more appropriate to distinguish one of a series,
than to represent the peculiar name of a gate.
11. The Sigh Gate. Heb. j'V^ri 1£t? LXX.
$ irfari >f tfnAl) (in Jer. xx. 2, wllr; rov vnepc;-ov :
in 2 Chron. xxiii. 20, fy irilr] rj eaurepa). The
passage in Jeremiah calls this the "high gate of
Benjamin by the house of the Lord." " The pas-
sage in 2 Chron. xxvii. 3 calls it the « high gate '
of the house of the Lord." In 2 Chron. xxiii.
20, we see that it was between the temple and
the palace. Of course, then, it was not a gate of
the city wall. It is called " gate of the guard "
in 2 Kings xi. 6, 19.
12. The Inner Gate. Heb. XVEPJan "1£». (Ezek.
viii. 3).
13. The New Gate. Heb. Khnn "l£t?. (Jer.
xxxvi. 10).
14. The Middle Gate. Heb. ^lflH "\yw. (Jer.
xxxix. 3).
15. The Gate of Sur or of the foundation. Heb.
"110 "IJW or Ito'n 1£W. (2 Kings xi. 6 ; 2 Chr.
xxiii. 5).
16. The Bast Gate. Heb. rnrSH 1£lff. (Neh.
iii. 29).
17. The Horse Gate. Heb. D'WDH IJfP. (2
Chron. xxiii. 5 ; Jer. xxxi. 40. Comp. 2 Kings
xi. 16). V B
These six, together with the gates mentioned
by Ezekiel in his vision of the temple, are very
evidently, like No. 11, gates of inner walls, and
do not belong to the circuit of the city fortifica-
tions.
18. The Corner Gate. See above, under Nos.
3 and 10.
19. The Gate of Benjamin. See above under
No. 9.
20. The Gate Miphkad. See above under No. 8.
21. The Tower of Meah.
22. The Tower vf Hananeel.
These were evidently near one another, and
stood between the Sheep Gate and the Fish Gate.
We have supposed that they were towers of the
special fortification north of the temple, known
afterwards as Baris, and in Roman times as An-
tonia (Neh. iii. 1 ; xii. 39; Jer. xxxi. 38; Zech.
xiv. 10).
23. The Tower of the Furnaces. Heb. 'njO
D'^ilfln. LXX. irbpyoc tOv Bavovpiu. The na-
tural point in the circuit for this would be any-
where between the second wall's beginning and
the valley gate. What is more likely than the
very old N. E. tower of the present citadel (the
supposed Hippicus) should be it?
24. The Broad Wall. Heb. rttmn HD^nn.
T T I T T ""
LXX. rb reixoc to izXarv.
Keil supposes with much probability that this
was that four hundred cubits of wall broken
down by Joash from the gate of Ephraim to the
Corner Gate (2 Kings xiv. 13) and afterwards
rebuilt of greater breadth by Uzziah.
25. The stairs that go down from the city of Da-
vid. Heb. TH T£D rt"l}Vn nlhgen. These,
mentioned in Neh. iii. 15, are again referred to
in ch. xii. 37. From the latter passage we should
gather that the company marched around the
wall as far as the neighborhood of the fountain
of Siloam, and then left the wall and passed up
the stairs to Zion and along Zion's eastern edge
till they crossed over to the water-gate at the
temple. We suppose, therefore, that these stairs
ascended from the king's gardens to his palace,
(the Davidian palace) on Zion (ch. xii. 37, " the
house of David ").
26. The Sepulchres of David. Heb. TH n3p.
The places of sepulture of David's family were
probably near his own palace on Zion. We
should place them at the S. E. corner of the pre-
sent Zion wall. The wall along Ophel is marked
by reference to sites on the opposite side of the
Tyropoeon.
27. The Pool that was made. Heb. nj^3n
miS^ri. This may be the Fountain of the Vir-
gin, about which there has been so much careful
work of human hands in the galleries and cis-
terns connected with it.
28. The Bouse of the Mighty.
29. The Armory.
To these we have no clue. They may have
been both on Ophel.
The destruction of the city was so complete by
Titus, and then by Hadrian, that the gates of the
62
THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH.
later city can be no guide to the position of those
of the ancient city. We must depend on the
Scriptures and Josephus, with perhaps a little
help from Rabbinical tradition. It seems very
clear that the main city wall in Nehemiah's day
ran directly from the southern brow of Zion over
to Siloam, and then northward along Ophel to
the S. E. corner of the Haram. On Ophel there
may have been an intricacy of wall, by reason
of which the topography in the latter part of ch.
iii. is very difficult to explain. As Ophel was a
fortress, there may have been several angles in
the wall there for strategic purposes.
We have given a crude sketch of the walls,
gates, etc., as we suppose them to have existed
in the days of Nehemiah, as a help to the under-
standing of the 3d and 12th chapters.
:: Vat.i :rrr Coxa
S--
PALACE
\ARMDOfLZ'
******«»»,
^gr
"- Jhnsra Gats
1. Tower of Meah.
2. Tower of Hananeel.
3. Prison Gate (Miphkad).
4. Water Gate.
5. Tower of the Furnaces.
6. Pool of Siloam.
7. Horse Gate.
8. High Gate.
THE END.
THE BOOK
OF
ESTHER.
THEOLOGICALLY AND HOMILETICALLY EXPOUNDED,
pv
FR. W. SCHULTZ,
PEOFESSOE IN OBDINABY OF THEOLOGY AT BEESLAU, PEUSSIA.
TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED
BY
JAMES STRONG, S.T.D.,
PEOFESSOB OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY IN DREW THEOLOGICAL 8EMINAEY,
MADISON, N. J.
NEW YOEE:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
743-745 BROADWAY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
SCBIBNEE, AEMSTEONG & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
INTRODUCTION.
2 1. CONTENTS AND COMPOSITION.
This Sook, which in the subscription of many of the old manuscripts of Alexandria (as
subjoined to chap. ix. 26) is designated as i kmaroty t&w Qovpifi, and briefly as "IfiDN, 'Eatf^o or
as "VRSN n!?J?) and by the rabbins is called simply H7JD [the roll], stands peculiar in more
than one respect in the Old Testament canon. Compared with the historical books of the
Canon, it towers far above them, if we examine its composition — which may be said to be
nearly perfect — while it falls behind them, if viewed as to the spirit of its statement. First,
then, let us consider its composition. The history which it portrays, appears like a well-
planned drama ; developing scene after scene in rapid succession, and progressing by fasci-
nating movements, to a consummation which we may compare to the tying of a kno't. But
when the ««^ is reached, the solution is also near at hand. There ensues a highly successful
and impressive piripUie, a sudden turn of fortune, and all difficulties, though seemingly im-
possible, that stand in the way of a desirable conclusion, are continually and completely over-
come as chapter succeeds chapter. The first chapter gives us the introduction to the whole,
and the last gives us a supplement. Of the eight main chapters, the first four are devoted to
the tying, and the last four to the untying of the knot. Two out of these eight regularly be-
long together in the first part, because of the relation of the plot to the counterplot; in the
second part, because they refer to the removal of an identical difficulty.
Ahasuerus (Achashverosh), the powerful king of Persia, who has dominion from India
to ^Ethiopia, i. e., over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, in the third year of his reign
prepares a feast for the magnates of his kingdom, which lasts a half year. In this feast he
exhibits to his subjects — and thus to the readers of the book likewise — the wealth and mag-
nificence of his kingdom. The reader might readily anticipate the significance of the enmity
or friendship of such a ruler with respeet to the Jews and the honor accruing to Esther
when he selects her as his consort. Neither are we likely to lose sight of the distinction that
Mordecai receives by being made his all-powerful representative. When finally the king
would parade the beauty of his wife Vashti (Vashthi), she declines to appear before him and
his guests, and the consequence is that, by the advice of his seven counsellors he repudiates
her. This is the substance of the first chapter ; the real point of issue of the history is de-
veloped out of the second chapter. Ahasuerus prefers the Jewess Esther, who is to be a sub-
stitute for Vashti, before all other virgins. He solemnly elevates her to Vashti's position ;
at the same time Mordecai, her uncle, from whom her elevation removed her, remains near
the court. She does not reveal her Jewish origin, and Mordecai makes the king his debtor
by discovering a conspiracy against the life of Ahasuerus. One would think that now better
days would dawn upon the Jews in all the lands of Persia (chap. ii.). The first elevation is
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
followed by a second. Hainan, who on account of his name and descent might be called a
declared heathen and enemy to Judaism, is by Ahasuerus made his prime minister. Irritated
by Mordecai's disrespectful attitude, he procures a decree which, so far as human foresight
can predict, must inevitably result in the complete termination of the Jewish name. Haman
loses no time in promulgating this decree in all the provinces (chap. iii.). In the fourth chap-
ter we find in consequence that, in the entire Persian domain all who are called Jews are in
deep distress, covered with sackcloth and ashes. Conspicuous among them is Mordecai in a
mourning suit, standing with loud lamentation at some distance from the king's portal, so as
to draw the attention of the female servants and eunuchs of queen Esther. By great exer-
tions he finally succeeds in obtaining her promise that she will dare the utmost for the salva-
tion of her people ; and she is even ready to perish in the attempt. She induces him, to-
gether with all the Jews in Susa (the palace) to join her and her maids in preparation for
the decisive event by a strict fast of three days' duration (chap. iv.). But she is graciously
received by her consort, whom she approaches without previous permission ; yet she deems
it expedient to first invite the king to dine with her once or twice, and this in company with
Haman, who is thus even by her highly honored and distinguished. Here although the
reader begins to anticipate, that just this distinction will become, in the artfulness of fortune,
the beginning of his end, nevertheless Haman himself does not yet perceive it, but puffs him-
self up, as those often do who are delivered over to the divine judgment, against his mortal
enemy Mordecai. Just as he departs from the first of Esther's banquets, in order to go to his
home, and by this manifest distinction having become of greater self-importance, and espe-
cially having already received a second invitation, it happens that he finds Mordecai again
sitting in the gate of the king's palace and still refusing to give him the required homage.
After he has taken counsel with his wife and friends, and finds that the only drawback
to his great fortune is this disrespect of the hated Jew, he resolves, in order that he may en-
joy the happiness and honor of the next banquet without alloy, to remove this proud Mor-
decai out of his way the very next morning. He causes a gallows fifty cubits high to be con-
structed, on which, in order that the punishment might be the more terrifying and disgrace-
ful, he would have Mordecai hung. In short, while the Jews themselves are prostrated in
mourning, fearing the very worst, nor yet hoping a more fortunate turn of affairs to be brought
about by the intercession of Esther, their mortal enemy, purposely and in consequence of
Esther's intercession carries his head especially high, thinking that his highest triumph is
now near at hand, (chap. v.). But in the succeeding night sleep flees the pillow of the king.
In consequence he calls his scribe to read to him from the annals of the kingdom. In these
is recorded how Mordecai disclosed the conspiracy against him, thereby saving his life, and
precisely this passage is read to him. This occasions the question, how Mordecai had been
rewarded for having made himself so greatly deserving of his favor ; or rather, since hitherto
he had not been rewarded, how or what reward should now be given him ? Hence, just as
Haman enters in the early morning, with the design of obtaining permission for the execu-
tion of Mordecai, he has this question put to him, and an immediate answer is required. As
the question is quite general and indefinite, namely, what should be done to a man whom the
king would delight to honor ; and as no doubt arises in the mind of the self-conceited Haman
that his own preference is spoken of, it so happens as the point of culmination of this effect-
ive development that, in the same moment in which he expects to annihilate his mortal
enemy, he both pronounces his own doom and elevates his enemy to the highest honor. The
king forthwith instructs him to carry out his own sentence (chap. vi.). But upon this first
blow, which of course naturally falls heavily upon him, and which even to his wife and
friends presages his downfall, there follows in the seventh chapter the second. In the second
banquet he is boldly confronted by Esther, and Ahasuerus, extremely incensed against him,
has him hung on the same gallows which was erected for Mordecai. Thus in chapters vi. and
vii. the originator of the danger that threatened the Jews is removed. Now the question re-
mains, whether and how the special regal decree, which ordered the destruction of the Jews,
can be made ineffective, in spite of the irrevocableness which it has as the king's decree.
Chapter viii. relates how little Mordecai and Esther are content with that which they had
? 2. AIM AND HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK. 3
gained in Hainan's downfall, and how Esther now entreats the king for her people, and how
Mordecai, to whom the king assigns the matter, adopts counter measures, by which the Jews
are restored to their rights and protected. Mordecai gave them permission to assemble and
defend themselves in the day in which they were to be attacked. Chapter ix. adds how for-
tunate the Jews were in consequence, as they averted the calamity from themselves and threw
it upon their enemies. Indeed they succeeded so well that the day in which they appre-
hended their destruction, became a day of rejoicing; and Mordecai, as well as Esther, by
means of letters and ordinances established this day to be celebrated annually as a day of
joy, solemn reflection and memorial. With a view to indicating not only their deliverance,
but likewise the elevation and honor, which both Mordecai and Judaism experienced, chapter
x. is added as a supplement. There also it is stated how powerful was the sway of Ahasue-
rus over land and sea, and how Mordecai, still promoting the welfare of his people, was the
second in the kingdom. If we briefly condense the whole matter, we have the following
summary : —
Part First. The origin and increase of danger to the Jews (chaps, i. — v.).>
Introduction. The occasion of the history. The State-banquet of Ahasuerus and the rejec-
tion of his spouse Vashti (chap. i.).
First Section. The rise and meeting of the contrasts (chaps, ii., iii.).
Esther takes the place of Vashti, and Mordecai deserves well of Ahasuerus (cbap. ii.).
Haman attains to consequence and power, and irritated by Mordecai, resolves and decrees
the destruction of the Jews (chap. iii.).
Second Section. The conflict between the contrasts, (chaps, iv., v.).
Mordecai, deeply mourning for his people, urges upon Esther to beseech the king for
mercy, and obtains her consent (chap. iv.).
Esther is graciously received by the king. Haman, highly honored by the queen, re-
solves to have Mordecai hung (chap. v.).
Part Second. The removal of the danger (chaps, vi. — x.).
First Section. Haman's downfall (chaps, vi., vii.).
Haman, while expecting the highest distinction for himself, is deeply humiliated, in the
very act of seeking the destruction of Mordecai, his mortal enemy, by being obliged
by his own judgment to concede, and even with his own hand to impart to him the
greatest distinction (chap. vi.).
Accused by Esther, he is hung on the same tree which he had erected for Mordecai
(chap. vii.).
Second Section. The removal of the danger which threatened the Jews in consequence of the
decree of annihilation issued against them (chaps, viii., ix.).
Esther and Mordecai obtain permission for their people to defend themselves, (ch. viii.).
The Jews rid themselves of their enemies and resolve, by the advice of Mordecai and
Esther, annually to celebrate the day of their deliverance, as the feast of Purim
(chap. ix.).
Addenda. Authority, consequence and power of Mordecai the Jew in the powerful Persian
world-monarchy (chap. x.).
? 2. AIM AND HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.
Could authentic evidence be brought to show that there was a custom, in order to en-
hance the attractiveness of the annual celebrations, of publicly reading a festival-book (such
as in the last Mazzoth day, Solomon's Song ; on the second of the Feast of Weeks, the book
of Ruth; on the 9th of Ab, as being the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, the Lamenta-
tions of Jeremiah ; on the third day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Ecclesiastes), and could
this be traced back to the time of the authorship of our book, then we should be apt to sup-
pose that the book of Esther was written for the express purpose which it afterward served,
viz. as the festival-book (the Megittah or volume) of the feast of Purim.
It is manifestly the intention of the author to exhibit the reason for the feast of Purim,
i. e. to narrate the remarkable events to which that feast had reference. He is so engrossed
11
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
with this festival of Purim, that he declares to us in the ninth chapter how it came that not
only the 14th, but even the 15th, of Adar was celebrated as a festival ; and in vers. 24 sqq.,
he again briefly condenses the chief facts of the history, in order to give them in a definite
and comprehensive manner as the ground of the feast; and finally he makes the name Purim
conspicuous as having special reference to these events. Of course, the occasion of the feast
receives from him particular attention, because it is of such moment to tho history as well as
faith of the Jews, and in order to show that there is in the government of the world a justice
which protects Judaism and preserves it amid the greatest dang'rs.
It is a manifest design of the book to promote a revival of the Jewish faith, for the
strengthening of which this feast of Purim was designed, and to demonstrate that the heathen
enemies fall themselves into the pit which they dug for Judaism, and that the Jewish people
have an easy rise to the surface though they may have fallen for a time into abjectness and
dependence.
Now the question arises, whether, in order to attain this object, the author has treated
his theme historically or poetico-didactically ; and if the latter be true, whether he has em-
ployed a free poetic style or merely given to historic facts a poetic adornment. The historic
treatment has tradition on its side. This view obtains not only with the Rabbins, but uni-
versally in the Christian Church also. In its defence even Clericus (in his Dissert, de
scriptoribus ttbrorum hist., § 10) says : " It is a truly wonderful and paradoxical history (who
will deny it?) ; but many wonderful things and foreign to our customs formerly obtained
among orientals as also among many other peoples." The first attacks upon its credibility
were made by Semlek, [Apparatus ad liberallorem V. Test, interpret., p. 152 sq.), by Oeder
( Uhtersuchungen iibcr einige Biicher des Alten Testaments, p. 12 sqq.), and CoBEODI [Beleuch-
tung des judischen und christlichen Bibel-Kanons I., p. 64), and later by Bebtholdt [EM.
V., p. 24 sq.), De Wette, Gramberg (Oesch. der Religionsideen I, p. 317), Vatke (BibL
Tlieol I., p. 5S0), and also by Bleek (E'ml. zum Alten Testament); but they were aimed
against details, which are not definite ; and they do not therefore much militate against a
correct understanding of the plan and method of our book. Historical investigation, how-
ever, cannot reject such doubts because they seem to contradict the received opinions re-
specting the canon. The latter may possibly be corrected. Even conservative theology has
been compelled to make the concession that the book of Job, indeed even its introduction
and conclusion, although having the form of a historical statement, are nevertheless to be
received as poetical works, and that the declarations of Solomon in Koheleth have a poetical
garb. It has been conceded that the book of Jonah has not so much value as a historical
book, but rather as a book of doctrine, since otherwise it would not stand in the same cate-
gory with the prophetical books.*
We must, therefore, not pass too hastily the question, whether in the later periods of
canonical literature there had not a new branch of literary activity developed itself, which
might be termed, in some sense at least, as that of religious romance. In the Greek- Alexan-
drian period as is shown by our Apocrypha, this was very rife. It might also occasion the
thought, that in all public readings on festival days, only those writings were selected to be
read which belonged fully to poetry, such as Canticles and Lamentations, or which at least
in a certain sense pass over into poetry, as the books of Ruth and Ecclesiastes.
One circumstance especially and primarily caused doubts as to the strictly historical
character of this book, namely, that, in the real turning-point of the whole story, as if in
order to raise the interest of the reader to a high pitch, and also to make a satisfactory con-
clusion as regards Mordecai and the Jews, the timely and fitting nature of many of the
incidents seems to translate the reader involuntarily from the world of reality to that of
ideality. Haman must take revenge upon Mordecai in the very moment of his anger, and
cause the gallows upon which he himself should be hung in the morning to be erected over
night. But in this very night, when Mordecai has so much at stake, the king is made to
* [The author hag made this admission too vaguely and unguardedly. The result of modern criticism has
been not to overthrow the historical basis of the books referred to, but only to confirm the opinion early broached,
and not unfrequently entertained, that their dress and language is poetical.— Ta.]
\ 2. AIM AND HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK. 6
have a disturbed sleep, and thereupon cause the state documents (chronicles) to be read to
him, by the means of which he is reminded of the desert of Mocdecai. The question of the
king, which is quite indefinite, is accordingly misunderstood by Haman, and thus misleads
him, so that he applies it to himself, and in consequence of this self-deception, awards to
his mortal enemy the highest distinction, and that too in the very moment when he is intent
on his destruction In order to explain such facts one must have recurrence to the special
divine Providence, which rules over Mordecai and over the Jewish nation in general.
However intent God may be in a plan where the salvation or protection of His own
people depends upon it; and though at times He may bring about occurrences in their favor,
which are so wonderful as to make His special interference manifest to the believer, never-
theless the facts are not usually so artistically arranged by Him, as appears here. Besides,
it is remarkable that Mordecai should not ere this have received some suitable reward for
his meritorious act; so likewise that Esther did not at the first feast bring her particular
request before the king. It would really seem as if Esther had been enjoined to wait, at least
until Haman should gain time to determine the execution of Mordecai. Above all, semblance
is given to the thought that Mordecai's reward is purposely postponed, in order that it might
be accorded to him in the supreme and decisive moment of the whole proceeding.
But if we must acknowledge the influence of a transformative and embellishing imagery
in this chief stage of the drama, this would be inconsistent if it were not possible to hold the
same in other places, where it comes within the didactic purpose of the author, and where by
a change in form of the transmitted material the intended impression could be more seriously
brought about.
Possibly it may be assumed that Esther did not — at least permanently— occupy the posi-
tion of first (chief) wife, but held only a subordinate one, as a preferred concubine before
several others in Vashti's stead. Indeed, our book hints at such a fact; since even after
Esther's elevation, there is mention in chap. ii. 19 of another collection of virgins, which
appears to have had the same significance as the first one. It is well known that the profane
writers are not only silent in reference to Esther, but they also relate several things as regards
the chief wife of Xerxes, which have no application to Esther. They call the former Ames-
iris, and say in reference to her, not only that she was a daughter of Otanes (Herod. VII. 64),
or of Onofas (Ctesias, 820), but also that Xerxes was married to her even previous to the
expedition to Greece (Herod. IX. 109). Further on it states that he married off Darius his
oldest son by her, in the year 479, or immediately after the march to Greece (Herod. IX. 108),
while Esther, as we shall presently see, was raised to be queen after the Grecian expedition.
To this may be added that, according to Herodotus III. 108, the real queens were selected
only from the seven chief Persian families. Moreover, according to the Zend-Avesta (comp.
Kletjker, Anhang., I. 78), marriage proper with women of any other tribe was, to the Per-
sians, strictly forbidden.
Perhaps it may further be stated, indeed one might safely aflirm that, Haman was not
really an Agagite, i. e., a descendant of the Amalekite king Agag, but that this designation
was only given in a symbolical way. Hence, according to his whole manner, as is affirmed
by the Targums prius et posterius, he would as the arch-enemy of Israel, hold a relation to
Edom intrinsically identical, but varied in its outward expression, by being opposed to Mor-
decai, who had sprung from the family of Saul. Thus the name Haman, as well as that of
his father (comp. on chap. iii. 1), might be of significance in this relation.
The remark, that Shushan, the city (not usually the Jews resident there, but the city itself),
fell into consternation and alarm at the announcement of the first regal decree, which com-
manded the destruction of the Jews (comp. chap. iii. 15) may perhaps be somewhat exagge-
rated. So likewise at the publication of the second decree, in which the Jews were permitted
to defend themselves, the assertion that the city rejoiced exceedingly (comp. chap. vin. 15)
is not to be accepted as strictly true. This remark, perhaps, has its ground in the intention
of the author, to bring into prominence the cruelty of the first decree, and the justice ot the
second, as also the greatness both of the threatened misfortune and of the following good
fortune. Finally, the statement given in chap. ix. that, on that decisive day seventy-five
INTKOBUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
thousand persons perished at the hands of the Jews, doubtless does not rest upon an actual
count ; but it is rather the design of the author to represent the victory of the Jews as grand
and extensive. Of course in all these points we are necessitated to content ourselves with a
bare "possibility," or even " probability.'' Yet we must not forget that a judgment may in
such things be rendered merely from a subjective and individual point of view, and that we
lack objective criteria. Finally, the conditions and circumstances of the case are to be
regarded, of which we now have not sufficient knowledge.
The anti-traditional view, as held by Sehleb., Oedek, Cobbodi, and among later critics
Hitzig {Gesch. Isr. I. p. 280), and Zunz {Zeitsehrift d. D. M. O. XXVII. 4, p. 684), which
is that the history of our book is in several places not only poetically adorned, but really
invented as a whole, in order to represent naturally a truth that seems to require statement
in a historical form — is a view which would incline us to accept the theory of an apologetical
tendency in reference to our book, could we thus be enabled to look upon it as actual, if not
in all respects, yet at least in the cardinal points, especially as regards the persons treated of,
in their manner, their destiny, or even in their names, intentions, and thoughts. Under that
view Esther, who had grown great in lowly circumstances, herself poor but amiable, might
represent the later Jewish nation growing up in exile, and not distinguished from other
peoples by its external greatness, but rather by its internal importance and effectiveness.
Esther's name is really Hadassah, or " Myrtle." In Zech. i. 8 the post-exilian nation is com-
pared to the myrtles on the shore of the roaring sea, a symbol of the moving masses of huma-
nity. Her assumed name Esther (aster, "a star"), on the other hand, might point to the
reflection of light, which flows from the fulness of salvation as from the Lord, notwithstand-
ing the tribulation inflicted upon her nation. Or she might have simply pointed to the hope
which the older generation, in the midst of the night of the tribulation of their exile, placed
in the younger. This nation stands under the lead and care of the old and serious Mordecai,
who perhaps derived his name from theChaldee god Merodach. But even he desires to con-
duct himself according to the Jewish laws in the midst of Chaldsea and Persia, though it be
at the risk of his life, defying the power of the heathen potentate. Thus as an exile, carried
to Chaldtea, he might represent a type of the old generation, which, as it were, had fallen a
prey to Merodach, and yet, even in this heathen land, maintained a strong repugnance against
heathen morals and laws, and opposed them with an unbending inflexibility. Esther's
father, Abihail, i. q., "the man of power and skill," had long since departed. Thus the
fathers, to whose freedom and dignity the younger or rising generation would gladly have
aspired, was gone. But the real fathers still remained, to whose covenant rights and inhe-
ritance a claim might Btill be laid. Or, if we would be guided by certain analogies in
the book of Daniel, we might regard Esther as the image of a guardian angel, who, where
the destinies of nations are decided, makes intercession for Israel (comp. Dan. x. 13, 20).
Mordecai would then certainly represent the Jews who, above all others, are loyal and trust-
worthy; and he accordingly shows his loyalty to Ahasuerus, by opposing the scheme to take
away the life of that ruler. Haman, on the other hand, i. q., "the one sacrificing to Somao,''
the son of Hamadatha, as " belonging to the moon," i. e., the chief heathen deity, the Aga-
gite and the Amalekite, would be a type of the principal heathen potentates who hate and
seek to destroy the people of God. Vashti's rejection and Esther's acceptance in preference to
many others, rather would signify that Israel has long been preferred before otherpeoples, though
this has as yet been a secret to the world. But that Haman comes to power and forthwith
designs the destruction of the Jews, would indicate that in spite of the election of Israel the
world is still the principal enemy to the kingdom of God. Indeed, this, which might be
called, as in the N. T., the anti- Christian world, has dominion over the people of the cove-
nant, as is strikingly evinced in the Jewish exile in contrast with the theocracy. What is
stated of Ahasuerus, as being the Lord of the then known world, would remind us of the
mode in which Providence seems to govern the world, leaving full liberty to the rulers inimi-
cal to God. This ruler is found to be indifferent to the distress of the oppressed and threat-
ened people (comp. chap. iii. 15), indeed he is bound by an irrevocable edict of persecution
against the people of God. The troubles of this exile had been inflicted by divine justice
? 2. AIM AND HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.
and now the question remained how grace could have scope again (comp. Isa. xlix. 24). But
grace ever active, makes itself known, and remembers those who are recorded in the great
book of life as God's faithful ones. The fall of Haman would then picture forth the remo-
val of Anti-Ohrist. The destruction of the remaining enemies would shadow forth the over-
throw of those who are not actively hostile, but simply not receptive of the kingdom of God.
Both would foreshadow the judgment of God in its negative aspect. The conversion of many
in Persia (chap. viii. 17) would indicate the conversion of heathen people as the positive side
of the divine judgment upon the world. In short the whole would be an allegory, which
would teach those who in later times are oppressed, that a higher Power is fighting for Israel ;
that its bitterest enemies are, by reason of their hostile machinations, the cause of their own
destruction; that the faithful ones will yet get the victory, in spite of all their tribulations.
This would be a vivid representation of what would come to pass after the sufferings of the
exile, by way of contrast, and especially the judgment to be brought about by the coming
of the Messiah, and even that which shall yet come at the end of time. Hence many things,
which according to the letter of our history, seem low and worldly, indeed repulsive, would,
if viewed in this aspect, contain a high religious truth, and our book would be regarded with
far greater favor than has hitherto been given it. Every one feels that Esther, Mordecai
and Haman have in fact a higher and more general signification. There are, however, many
positive traits, which cannot be explained by this allegorical theory. Especially noteworthy
is the circumstance that our book at its close (chap. ix. 16), in relating the inauguration of
the Feast of Purim, explicitly claims to give real facts. The occurrences which lie at the
basis of the story have been apprehended by the author much more clearly than he could
have done the future history of the Jews, and yet in such a light as to make them the mirror
of grander developments thereafter. The chief persons, of whom he speaks, have as it were
gained representative positions, so that at their mention we think also of other persons. But
these are not mere pictures, and the material employed is not to be regarded as poetically
invented, but as historically given.
Should we even regard the substantial part of the history of Esther as unhistorical, still
the question would necessarily arise, how to account for the history of the Feast of Purim.
According to 1 Mace. vii. 40 sqq. Judas Maccabseus defeated the Syrian general Nicanor on
the 13th Adar, a day before the Feast of Purim, near a place called Adasa, which might pos-
sibly be interpreted as Hadassah, " the myrtle." As a memorial of this victory the 13th of
the month Adar was to be celebrated annually as a national holiday. The fact that on this
occasion the Feast of Purim was not mentioned, has been taken as a proof by J. D. Ml-
CHAELIS, that the author of the 1 Maccabees had no knowledge as yet of the Feast of Purim.
One might even go farther and assume that the Feast of Purim took its rise from the day of
the defeat of Nicanor. The author of the apocryphal additions of our book designates Ha-
man as a Macedonian (comp. I 4), in which case a relation to Nicanor might be established.
Certain it is that the day of Nicanor's defeat gradually went over into that of the Feast of
Purim.
Although the former is still mentioned in the Mishnic tract Taanith (ch. xii.), also in
the Babyl. Talmud (Tannit, seq. 18 b), and in Massachet Sophrim (ch. xvii. 4), yet, according
to Geimm (on 1 Mace. vii. 49), it has not been celebrated as a memorial of Nicanor for at
least one thousand years back. For the so-called Feast of Little Purim has nothing at all
to do with it; but the latter is merely the usual Feast of Purim, occurring on the 14th and
15th days of the 12th month in a leap year, when the Feast of Great Purim falls on the
same days of the 13th month. Still there was required more time for such a metamorphosis,
by which a Nicanor was transformed into a Haman, than is thus allowed. Even the author
of 2 Mace, according to ch. xv. 36, recognizes Purim as the MapSoxaixif fiixipa, and he then
distinguishes the Feast of Nicanor as quite another. In agreement with him Josephus, in
his Ant. xi. 6, 13, also affirms that Purim was celebrated by the Jews of the whole world as
a remembrance of the occurrences detailed in our book. Indeed he himself is fully convinced
that it was so celebrated since the time of Persia. Haman and Nicanor are entirely different
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
persons, and the deliverances which the Jews enjoyed with respect to them are too different
in nature to favor the idea of a transformation of the one into the other.
Hitzig ( Gesch. Israels I., p. 280) supposes that Purim had been originally the New
Year's Feast of the Persians. They began their year in the Spring, when Purim was cele-
brated ; and in Arabic the New Year is still called Pur- Hence he also takes into account
the Persian Purdeghan (Leap-year), to which Hammer had already referred as being a
foundation for the Jewish festival. Zunz also (I. c.) thinks that the Jews had appropriated
to themselves the Persian Spring-festival which corresponds to the German Christmas festi-
vities. The authorities, not able to abolish this feast, or perhaps unwilling to do so, took
care to legitimize it as a day of rejoicing, and hence gave it a Jewish origin and import.
Hitzig also assumes further that a fact of the Parthian period first gave the significance of
Purim as being that of lot (" loose ") ; the Parthians of Scythian origin probably had such
words as Pur, lot (loose), and Agha whence Haman probably derived his epithet of Agagite
(ch. iii. 1); for even they also without a doubt had a Kislar-Agha (comp. ch. ii. 3). But
that the custom of celebrating a day of rejoicing in the month of Adar had not only crept
in here and there from heathen surroundings, but that it should also have attained to recog-
nition by those who were strict in their national observances, and even with the authorities
themselves, is not to be conceived of as possible under the then existing circumstances, un-
less it took its rise in a historical occasion adequate to account for its adoption into Juda-
ism. Hence the necessity of recognizing the fact which our book relates, as the real foun-
dation, in any case. To suppose that the festival could everywhere have gained currency
independently of this basis, would be to confound those ancient times, in which an inflexi-
ble opposition to Judaism was predominant, with our modern age, in which this has to a
great degree ceased. Besides, the festival of Purdeghan has but little resemblance to that of
Purim. The former lasted ten days. The first five were devoted to the memory of the dead,
and hence were a season of mourning (comp. Herzfeld, Gesch. Israels, II. 1, p. 183). If
Hitzig finds it improbable that the feast of Purim took its name from the casting of lots
over Haman, on the ground that the latter retreats out of sight in the history, on the other
hand we should consider that the lot of Haman was the voice of God. The day selected for
the casting of the lot, if it had brought the destruction of the Jews, would have been the
day of the victory of heathen gods over the God of Israel. But since that event did not
occur, it became a day of the refutation of the heathen deities, i. e., of the victory and tri-
umph both of Judaism and the Jewish law and God over them.
That such a history is basal to the Feast of Purim, as our book relates it, will always
remain by far the most probable view, and hence is maintained in more modern times by such
men as Batjmgarten {Defide libri Esthera, 1839), after Haevernick ; also by Keil and J.
A. Nickes (De Esthers libro et ad eum qua; pertinent vaticiniis et Psalmis libri tres, BomEe
1850). These defend the historical character of our book in its strictness, and are reinforced
by Staehelin {Spec. Einl. in d. Kan. Buchern. d. A. T.), Bertheatj, and especially by Ewald
(Gesch. Israels, IV., p. 296), who hold our book to be substantially historical.
Several things, which in our present condition seem to us very improbable, could per-
haps be easily explained by reference to the peculiar circumstances, customs and usages of
the ancient Persian empire, especially from the characteristic traits of Ahasuerus (Xerxes).
"We do not propose to enter upon this subject, so much for the purpose of directly corrobo-
rating the historical character of the book as in order to show that the attacks made against
it are very doubtful. If De Wette thinks he finds a marked weakness in the narrative in
the circumstance that Esther is represented as keeping secret her Jewish descent, not only
at ch. ii. 20, where she is chosen queen by the king, but up to the very time of the catastro-
phe, and that even Haman does not suspect her relation to Mordecai, while the kin" him-
self is surprised at her request to be saved (comp. vii. 5) ; on the other hand we may consider
that a great king, such as Xerxes, doubtless was too highly elevated to concern himself
about the personal circumstances of his female favorites, and that Haman, in his official
relation, had nothing to do with the harem of the king.
But the main fact that Ahasuerus at Haman's request resolved to issue an edict which
\ 2. AIM AND HISTORICAL CHARACTER OP THE BOOK.
ordered the destruction of all the Jews in the entire Persian empire, is not without analogy.
Mithndates, king of Pontus, in his war against Pome, issued secret orders to all the satraps
and chief local authorities of his kingdom, to murder on a certain day all Romans without
distinction of sex or age, whereby eighty thousand, or as some estimate, one hundred and
fifty thousand persons lost their lives. Mehmed, a pasha of Zaid, in the sixteenth century,
surprised the entire nation of the Druses, and caused all that were met with to be killed
(Aevieux, Merhw. Nachr., I., p. 391). A similar thing occurred also in Europe. At
the time of "the Sicilian vespers" there fell eight thousand Frenchmen in Catanea
alone. Ferdinand the Catholic drove out of Spain over three hundred thousand Jews, and
Louis XIV. drove out of France several hundred thousands of Protestants, after causing
thousands more to be murdered (comp. Rosenmtjeller, Bibl. Alterth., I., p. 379). The
Parisian massacre of St. Bartholomew's night is another specially analogous case. Keil
very justly makes prominent the point in reference to these facts, that Greek and Roman
authors are unanimous in their portrait of Xerxes, and paint him as a very riotous, licen-
tious monarch, and an extremely cruel tyrant. The commentator last cited goes on to say :
" Xerxes was the despot who, after the wealthy Lydian Pythius had most richly entertained
the Persian army in its march against Greece, and offered an immense sum of money as a
contribution to the costs of the war, on his making a petition to have the oldest of his five
sons then in the army given to him as a solace for his old age, became so enraged that he
caused the son asked for to be cut in pieces, and laid the pieces on both sides of the way,
and ordered his army to march through between them (Herod. VII. 37-39 ; Seneca, De ira
VII. 17) ; the tyrant, who caused the heads of those to be cut off who built the pontoon
bridge over the Hellespont, because a storm had destroyed the bridge, and who ordered the
sea to be lashed with whips and bound with chains sunk under the waves (Herod. VII. 35) ;
the debauchee, who after his return from Greece, sought to drown the vexation of his shame-
ful defeat by means of sensuality and revelry (Herod. IX. 108, 599). Such a frantic tyrant
was he as to be capable of all that is related in our book of Ahasuerus." Spiegel, in his
Eranischen Alterthumskunde (II., p. 402), gives a very mild judgment concerning Xerxes, yet
even he says: "There is no question that he fell far behind his predecessors in regard to
energy and other capabilities; he seems to have been of a sanguine nature;'' and the same
writer also proves the great thoughtlessness of that king, especially in his relations to his
uncle Artabanus (Herod. VII. 10, 11, 48, 49), and in regard to Demaratus (Herod. VII.
101-104).
Hainan's publishing of the decree of extermination eleven months previous to the day
appointed for the butchery was perhaps less foolish than it would appear to us in our cir-
cumstances. Besides it is very questionable whether so short a time as a month would have
been sufficient to carry the edict to the remotest parts of the empire, as Bertheau seems to
suppose. Mordecai, who issued the counter-edict three months later, urged (as is expressly
stated in chap. viii. 10-14) the greatest speed. This was done not only to remove the ter-
ror of the Jews as soon as possible, but also to prevent any acts of oppression. To us of
to-day it would indeed appear as if Haman would have made the destruction of the
Jews only the more difficult, if not impossible, by what might seem to us an untimely
and hasty publication of his decree. But to a Persian despot his subjects were never out of
reach. The Jews might here and there have made an attempt at flight. But this might not
have been very unwelcome to Haman, since the goods of the fugitives could have easily been
confiscated. To Haman it was a matter of great importance to cause the decree of the king
to become very early a fixed irrevocable law; and this doubtless would be attained most cer-
tainly by its publication. Besides, it was a gratification to himself to torment those detested
Jews long before the blow was to be struck, and especially to let them see that their enemies
were deliberate and easy in their preparation for the final blow.
The success of the orders issued by Mordecai, which appears from the statement that, in the
various parts of the Persian dominion 75,000 persons perished in their attack on the Jews, will
seem less doubtful than it might at first if we consider the great extent of Persia, reaching from
India to -ZEthiopia. The aggressors might very easily have overestimated the sympathy which
10 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
they received from their own people and religious associates ; and the power of resistance
on the part of the Jews might easily have been underestimated. Hence it is not to he won-
dered at if the former were badly vanquished and perished. The number seventy-five thou-
sand can, of course, be only assumed as an approximation, and the intention of the author
may have been influenced to its acceptance by reason of the facts above stated.
The circumstance that Ahasuerus granted a new edict at the request of Esther, in which
the Jews resident in Shushan were permitted to continue the massacre on the following day
also, even when no new attack was attempted upon them, might be explained by the assump-
tion that, in such a large city there was a great rabble element which had fallen upon the
Jews the first day, and which would recommence the conflict after they had come forth from
their temporary hiding-places. To such as had begun the conflict, and regarding whom the
Jews were on the defensive, this second decree had equal reference. It only permitted them
to fulfil what the first edict ordered, (chap. ix. 13).
A favorable opinion is created with regard to the historical veracity of the author, in
that he correctly knows and vividly describes the customs and arrangement at the Persian
court, in so far as they have interest for him ; and that he calls by name those persons who
enter into the history portrayed by him, such as courtiers (chapter i. 10), the seven Persian
princes (chap, i, 14), the keepers of the women's houses (seraglios) (chap. ii. 8, 14), the cham-
berlain whom Esther sent out to Mordecai (chap. iv. 5), the wife and ten sons of Haman
(chapter* vi. 13; ix. 7-9). Further, he makes reference to the annual records of the Medo-
Persians, as to the source in which were described, not only the deeds of Ahasuerus, but also
Mordecai's greatness and power (chap. x. 2). Of course, a poet should correctly represent
the manners and conditions which he would portray ; and our author might very properly
have been in possession of sufficient learning, or he may have written in a time and place
where one could easily and almost intuitively learn about Persian matters. On this account
we would naturally expect the absence of vulgar mistakes. Still it was not the habit with
the Jewish authors of the last centuries B. C. to distinguish themselves by correct historical
knowledge, or by an accurate apprehension of those far-off times. The contrary was of such
common occurrence and fault that our book, in this regard, is entitled to the more distinc-
tion. It has been asserted that the office of Grand Vizier, such as was held by Haman, and
afterwards by Mordecai, was not properly Persian. But Enger (Zeitschr. d. D. M. 1859, p.
239 ff.) has conclusively shown that the office of vizier really originated and had its develop-
ment in Persia. To resign the proper functions of government to a favorite, must have been
a chief concern to a weakling like Xerxes, who lived only for sensual pleasures. Thus also
the Merovingians had their major domus who finally usurped the government and power of
the kin?dotn.
It is especially remarkable that the events related in the narrative can, according to their
historical dates, which the author gives, be very appropriately inserted in the rest of the his-
tory of Xerxes as given by Greek historians. This is of the greater importance, since the
author does not at all refer to previous history. It was in the third year of his reign that
Ahasuerus gave the great feast in Shushan, which lasted one hundred and eighty days (one
half of a Persian year). According to Herod, vii. 8, Xerxes proclaimed an edict in the third
year of his reign, after the termination of his war against Egypt ; and in that edict he con-
voked all the princes of his empire to Shushan, in order to plan the campaign against Greece.
Such deliberations were generally accompanied with festivities by the Persian kings (comp-
Winer, Bealworterbuch, II., p. 229, and Battmgarten, L, p. 139). Vashti's rejection, there
fore, occurred in the third year of Ahasuerus, and soon afterwards the choice of a new qvteen
was made. Yet Esther, according to chap. ii. 16, was chosen near the close of the seventh
year ; and, according to chap. ii. 19, another assembly of virgins was ordered, from which a
further selection was to be made to take the place of Vashti. This remarkable postponement
may be explained by the fact that between Ahasuerus' third year and his seventh the time
of preparation and the war against Greece intervened, Xerxes returned to Persia in the
Spring of his seventh year. Thus his special history becomes, as it were, a commentary for
our book.
I 3. CANONICAL DIGNITY. n
$ 3. CANONICAL DIGNITY.
It seems as if the canonicity of our book had at first been doubted among the Jews. In
the Jerusalem Talmud [Megilloth, lxx. 4) and in the Midrash [Ruth, 45 a.) we find the state-
ment that eighty-five elders, among whom were thirty or more prophets, combated the in-
troduction of the Feast of Purim, though they finally gave it their sanction. It is also inti-
mated that these men were contemporaries of Mordecai. This remark has really nothing to
do with the book of Esther as such, but has only reference to the precepts in regard to the
fasts, which were ordered by both Esther and Mordecai, (chap. ix. 29-32). Still, to combat
the latter would be to indirectly attack the genuineness of our book. Such an opposition to
the institution of Purim, however, does not well harmonize with the reverence paid to the
book as belonging to the Canon. The opinion of Hebzfeld (II. 1, p. 358), that this tradi-
tion was a conclusion derived from the statement of chap. ix. 29 merely, from which it was
inferred that Mordecai and Esther had written a second time in reference to the introduction
of the feast of Purim, is very improbable, as is also his supposition that the number of the
elders was taken by mistake from Nehem. viii. — x. grouped together. There are no other
oppositions found among the Jews in this regard. Even Josephus reckoned our book as
certainly belonging to the Canon (comp. c. Ap. I, 8) ; otherwise he would not have made the
remark that the history therein described reached down to Artaxerxes, who to him was none
other than the Ahasuerus of our book. But the later transactions which took place with re-
ference to the Canon, namely, at the Synod of Jerusalem, A. D. 65, where a determination
was called for between the Hillelites and the Shammaites, and also at the Synod at Jamnia,
A. D. 90, had reference more especially to Ecclesiastes, and next to the Canticles, and lastly
to the book of Ezekiel, which some -would have withdrawn from public use, because it seemed
to diverge in its legal requirements from those of the Pentateuch. (!JJ). Moreover, our book
has been very highly esteemed among the Jews (comp. Geaetz on Koheleth, Appendix I.),
which may easily be seen by its designation as " the Megillah " by eminence. Indeed it has
been preferred to the " Kethubim," and even to the " Nebiim," and has finally been placed
by the immediate side of the " Torah " itself. Moses Maimonides thought that in the days
of the Messiah all the Nebiim and Kethubim would be abolished ; and that only the book of
Esther and the Torah, together with the oral law, would be perpetual (comp. Carpzov, In-
trod., I., p. 366). This special regard, however, was simply owing to the mournful circum-
stances under which the Jews learned to value the consolation derived from Haman's de-
struction and their own victory over their opponents, events to them at the time important
and precious. In our book, accordingly, these incidents are given from a nationally limited
point of view.
As regards the ancient Christian teachers, Melito, bishop of Sardes (about 172) does not
give the book of Esther in his list of the canonical books. Neither are the Apocrypha nor
Pseudo-apocrypha mentioned by him. He was importuned by his Christian brother Onesi-
mus to give him a more specific and correct statement with regard to the number and order
of the 0. T. books, since he had made researches respecting them in his journey to Palestine.
The book of Nehemiah, concerning which he is also silent, he doubtless includes in Esther.
But that he should thus have embraced the book of Esther likewise, as belonging to that of
Ezra, although he himself never included the one in the other, as was the case with Nehe-
miah, is not, with Eichhoen, Haeveenick, and others, to be supposed (comp. Eusebius,
Hist. Ecol., VI. 25). Epiphanes (died about 402) (in his Be mens, et ponder, c. 22, 23), Hi-
lary (in Prol. in Psalm.) and Jeeome (in Prol. Gal.) all include Esther in the Canon, but
place it at the end. Oeigen places it after the prophets and Job, which he brings in as
the last. Epiphanitts places it after the prophets and i. and ii. Ezra. Jeeome places it
after the other Kethubim, especially after Chronicles and Ezra. Hilaey places it after the
prophets and Job. Athanasius in his Epist. Test, omits it from the list of the canonical
books, and assigns it to the avaytyvomcd/ieva, i. e., the books to be read before the congregation,
which, with him, form a middle class between the canonical and apocryphal books. In the
Iambi ad Seleneum written between 350 and 400, it is also omitted ; yet the remark is made
12 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
at the end, " Some add the book of Esther to these." True, the Synopsis (probably by the
Alexandrian church and after to Athahasitjs) remarks that some say that Esther was re-
garded by the Hebrews as belonging to the Canon ; but this also proves that it did not have
canonical authority in the Christian church, at least not in that of Alexandria. Still more,
Jttnilius [De partibus legis div., c. 3) writes that in his time (in the sixth century) it was
very much doubted whether the book of Esther belonged to the Canon. It was, of course,
not the former vacillating treatment of this book by the Jews that caused the opposition of
Christians to its reception, but rather its high estimation with the later Jews. Its contents
might very easily be objectionable to Christian views and sentiments. This is evinced by
Luther, if indeed we can justly apply his harsh judgment to the Hebrew book* of Esther.
As the passage referred to is somewhat ambiguous, we quote it in the original Latin :
"Licet recusare posnmjure hunc liberum (Ecclesiasticum) , tamen interim recipio, ne cumjactura
temporis me involvam disputationi de receptxs libris in canone Ebrceorum, quern tu non nihil
mordes ac rides, dum Proverbia Solomonis et Canticum (ut scommate ambiguo vooas) amatorium
comparas cum libris duobus Esrse, Judith, historia Susannse et Draconis, Esther, quamvis hunc
habeant in canone, dignior omnibus, mejudice, qui extra canonem haberttur." [We translate
as follows : " Although I might justly reject this book (Ecclesiasticus), yet for the present I
admit it, lest with a loss of time I involve myself in the dispute concerning the books re-
ceived in the canon of the Hebrews, which you not a little attack and deride, while the Pro-
verbs of Solomon and the amatory canticles (as by an ambiguous sneer you call them) you
compare with the two books of Ezra, Judith, the history of Susanna and the Dragon, and
Esther ; though this last they have in their canon, yet it is, in my judgment, more worthy
than all the others to be kept out of the canon "]. In his Tischreden (ed. Walch, xxii., p.
268) Luther had also to do with the apocryphal books. He undertook to correct the second
book of Maccabees, and he then uttered these words : " I am," said he, " so inimical to this
and the book of Esther, that I could wish they did not at all exist; for they are excessively
Jewish, and contain many disreputable heathen practices." It is, therefore, not at all impro-
bable that he had reference not so much to the Hebrew, but rather to the Greek book of Es-
ther, which was so greatly corrupted by other additions. Besides, he had just made the re-
mark, " The third book of Esther I will throw into the Elbe. In the fourth book, in which
are noted what Esther dreamed, there are many pretty and otherwise very good jests, such as:
"Wine is strong, the king stronger, women still stronger, but truth is the most powerful of all "
Here he doubtless clearly mistook Ezra for Esther, and the fourth book of Ezra for the third
(comp. p. 13). It is clear, also, that the apocryphal books were in his mind. The remark
that his objection had it3 ground in the contents of the Hebrew book of Esther, instead of
the comparatively innocent apocryphal additions, is opposed by the fact that the second book
of Mace, of which he had just spoken, is placed before it. His objection to it seems to have
consisted more in the fabulous than in the morally objectionable elements of both books.
What makes us especially suspicious with regard to the canonical dignity of this book
is the fact that there is wanting in it the religious patriotic spirit which we find in the other
Old Testament historical books. The author makes prominent the attractions of Esther in
the eyes of Ahasuerus over all other virgins, and thus she became the guardian genius of
her people. If he had written his book after the manner of the older canonical books, we
might have reasonably expected that he would first of all speak of her piety. Indeed we
should have looked that he would treat of it as the reason why God gave her favor in the
king's sight, and that he would regard it as the source of her gracefulness and loveliness.
But we find no trace of this. Least of all is there a reference to a joyful confession on her
* In his De servo arb. (ed. Jen. III., p. 182 ; ed. Erlang. XII., p. 194) Luther censures Erasmus for regarding the
book of Ecclesiasticus (Jesus Sirach) as authoritative (canonical), and for placing it on the same level with the
book of Proverbs, in contrast with both books of Ezra (doubtless the third and fourth), Judith, the history of Su-
sanna and the Dragon. Hence he fought against degrading the books handed down in the Hebrew Bible as ca-
nonical, and placing them on a level with those contained in the Greek Bible, which he afterward cast out as
apocryphal. When he furthermore states that in his opinion the book of Esther deserved to be thrown out of
the Canon, by this, as Carpzov remarked (Introd. I., p. 370 sq.), he does not mean the Hebrew but the Greek book
of Esther. In other words, he objected to Jerome's apocryphal additions to the book.
3 8. CANONICAL DIGNITY. 13
part to Jehovah. But we rather discover that Mordecai shrewdly advises her to keep secret
her Judaistic descent from Ahasuerus. And she faithfully follows this injunction. Nor
does she point to the Lord as being the Almighty Protector and Avenger of those who
do him homage, even when she is compelled, in order to save her people, to declare her Jew-
ish origin to the king. She seems rather to aid her nation, not because it is God's people,
but because it is her people. *
So also, according to our author, Mordecai refuses to bow the knee to Haman. A more
ancient author would no doubt have faithfully given a clear and definite religious reason for
his conduct. But our author gives it so little space, that most interpreters have misunder-
stood him. He rather permits us to guess the reason, so to speak, by designating Haman as
an Agagite. And of Mordecai he testifies that he braced himself by his Judaism in his con-
duct. Hence that fact which would, we might imagine, have added the proper interest to
the book, and should really have been the soul of it, and would have given it the best dedi-
cation— the truth that reverence for man does not militate against the honor due to God,
and yet should not be given to those condemned and rejected by God — does not very clearly
appear, and indeed might easily be wholly overlooked. The entire proceeding almost as-
sumes the appearance of a common court-intrigue, in which Mordecai would hardly rank
higher than his opponent.
As regards the measures taken by Mordecai and Esther for the deliverance of their peo-
ple, we should naturally have judged that our author ought to have made their necessity
more apparent, in order not to be misunderstood in a moral aspect. He should have called
especial attention to their necessity for the maintenance of true religion. The first edict of
the king against the Jews was irrevocable. Hence the authorities could not be called on
for their protection. There remained, therefore, only the one way, namely, for the Jews to
assemble and stand for their lives in a common self-defence. This was virtually a war in
the time of peace. Still it was forced upon the Jews, and although thus premeditated and
organized, it was, under the circumstances, their only available mode of defence. But in-
stead of making prominent the fact that this deplorable conflict could not be avoided, and
instead of showing that upon it depended the defence of law and religion, the author speaks
only of the honor which Mordecai attained by adopting these measures with the king's sanc-
tion. He states that Mordecai passed out from the regal palace dressed in royal apparel,
having a large golden crown upon his head, and that the whole city of Shushan, especially
the Jews throughout the empire, rejoiced exceedingly (ch. viii. 15-17). Indeed, instead of
telling us definitely that only a common defence was intended and permitted against antici-
pated hostile attacks, he employs the same expressions as when speaking of Haman's edict in
ch. iii. 13, namely, the jus talionis. In this edict it was permitted the Jews to destroy, to
kill and plunder the whole of the people and country, or whoever should attack them; and
they were not even to exempt women and children. The measures thus have the appearance
of having been adopted, not as being the only ones at hand, but because they were most
agreeable to the Jews. Nor does it appear as if the author had in any wise regretted or dis-
approved of them, but rather that the joy of Mordecai and of the Jews was shared also by
him. He is equally liable to misconstruction as regards the petition of Esther by virtue of
which the Jews were permitted to repeat also on the second day the same self- vindication
exercised on the first. He contents himself with the satisfaction experienced from the great
success which attended the measures of Esther and Mordecai on the first and second day,
namely, that in Shushan five hundred fell on the first day, and three hundred on the second
(ch. ix. 11-15).
One thing, however, he repeatedly and pointedly makes reference to, namely, that the
Jews did not lay hands on the spoil of their enemies (ch. ix. 10, 15, 16). This trait never-
theless can only be regarded as redounding to their honor if all the other transactions had a
higher religious import. But if these are to be understood as having merely a common
national meaning, they exclude indeed a base covetousness, but do not negative a passionate
eagerness and vindictiveness which are but little removed above the desire of gain.
That the Jews should also slay defenceless women and children while attacking the
U INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
men, and that they did actually kill such a great number as seventy-five thousand persons
(ch. ix. 1G), was too common a characteristic of ancient warfare, to deserve a specially severe
censure. But the author had quite other intentions than to regard the war as being conducted
in the interest of higher principles, and as absolutely necessary; indeed he has expressed
himself in terms which lead to quite a different conclusion. (Comp. ch. ix. 5: "Thus the
Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction,
and did what they would unto those that hated them.") His narrative creates quite a dif-
ferent impression and gives greater offence than if he had stated that the Lord had given a
great victory to His people, in the course of which seventy-five thousand perished. This
might easily have been done in a way and by a connection in which the greatness of the
danger and the persecutions of the people of Jehovah would have been strongly manifested.
The satisfaction which the author, together with Mordeeai and the Jews, felt we can easily
enough excuse, because of the greatness of the defeat of the attacking enemies, inasmuch as
they suffered great insults and injuries, of which their heathen enemies were by no means
sparing. It was in fact only the natural instinct of a worm, when in danger of having its
life trodden out under the march of the peoples of the world, and therefore only escaping
with life when its destroyers were themselves destroyed. But the author would have given
U3 a much more satisfactory justification of these things had he designated his own people as
the people of Jehovah, in opposition to the heathen as such, instead of terming them Jews
merely, of whom one does not anticipate a higher task or even a higher principle.
But with all the foregoing criticisms we have not yet looked at the chief point of the
discussion. It is remarkable that we do not even once find mention made of the name of
God, much less of Jehovah. If under other circumstances, this would perhaps be something
external or accidental ; hero it is closely connected with the general view of things.*
There seems to obtain another kind of historical portraiture in this book from that of
those of the more ancient histories. The latter are very properly called sacred history, be-
cause their purpose was to derive the incidents which they describe from. God, or from His
justice, or yet from His gracious intentions towards man. They also seek to show the bear-
ing of that which has been attained upon the ultimate honor of God. But our book appears
to give us a different mode of historical description, in that it takes up the lower facts and
things lying nearer, be they causes or aims. We find it nowhere distinctly stated that at the
very beginning a higher Power was at play, which finally placed Esther in her high position.
In this position she could become the intercessor for her people. This power was likewise
manifest later in causing Ahasuerus at the proper time to remember Mordeeai, and to reward
him. Thus also the great and threatening danger to the Jews was averted, and victory
leaned to the side of the people of God in their conflict with their enemies. Nowhere do we
discover expressions of religious feelings or thoughts in the persons of whom the author
speaks. Even in Mordeeai these are not manifest, since he is not a representative of Jehovah-
worship; nor yet do those principles appear to have actuated him which his religion would
have enjoined him to observe. On the contrary his motives and sentiments are indefinite
and scarcely national. It is simply because of his Judaism that he refuses to do reverence
to Haman. Neither are any such feelings or thoughts as we might have presumed percepti-
ble in Esther, who, in common with Mordeeai, instead of employing the office of prayer for
the removal of the danger, brings into requisition the Jewish custom of fasting. Certainly
Mordeeai expresses a firm assurance that help would come to the Jews from some source ;
but it would hardly do to suppose that he thought of God, when in ch. iv. 14 he expects
deliverance even if Esther should not venture to petition the king. He might easily have
meant another human person instead of Esther, who would have taken her place. There is
never a mention made of prayer, pressing as were the occasion and circumstances that justify
our expectation of its employment.
* Even the rabbins took notice of this fact, and sought an explanation for it. Comp. what August Pfeiffer
has written with reference to the canonicity of the book of Esther and its programme. Aeen Ezra held that
Mordeeai, being the author of the book, had purposely expunged the names of God in it^ in order that they
might not be desecrated by the Persians, if they made use of them.
g S. CANONICAL DIGNITY. 15
Now it is very necessary for a correct estimation of our book to place the above-cited
phenomena in their proper light. Without doubt we would do great injustice to the author
if we were to hold him to be religiously indifferent or entirely irreligious because of his non-
religious mode of statement. To a man enthusiastic for Judaism and Judaistic law, irreli-
gious feelings are hardly possible. Even if his enthusiasm had been pre-eminently national,
so that in his eyes Esther, Mordecai and the Jewish nation, in short all that was Jewish,
deserved, as such, preference and distinction, it would still have shown some religious side.
This would have been nationally religious, since it would have based itself on the preference
of Israel on the part of God. Even though it would have led to a certain religious exter-
nality, in which a more intimate relation to God would not have been possible, this would
not exclude the fact that the name of God would have received mention now and then.
The reason why our book is silent with respect to God demands another explanation. The
subject of which, the author treats points to the preference or choice of Israel on the part of
God. The fact of his belief in the continuance of Israel, as it is expressed by Mordecai, ia
proved too plainly and definitely for him to have placed no meaning or merit in it. We
may add to this, that the rule of a higher providential Power, although nowhere noticed par-
ticularly as such, is nevertheless sufficiently expressed, both in the entire plan of the book
and in the facts themselves.
If we regard Haman as representing the enemies of the people of God and thus as car-
rying out their plans of destruction against Israel ; if in Mordecai and the Jews the people
of true religion as such suffered ; if in Ahasuerus the higher government of the world was
awake, and if in Esther the good Spirit, which ever watched over Israel, brought his peti-
tions before the throne of the highest decisive tribunal ; if the battle of the Jews against the
Persians is the conflict of the oppressed and deeply humiliated kingdom of God against hea-
thendom, and if the destruction of these enemies is the removal of all that is unimpressible,
and past improvement, and is the means by which the true happiness of mankind is to be
prepared, — in short, if the author intended to speak in such far-reaching pictures rather than
to write history, then a sufficient explanation is discovered of his seemingly irreligious ten-
dency and of this parabolic method. What would otherwise appear as having no reference
to religion, would then be full of the religious element. It would be like a N. T. parable,
where there is no express reference to God and His kingdom, since the higher is the lower. We
may, indeed, be compelled to admit that the intention of the author is not clear; nor do we
plainly see how far the author has sought to employ this parabolic mode of statement. Whe-
ther or not he intended to make these representative persons transparently illuminated types,
cannot be certainly known. But this much may possibly be affirmed, indeed it can be proved,
that he is in this religious aspect reticent, because he desires to call in the attention of the
reader,— to point out, as from afar, what was yet to come — and also to bring into requisition
the expanding, even advisory activity of the reader, since he seems to have thought he could
thus write the more appropriately and advantageously.
A similar phenomenon, and one which is entirely appropriate as yielding the proper ex-
planation, is found in the first Book of Maccabees. In it the mode of writing history is not
that of the more ancient authors, any more th in in our book. " One nowhere reads how God
had awakened or directed the hearts and minds in this sacred warfare for the faith, as one
can still find in the books of Ezra or Nehemiah (Ezra viii. 31 ; Neh. ii. 8, 12, 20 ; iv. 9 ; vii.
5). Of none of the heroes arising in this war is it said that he was inspired by the Spirit of
God. According to chap. xiii. 7 the spirit of the people again revived, but the people was
not influenced by the Spirit of God. It would almost seem as if the author had lost sight of
the fact that the immediate indwellingand governing presence of Jehovah in and among His
peculiar people, was essential to the Hebraistic conception.'' (Grimm on 1 Mace, p. xviii.).
As in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah we miss that theocratic pragmatism which throws
a supernatural illumination over the events transpiring, the same can be much more truly
affirmed of the first book of Maccabees. In like manner with the author of our book, the
writer of that history also avoids the mention of the name of God, and it is not found even
once, whether by the term &e6; or Kipmc. Those passages of several of the editions of the
IS INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Alexandrian text, which have #«5?, (chap. iii. 18; iv. 24; vii. 37, 41), are, as Gbimm also
holds, critically more than doubtful (comp. Eosbnthal, Das 1 Mack.-Buch, eine historische
und sprachlich-Kritische Studie, Leip. 1867). Still the religious spirit, though it be peculiar,
is present in that book. It is also clear that it is more than mere enthusiasm for the law and
legal sentiment as to the mode of worship, etc. The faith is just as important to the author
as is the faithfulness to law. In him, too, we find the designation of the people as the people
of the faith (Mace. iii. 13; ii. 59, 61, etc.). In distinction from our author, however, he fre-
quently reveals to us the fact that his heroes pray. His reference to God is at times so ma-
nifest that Luther did not hesitate to add the name of God, even where the author speaks
very indefinitely of the law, or covenant, or of a will in heaven; and where it is unquestion-
able that God's law, covenant or will is meant (1 Mace. ii. 21, 54 ; iii. 60).
This spirit is further seen in the apocryphal book in question not only in such expres-
sions as : Ueuj r/fuv Karaki-Keiv, etc. (" God forbid that we should forsake," chap. ii. 21), but
also when the author says that they cried (to God) in prayer (chap. v. 33, etc.). This is espe-
cially true of the language and prayers of his heroes, who, though zealous for the law and the
faith, are still prevented from calling God by name. Judas says : " Victory (strength)
Cometh from heaven" (chap. iii. 19). And still speaking of heaven he says: "He (aii-6g)!
(the Lord) Himself will overthrow them " (chap. iii. 22). Again : " Let us cry to heaven "
(chap. iv. 10), " if peradventure He (the (Lord) willhave mercy upon us." Of their victories
it is even said that, " they turned back and praised (the Lord) heaven that He (the Lord)
had been good, and His mercy endureth for ever " (chap. iv. 24).
From this comparison of the books of Maccabees we arrive at the following explanation
with reference to the matter in question : The naive and direct piety of former times, being
devoid of reflection, gradually give way to a different state during the exile. The Jews were
in that age very sensitive not to manifest their innermost and holiest thoughts to the gaze of
day, after the manner of their forefathers. It was a great satisfaction to the Jewish national
feeling, groaning under oppression and opposed to heathenism, to know that the secrets of
their faith and law were well known and understood by themselves without having to enter
expressly upon a declaration of them ; and also that these were unknown and unattainable
by the heathen. The more general the fidelity to the law and the faith of the fathers became,
at least externally, the more they took courage. The more apparent the contrast became
between heathenism and Judaism, — which was however gradually lost by their political de-
pendence, their political character, also being thus effaced, — the more the characteristics of
their religion shone forth. Indeed, the Jews were henceforth persecuted only because of
their laws and faith, in a word, their being different from their captors. Hence it was quite
natural that the Jews, as such, should feel themselves to be the people of the true God, before
all others. So it was also with the author, who represented them as being in this exalted
relation, without even distinctly so expressing himself. To all this was added the progres-
sive spiritualizing of God, which had previously reached a high stage in the prophetical times.
This was now carried to a still higher pitch of development. Hence, those modes of anthro-
pomorphism and anthropopathism, which before were a necessity of the more vital piety,
were now avoided. Thus in bringing out the exalted character of God, as being above the
creature, His transcendental character was brought into greater prominence, and His immi-
nence was more and more kept out of sight. It is well known that the name Jehovah was
entirely withdrawn from usage, as being too holy. We might very easily suppose that God
Himself was held to be too holy and exalted to be much spoken of, even in divine worship.
But once having entered upon this tendency of mind, a further step was not difficult of exe-
cution. Some, as our author, would not even mention in a general way the influence of a
higher power, while others, as the author of 1 Maccabees, contented themselves with a little
less reserve.
It is doubtless true that such a tendency had its great dangers. While the Old Testa-
ment theism, being faith in a living God, active in the development of the world and of man-
kind, held the proper middle ground between pantheism and deism, by believing in an ever-
present real divine Spirit, it gradually and unmistakably leaned over to deism, in strong
J 8. CANONICAL DIGNITY. 17
contrast with pantheistic heathendom. We thus have it exhibited to us in the Apocrypha.
There, in place of the living immanent Spirit of God, we have the transcendental vo5f or the
abstract co$ta. Hence a childlike trust in God and a true moral fear of God, had no more a
, proper place. Indeed it went still farther and degenerated into an abstract one-sidedness. Of
this we have an example in later Judaism as opposed to Christianity. This also characterizes
Mohamedanism. By cherishing such a worldly and materialistic spirit which ignores God, ia
very apt to grow more and more inveterate, as was especially manifest in Israel in later times.
Still, we must not suppose that this tendency had in the time of the present
author proceeded to such a length; it was as yet but the normal development of
the people of Israel. In its proper limits, and proceeding from a good foundation, it
had a worthy aim. This was first of all to bring to general recognition the reli-
gious element as something self-evident and elevated above all exposition. Our author
does not really intend to lose out of sight the mysteries of the faith and law. He rather
presupposes them as self-evident. This is apparently from the circumstance that he not
only represents the history of which he treats as being decidedly providential in its de-
velopment, but also from the manner in which he gives the reason why Mordecai refused to
bow the knee. So also in respect to the time in which the edict of Haman was published,
and which should prove so destructive to the Jews (it was during the time of their Paschal
festival), he is very indefinite, simply indicating it. Again we may note how he causes Mor-
decai to speak so indefinitely and yet in a manner so easily understood with reference to the
help that would certainly come to the Jews. So also Esther is urged to take refuge in fasting
which is almost inseparable from prayer, instead of praying at once as the nearest remedy at
hand. The feeling arises in us on reading these passages, that he thought far more than he
said, and that his silence has its ground in something quite different from infidelity.
Besides, the style of our book is most appropriate to its contents. Indeed we can readily
recognize a divine providence in the fact, that just such a style and not a more religious one
should have been employed. The deliverance of the Jewish people within the Persian domi-
nions, which forms its subject was, of course, in itself a great and important event. But this
was not brought about by a divinely-inspired hero, nor yet by the faithful valor of the people,
but through the influence which a woman exerted over the king. In how different a manner
will the soldiers (combatants) of the kingdom of God gain the victory in the future time of
decision I Not through the charms of flesh, but by the Spirit and living energy of the Lord.
Not by means of a forcible uniting and a bloody massacre, but by a willing submission. In-
stead of destroying others, they rather endure the utmost injury. It is in this succumbirg
that the highest power and glory is revealed ; not in persecuting but in blessing I The plot
is wrought out according to a human method. To have regarded the representative charac-
ter of the persons and events described as being after the earthly type, and yet to have ex-
alted them to a higher and holier tone, by which they would be brought into an immediate
relation to God, would have created a discord. This would hardly have satisfied or edified
the religious sentiment, but rather would have been a cause of irritation.
Certain it is, that although our book does not expressly take notice of and cultivate reli-
gion as such, still it forms a very essential part of the religious history of the kingdom of
God. We were early reminded, in the introduction to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, g 1,
that the Diaspora remaining in heathen countries was by no means a rejected branch of the
people of the covenant, but rather that it had a very important purpose to fulfil as regards the
final accomplishment of the mission of Israel. This was clearly seen in the apostolic-Chris-
tian period. Hence the preservation of the despised Jews might very easily have become
just as important as was the new founding of the people in Judaea and Jerusalem. Our book
has to do with the preservation of this Diaspora, which, conditioned by peculiar circum-
stances, had taken on a low form, because living in a heathen world. But this in its deeper
aspect still continued to be a part of the history of God's kingdom. It was an act of God by
which He confessed Himself to this people as to His own peculiar people, and drew it up to
Himself as its God. In addition to this the book is not only evidence that there is a just go-
vernment of the world— that he who digs a pit for another will fall into it himself— that the
18 ^INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
enemies of the elect people are destroyed because of their enmity ; but it also teaches, if we
rightly understand it, the very simple and yet difficult duty of placing God's honor above that
of man, and God's cause above the interest of man. At least it encourages us so to do. It
represents to us the conflict into which the God-fearing man, as also the whole people (or
church) may be plunged, in the execution of that duty. When the State is no more guided
by divine principles, and as such is no more either theocratic or Christian, but purely
human and heathen, this book points to the victory which the true people will in some way
or other continue to obtain.
If we place this book, having such an important message, by the side of both the other
post-exilian books as regards Judaism, namely Ezra and Nehemiah, it clearly testifies, as
do also those, that the people of God, conceived as a religious society, can exist without
having political independence, and fulfil their final destiny. But it shows also that they
could maintain their integrity, even if separated and scattered. This is a truth which no-
where else finds such definite expression, but yet it forms the basis of existence for the most
of the Israelites during all the following periods of time. Hence, also, the peculiar reverence
paid to our book in preference to others by later Judaism. And this is not from any patho-
logically unsound cause. It rests not upon a passion aroused by the inimical and oppressive
acts of other people, but it can be justified by a genuine religious reason. In so far as it cele-
brates the victory of the divine law over the world, and reveals its inviolableness in this new
and distinct method, thus becoming an indispensable support of the Torah, it justifies the
remarkable manner of its statement, as Maimonides and later writers have fully shown. In
so far as it teaches that the glory of God is pre-eminent over that of man, that those who
refuse to honor man lest they deprive God of His due regard will not fail to receive their
reward from God; in so far must Esther be to us indeed a star which leads us to battle on
faithfully and courageously, should the State seek to put forth its power and endeavor to
enter the religious domain in too absolute a manner.
If the canonical merit of the Old-Testament books consists to a great extent in the fact
of their passing beyond the bounds of their own nation ; if they have a more general relation,
on account of which they are closely related to the cosmopolitan New Testament, still we must
not forget that the national tendency of our author had not yet reached this point. He had
not attained to that sense of superiority and contrast which ultimately made the Jews jealous
of the communication that was given to them for transmission to other nations. He was at
least indifferent to the weal or salvation of others, and even sought to obtain advantage over
them, and to injure them. He does not reveal any timidity, such as we find in the book of
Judith, where Nebuchadnezzar is degraded far below Ahasuerus. There, however, the Jews
appear in a far more ideal light.
Thus in ch. viii. 17 he gives prominence to the fact that many of the people of the land —
even though incited by fear — were converted over to Judaism; and he thereby indicates that,
in addition to the negative effect, which for the purpose in hand he is necessitated to notice,
this judgment of God over the world had also a decidedly positive result, namely, the recep-
tion among His people of heathen subject to His influence. The writer also recognizes in the
great ruler noticed in this book a capacity to appreciate Judaism and its representatives to
Borne extent at least. So also among the majority of the heathen populace he indicates a
sense of justice and humanity which did not suffer them to rejoice at the promulgation of the
first unrighteous decree for the extermination of the Jews, but on the contrary he shows that
they were exceedingly glad because of the second favorable edict. He seems to be impressed
■with the fact that they have both the inclination and the capacity at some time to arrive at
a knowledge of the true God, and for his part he would gladly leave the door open for them.
[Excursus on the Liturgical Use of the Book of Bather.]
[BY THE AMERICAN BEVISEB,.]
[It is well known that this book is a favorite with the Jews, by whom it is often entitled
rnjpn, the Roll, by way of distinction from all others; and it is more frequently used in a separate
form than any other of the sacred books. The extravagant estimate of the Rabbins is well repre-
I 3. CANONICAL DIGNITY. 19
sented by the saying of Maimonides, above alluded to, that in the days of the Messiah all the
books of the Old Testament will pass away, except the Pentateuch and Esther. This fondness for
the book in question has doubtless arisen from the fact that it So highly gratifies the Jewish na-
tional pride.
The Feast of Purim (D1"}'3! lots, so called from the fact stated in chap. ix. 26-32) is a standing
memorial of the historical character of this book. As we have seen, it has been commemorated
even since the days of the writer of the second book of Maccabees (xv. 36 — the "Mordecai's day" —
fl TAopdoxaluT) fydpa). The festival was so popular in the time of Josephus that he tells us: "Even
now all the Jews that are in the habitable earth keep these days festivals, and send portions to one
another" (Antiq. XI. 6, 13). That popularity has not diminished since. It has even been main-
tained by many (Petavttjs, Olshatjsen, Stier, Wieseler, Winer, Anger, Aleord, Ellicott,
etc., after a suggestion by Kepler) that our Lord observed this festival (lopri) row 'lovfialuv, John
v. 1) ; but the absence of the Greek article there is not at all decisive (as "Winer himself admits,
Gramm. of N. T. Idioms, Mayer's Ed., p. 125), and there are very great objections to the identifica-
tion of the "feast" in question with that of Purim, especially the fact that the parallel gospels show
that the one which our Lord at that time attended was during the harvest-season (Matt. xii. 1 ; Mark
ii. 22; Luke vi. 1).
Among the modern Jews the festival of Purim is regularly held on two days, the 14th and 15th
of Adar, the last month of the year, corresponding to our March in general. In intercalary years it
is repeated in full on the same days of the 13th month, Ve-adar. A preliminary fast, called "the
fast of Esther," is appointed to be observed on the 13th day, in accordance with the command of
Esther (iv. 5, 6) ; and sundry prayers of repentance, humiliation, etc. (nin'^D) are introduced into
the regular ritual for that day. As on all the fast days, the lesson from the Law consists of Exod.
xxxii. 11-14; xxxiv. 1-11; and that from the Prophets of Isa. Iv. 6 — lvi. 9. If the 13th of Adar
falls on a Sabbath, the fast takes place on the Thursday preceding, as no fasting is allowed on that
sacred day, and it could not be held on Friday, because those engaged in preparing food for the Sab-
bath would necessarily have to taste the dishes to try them, or at least would be occupied in the la-
bor connected with that preparatory day. If the 14th happened to fall on a Sabbath, or on Mon-
day, or Wednesday, the commencement of the festival is deferred for similar reasons of convenience
till the next day. On the evening closing the 13th and beginning the 14th, as soon as the stars ap-
pear, candles are lighted in token of rejoicing, and the people assemble in the synagogues. After
the usual evening service, consisting of prayer and thanksgiving, the entire book of Esther is read
through by the prelector from a roll written separately in Hebrew characters on good parchment
with ink (Mishna, Mcgillah, II. 2). Any one is qualified to read it, except deaf people, fools and
minors (ibid. II. 4), and it is lawful to read it in a foreign language to those who can only so under-
stand it (ibid. II. 1). The prselector reads it in a histrionic manner, suiting his tones and gestures
to the changes in the subject matter. Whenever he comes to the name of Haman, the congregation
stamp on the floor and cry out: "Let his name be blotted out I The name of the wicked shall rot I"
At the same time, in some places, the boys who are present make a great noise with their hands, with
mallets, with rattles, and with pieces of wood and stone, on which they had written the name of Ha-
inan, and which they rubbed together so as to obliterate the writing. The passage in which the
names of Haman's ten sons occur (ix. 7-9) is read very rapidly, and, if possible, in one breath, to
signify that they were all hung at the same time. For this reason that passage is written in larger
letters, and the names are arranged under one another. The tradition is that the names are written
in three perpendicular columns to represent the hanging of Haman and his sons upon three parallel
cords, three upon each cord, one above another (Staehelin, Babbini. Literat., II. 349). The Targum
on Esth. in Walton's Polyglott (ad foe), however, states that they all hung on the gallows in one
line, Haman at the top, and his ten sons at intervals of half a cubit under him. It is added that
Zeresh and Haman's seventy surviving sons fled, and begged their bread from door to door (in evi-
dent allusion to Psalm cix. 9, 10). After the roll is finished, the reader dismisses the congregation
with a short benediction. All go home and partake of a repast said to consist of milk and eggs.
On the morning of the 14th, the proper feast-day, the Jews again attend the synagogue, where
several appointed prayers are added to the usual daily ritual, and instead of the regular lesson, the
passage is read from the law (Exod. xvii. 8-16) which relates the destruction of the Amalekites, the
people of Agag (1 Sam. xv. 8), the supposed ancestors of Haman (Esth. iii. 1). This is read by
three persons — a priest, a Levite, and an Israelite. After this the roll of Esther is read through
12
20 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
again in the same manner, and with the same responses as on the preceding evening. All who pos-
sibly can are bound to hear it read — men, women, children, cripples, invalids, and even idiots —
though they may, if they please, listen to it outside the synagogue (Mishna, Bosh ha-Shcmah, III.
7). When the service in the synagogue is over, all give themselves up to merry-making. Games
of all sorts, with dancing and music, begin. The rest of the day is spent in feasting and rejoicing.
Open house is kept ; poor and rich, young and old, have free access to come and enjoy themselves.
In the evening a quaint dramatic entertainment is often held, the subject of which is connected with
the occasion. The men sometimes put on female apparel, declaring that the feast of Purim (Esth.
ix. 22) suspends the rule in Deut. xxii. 5. A dainty meal then follows, sometimes with a free in-
dulgence of wine, which the Rabbins allow on this occasion to the extent of absolute intoxication
(Gemara on Megillah, VII. 2).
On the 15th day of Adar the rejoicing is continued, and gifts consisting chiefly of sweetmeats
and other eatables are interchanged. Offerings for the poor are also made by all who can afford to
do so (Esth. ix. 19, 22). See GnsrsBTJEO, in Kitto's Cyclopaedia, s.v. Purim; Claims:, in Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. Purim; Shickakt, in the Critici Sacri, III., 1184; Mills, British Jews,
p. 188 ; Eskuche, Be festo Judceorum Purim, Marburg (1734, 4to.) ; Axenfeld, D'TID 7$ Betraeh-
tung, etc (Erlang., 1807).]
\ 4. COMPOSITION, TIME OF OEIGIN AND INTEGRITY.
The discussion respecting the author of this book had to be reserved until after the pre-
ceding questions had been determined, inasmuch as an answer to it would otherwise have
been only of the most uncertain kind. Nor could we have hoped, by the solution of thi3
point, to throw much light on the historical character of the book, or its canonical dignity.
In chap. ix. 20 it is stated that : " Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the
Jews;" in verse 23, "The Jews undertook to do ... as Mordecai had written to them ;" and
in verse 26, "Therefore for all the words of this letter." We are not, hence, to conclude that
our book was written by Mordecai, nor that it is so claimed, but that the author had know-
ledge of such writings referable to Mordecai himself, with respect to Purim, and also that he
made use of them. In the rest of the book we are at a loss for even a hint in regard to the
person of our author. Even as relates to the locality where it was written we are in great un-
certainty. Still the unusual familiarity which it evinces with Persian matters, which is in
strong and remarkable contrast with the ignorance of later apocryphal books, and especially
its total lack of allusion to Judasa or Jerusalem, makes it very probable that the author did
not belong to the parent body in Palestine, but to the Diaspora in Asia. According to the
Talmud {Baba Bathra, p. 15, c. 1), the book of Esther belonged to those (Ezekiel, the twelve
lesser prophets, Daniel and Esther) which were written by the scribes of the Great Synagogue.
But it is evident that this tradition has reference not so much to its composition as to its au-
thoritativeness, a final editorial supervision. In the same sense the Talmud speaks of Heze-
kiah and his college, that they wrote Isaiah, Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes.
As regards the time of the origin of our book, we are told by Zunz (Zeitschr, d. D. M. O.,
1873, p. 687) that among other results obtained, he not only finds in it Persian and later He-
brew expressions, but also some terms derived from the Mishna. He assumes that the com-
position of Esther belongs to the post-Maccabaean period, in which the knowledge of the per-
secutions in Palestine had reached the Eastern countries. But he has cited only a very few
expressions " which remind us of the linguistic usage of the Mishna," viz. : 13J7 with and
without r™, in the sense of "transgressing" from (chap. iii. 3; ix. 27, 28), 3^3 DV nfrj?
(chap. ix. 19) and Wi H31 (chap. ix. 26), expressions which equally belong to the ante-Macca-
bsean period, and to the later age. Certain it is that our book belongs to the last written
(youngest) in the Canon. In its language it stands nearest to Ecclesiastes, after that to Ezra,
Nehemiah, and the book of Daniel. It has three later words, in common with Ecclesiastes,
(TTV3. ITOpa JDt) as well as with Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 Chron., and 13 iti) in common with
Ecclesiastes and also with Nehemiah and the 119th Psalm. Five expressions are in common
with Eccles. only ("N, pal, yi, 'JDD "inv, 1BO). The entire method or style, so far as it devi-
ates from the mode of old and sacred historical composition, and approaches that of the 1
5 4. COMPOSITION, TIME OF ORIGIN, AND INTEGRITY. 21
Book of Mace, and especially where the author endeavors to preserve an artistic and fasci-
nating mode of development, would clearly show that he had already past one asra of progress,
such as had not yet shown itself in the time of Ezra or Nehemiah, or at least first began in
the age of those writers to break a way for itself. This fact also appears from the manner in
which the author treats or rather neglects to treat of the relation which Judaism bears to hea-
thenism, namely, its religious element, and more particularly in his non-reference to God and
the divine government. Perhaps, in the period in which he wrote, the Greek age was near
at hand or had already come. This would agree with the reference of Ahasuerus to Xerxes,
whose position in ancient history is well defined. Still we must not insist too much on this
feature, lest we come into conflict with the authorship of the Greek manuscripts and the con-
sequent age of the Greek translation of the book.
The subscription to these Greek copies, which may have been added later, and has the
air of being based upon an invention or supposition, relates that a certain Dositheus had
brought to Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, a translation of
this epistle of Purim (i. e., of our book of Esther, perhaps without the apocryphal additions),
prepared by Lysimachus in Jerusalem. Among the four kings of the name of Ptolemy, who
had queens named Cleopatra (B. C. 204-81), the one above-mentioned was probably Ptolemy
Philometor, in whose reign, which was so friendly to the Jews (B. C. 181-145), the feast of
Purim, and therefore also our book, might most readily find entrance into Egypt (comp.
Feitzsche, Exeg. Handbuch zu den Apohr., I., p. 72 sq.). It also says that there was a trans-
lation of Esther as early as the first half of the second century before Christ. AVere we to
conclude from 1 Mace. vii. 49, where the festival of Purim is not mentioned on the occasion
of the celebration of the day of Nicanor the day previous, that the festival of Purim and the
book of Purim had not found an earlier and more general recognition in Palestine than it did
in Egypt so that at the time of the Maccabees it was not even known, still there would be no-
thing strange or contradictory in such an assumption. Nevertheless we could not reach any
conclusion from this with respect to the time of the origin of our book. The Jews in Pales-
tine were not threatened by the occurrences related in Esther, nor did the danger to the Jews
there mentioned, or the defeat they brought upon their enemies, have much to do with their
existence in that country. No inimical heathen people lived, among the Palestinian Jews,
to rise against them, or cause them to perish. Neighboring nations could only have shown
their enmity by means of an invasion, which would not have differed greatly from an ordi-
nary war (comp. Hekzeeld, Oesah. Israels, II. 1, p. 8). Hence there was no immediate oc-
casion for a festival of Purim for them. At all events such a conclusion as a mere argumenlum
e silentio would be very hazardous. It may not be improbable, indeed, that the day of the de-
feat of Nicanor, so far as we know concerning it (comp. \ 2), might have been similar to our
more modern days of battles and victories ; and although at first there was a purpose of cele-
brating it annually, as a festival day, yet after several times, at last its memory became obli-
terated and it was forgotten by the majority. Hence the author of the 1st book of Maccabees
had no real occasion to bring it into any relation to the day of Purim which came a day
after.
Finally, we come to the question of the integrity of our book. If we hold fast to the He-
brew text, we will find that, as we have seen above (comp. chap. i. 9, 19 ; x.), it forms a beau-
tifully arranged and greatly progressive whole, in which every individual part furnishes an
integral and indispensable portion, and in which nothing essential is found wanting. But the
case is very different in the second half of chapter ix. J. D. Michaelis asserts the begi nning
of this latter section to be the seventeenth verse, butBEETHEATJ holds it to begin at vers. 20-
32, in which reference is made to a letter by Mordecai to the Jews, and some of its con-
tents are brought to light. Even the style of expression of this part is in unmistakable con-
trast with the rest of the book. D'p, in the sense of " establishing ordinances " or " making
them authoritative," in verses 21, 27, 29, 31, and 32 (elsewhere only in Ruth iv. 7 ; Ezek. xiii.
6 ; Psa. cxix. 28, 106) ; the singular immediately preceding the plural of the subject, as in ver.
23 (O'lliTn bspl) ; the fern, substantive in a neuter sense, as in ver. 25 (HN'33?) ; further th«
22 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
mode of speech 12DrrDJ? (ver. 25), WrTKjH (ver. 26), etc., all this does not again occur in the
rest of the book. To this we are also to add matters of fact. The short report which is given
in vers. 21-26 concerning the occasion and significance of the festival of Purim, sounds quite
different from what we would be led to expect from the previously given history. It is espe-
cially remarkable that no mention is made of Esther's interference. But it rather seems ac-
cording to ver. 25 (" and when it came before the king he commanded by letters ") as if the
king had before been ignorant of the intention of Haman, at least with its real import, and
only needed to be more fully informed with regard to it ; and that he then at once pro-
ceeded against Haman. One would think that the author would have apprehended the chief
facts at issue quite differently, if he himself there gave their resum&. This resume seems to
be based upon a mode of statement by which many things that appear essential and impor-
tant, are treated as of less significance, or are entirely omitted. Now we would not venture
to assert, as does Bertheatj, that the method of statement, lying at the basis, was in such
flat contradiction to the substance of our book. We can easily conceive that the author may
have differently presented the leading event3 in different parts of his work. Certainly the
resume of vers. 24-26 falls far short of proving the contrary. Again between verses 15-19 on
the one hand, in which a part of the Jews celebrate the 15th of Adar on the 14th, even in
the author's time ; and vers. 20 sqq., on the other hand, where the celebration of both days
is introduced through the writings of Mordecai, a contradiction is very unjustly urged by
Bertheatj (comp. chap. ix. 19).
"We may presume from the peculiarities found in the section verses 20-32 there is con-
tained in it an element more fundamental than elsewhere. Yet we have no right to argue from
the absence of all real contradictions that the author had himself expunged them. — Accord-
ing to verse 20 there did exist a book of Purim referable to Mordecai. Perhaps the same one
is meant in verse 32, by the writing in which the orders of Esther were recorded. It is quite
possible that from it our author should have taken this section extending from vers. 20 to 32.
But next to the original text we must have regard to the older versions. In the Sep-
tuagint version there are several additions, which Luther threw out as being " apocryphal
parts in Esther." But these are so interwoven into the text of the Greek Bible that they
could easily be held to be integral parts of the book. Thus, to begin with, there is in chap,
i. a dream of Mordecai, in which are indicated the most important phases of the subsequent
history. In chap. iii. we find an edict by Ahasuerus ordering the extermination of the Jews.
In chap. iv. there is a prayer by Mordecai, and also one by Esther, which they offered in
their distress. Chap. v. has an explicit description of the appearance of Esther before Aha-
suerus. Finally in chap. viii. 13 we find the new edict, issued by Mordecai, favoring the
Jews, and as a conclusion of the whole an interpretation of the dream that had been indi-
cated in chap. i.
Now the question is, What are we to think of these expansions ? The assumption of
Bellarmine [De verbo Dei, chap, vii., § 10) and of De Rossi {Specimen variarum leciionum
s. textus et Chaldaica Esteris addUamenta, Bomse, 1782), to whom Scholz may also be added
(lntrod., II., p. 538 sqq.), is that, originally, there were two books of Esther in existence; a
larger one, from which these additions of the Greek version were taken, and a smaller, which
was perhaps only an extract of the former. That the latter, however, should be regarded as
our present Hebrew book, is not to-day held by any one. Equally untenable is the position
taken by Jos. Langen, that the passages referred to were taken from Mordecai's " memoirs "
(comp. ch. ix. 29 sqq.), or even from the annals of the king of Persia (comp. chap. ii. 23 ; vi.
1). See Langejst, Die deuterocanonischen Stucke des Buches Esther, Freiburg, 1862). The hy-
potheses in question were only originated to defend the canonicity of these additions decreed
by the Council of Trent. A second, more enlarged book of Esther, whose expansion has been
gratuitously assumed, but which was not regarded worthy of preservation, is nothing more
than a wilful and highly improbable fiction, as indeed is virtually conceded by Langen.
But as to these additions themselves, which according to Langen still have documentary va-
lue, we would call attention to the following considerations :
(1) The dream of Mordecai stands in such a slight connection with the rest of the history
I i. COMPOSITION, TIME OF ORIGIN, AND INTEGRITY. 23
that its very presence declares it a useless and unessential work. In order that it might not
appear too isolated, its author has connected it with the discovery of the conspiracy of the
two court officials, as if this were the first and the chief point of the general history, especially
of the enmity of Haman against Mordecai. But thereby he becomes involved in contradic-
tions with the original book, as is evident in departures from the latter traceable in the addi-
tions. For example, it is stated that Mordecai had his dream in the second year of the reign
of Artaxerxes (Achashverosh). Consequently he must then also have discovered the con-
spiracy. But according to chap. ii. 21 sqq. these court officers entered into a conspiracy after
the elevation of Esther. It must, therefore, have been in the seventh year of the reign of the
king. Again Mordecai is represented as having already received some presents, by which the
jealousy of Haman was intensified ; whereas in chap. vi. 3 it is stated that he had not yet'
been rewarded. But what makes the whole account very suspicious is that the contents of
our book would be materially altered and weakened by this incentive to the hostility of Ha-
man towards Mordecai. The conflict between heathenism and Judaism, as such, would be
transformed into an ordinary contest between two rival aspirants.
(2) These additions contrast so strongly in their spirit and tone with the genuine book of
Esther, that we are obliged to look for their origin elsewhere. The religious element, which
in the real book of Esther is so rarely manifested, is in them very decidedly, we might say
extravagantly, expressed — so much so that we could properly accuse them of a species of hy-
pocrisy.
(3) Even the diction makes it clearly probable that the passages referred to were origi-
nally written in Greek. Thus the circumstance speaks against them, that where the confe-
rence between Esther and the king is related, they have a strong Grascizing, and even an
Alexandrine romantic character ; which, according to Ewald, reminds us very forcibly of the
2d book of Maccabees. So also the notorious fact, that for a long time they were accepted
by the Jews who spoke Greek, but not by the others, at least not by the authors of the Tar-
gums. In keeping with their Greek- Alexandrine origin, is the peculiarity that the author
of these additions in several places designates Haman as being a Macedonian (M.ane66v) instead
of an Agagite. This is done, doubtless, to make the epithet intelligible to his own vicinity
and age, as that of an enemy of the Jewish people (in accordance with the text yet to be re-
ferred to, but which is rarely found at the end of the first addition ; and also according to the
edict interpolated at chap. viii. 13, as well as chap. ix. 24, where no tampering hand would
be likely to be traced).
Doubtless we here have only embellishments, which some one has permitted himself to
add, on the ground of tradition, or through his own poetic fancy. The comfort which the
book gave was too desirable for it to wait long to become a favorite book with the people.
They might indeed, perhaps, have felt the absence of the religious element. But, as has
already been remarked, the Jewish community did not stand in such a receptive attitude
towards those books written later, as towards the older sacred writings, which for some time
previous had received a closed form. Yet they infallibly detected these suspicious passages
by the interrupting of the general scope of the work by the conjectures thereby made by the
mention of edicts that were decreed, as if those missing things should be added to complete
the narrative. Indeed some one had evidently felt called upon, at these interesting points of
detail, to. expand the narrative occasionally. But how and when were enlarging or finishing
touches given ? That these additions had their origin in the reason just mentioned was held
by Jerome, who in the preface to Esther remarks : " The Vulgate edition draws this book
hither and thither by redundant coves (laciniosis sinibus) of words, adding whatever could on
the occasion be said or heard; as is the custom in school exercises, after taking a theme to
think out what words he can use who has sustained an injury, or he who has done an injury."
We may also observe the presumed progress of this tradition in the history of the book
of Esther. In an earlier text of the Septuagint version (in Cod. 19, 93 and 1086 first pub-
lished by James Usshee in his Syntagma, de Grseca LXX. interpretum versione, Lond., 1655;
next by Fkitzsche in his 'EsBHP, duplicem libri tectum, ed. Turici, 1848), we find a special
mode of treatment, which, of course, is but a remodelling of the original text. This text
24 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
changed what was unintelligible and objectionable, and contracted what was too broadly-
asserted; thereby removing contradictions. But it also added other emendations (comp.
Fritzsche, Exeg. Eandbuch zu den Apohr., p. 70 sq.). Josephtjs, on his part, holds unre-
servedly to the Septuagint version, especially following the more ancient text. But he omits
Mordecai's dream and its interpretation, and thus discloses a growing tradition by relating
that a Jewish slave, Barnabazu, had revealed to Mordecai the conspiracy of the door-keepers
spoken of in chap. ii. Even the old Latin translation, made prior to Jerome's time, used
some free ornamentations (comp. Fritzsche, as above p. 74 sq.).
The Chaldee paraphrases or Targums are very important to the understanding of our
book, chiefly because they have not adopted the Greek additions. If the latter had been at
all genuine and authentic, they must have done very differently. A tradition would proba-
bly have arisen which, after the Talmudic period, would have asserted its authority. Still
we must notice that some of them at least have embellishments. Among the earliest of the
Chaldee versions we regard the Targum on Esther as now found in the Antwerp Polyglot
Bible. This is nothing more than an exact translation of the Heb. book. But the so-called
first Targum on Esther found in the London Polyglot (comp. Targum, prim et postering in
Estheram nunc primum in ling. Lat. transl., stud, et op. Franc. Taileri, Lond., 16G5, 4to.;
see also another edition by Wolf, Bibl. Hebr., II., p. 1171 sqq. ) . This follows very closely the
Hebrew book verse for verse. Hence it has no place for the dream of Mordecai. But in
order to give our book a higher and wider relation, it designates Ahasuerus in ch. i. 1 as the
one in whose time the building of the temple was at a stand-still, and looks upon Haman as
the one to blame for that delay. It understands that the two courtiers in chapter ii. 21
entered into a conspiracy against the king, because they saw Mordecai sitting in the Sanhe-
drim, which had been built in the king's gate by Esther's orders, and they deemed themselves
thereby crowded out of favor.— N3?n^1il3 -IflDN vh Jirj?m pi.TUD.3 3'JV \DTV3 |«!<n imrl
It has also discovered that Haman, who is poetically represented in the beginning of ch. iii.
as having been promoted for the exaltation of the divine glory, is angry at Mordecai above
all others, inasmuch as he himself wishes to make his own daughter queen in the place of
Esther. It ignores the prayers which the Greek Bible puts into the mouth of Mordecai and
Esther. Still it points out in ch. iv. 16 that Esther requested not only that a fast should be
observed on her behalf, but also that they should pray day and night. Besides it puts a
prayer in an altogether arbitrary manner into the mouth of Esther herself in ch. v., in which
she does not, as is stated in the Greek Bible, have regard to her people first and chiefly, but
to herself purely : "Lord of the universe, do not give me over into the hands of this uncir-
cumcised man, and fulfil not the desire of this wicked Haman on me !" etc. The so-called
second Targum which, especially in ch. i. 1, has a style at once homiletical and extravagantly
rhetorical, but which in general is more simple and brief than the former one, knows just as
little of Mordecai's dream.* But, on the other hand, in ch. iii. 3, Mordecai is made to de-
clare that God alone is to be worshipped, and to show the baseness of man and the exalted
character of God. In ch. iii. 8 Haman in a very round-about way exposes the customs and
ordinances of the Jews. An edict of Ahasuerus, having for its object the destruction of the
Jews, is here inserted though it is first properly supplemented in ch. iv. 1. But this is just
as'peculiar as the prayer of Esther referred to in ch. v. 1.
The book ascribed to Josipon ben Gorton contains the dream and prayer of Mordecai
and also that of Esther in its ch. ii. 1-3. It has also very faithfully copied from the Greek
Bible the statement of the appearance of Esther before the king ; and it has formed the me-
dium by which such passages might be transmitted to the Jews speaking or writing in He-
brew, in the Midrashim, etc. We find the prayer and dream of Mordecai, as given in Josi-
pon's work carried over verbatim into the oldest Midrash on Esther (Wolf, Bibl. Hebr., ii.,
p. 1332 ; and Ztjnz, as above, p. 264).
The Chaldaic section also, beginning with the superscription: "A prayer of Mordecai;
* It is an erroneous or indefinite mode of expression when Zurrz, in his work (Die gottesdienstlichen Vortrdgo
dcr Judm, p. 121), remarks : " The dream and prayers of Mordecai and Esther are fonnd to vary very muoh from
the Greek text, especially in the second book of the Targum of the Book of Esther," etc.
\ 4. COMPOSITION, TIME OF ORIGIN, AND INTEGRITY. 25
a prayer of Esther, and a dream of the former," and occurring in several not very ancient
manuscripts of the Old Testament (comp. Zunz, p. 121), is really nothing more than an
almost literal translation of Josipoh ii. 1-2. Db Eossi was certainly in error when he re-
garded this as a main proof for his theory, that originally there must have teen a more
copious book of Esther, out of which he took these Chaldaic passages to be the original docu-
ments preserved.
[The importance of these apocryphal additions to the book of Esther demands some further no-
tice. We condense the following particulars from the article in McCltntock's and Strong's Oy-
In the Septuagint and Old Latin versions these additions are dispersed through the canonical
book, forming therewith a well-digested whole; and they therefore have in those versions no sepa-
rate title. Jerome separated them in his edition, and removed (or rather added) them to the end
of the book because they are not in the Hebrew, and they consequently appear in the Vulgate as
the last seven chapters of the book. Luther entirely severed the apocryphal books from the ca-
nonical, placing the additions in question under a separate title; and the English Version has fol-
lowed him in this, designating these pieces as "the rest of the chapters of the Book of Esther, which
are found neither in the Hebrew nor in the Chaldee," and numbering them as "part of the tenth
chapter after the Greek," and chaps, xi. — xvi.
The design of these additions evidently is to give a more decidedly religious tone to the record
contained in the book of Esther, and to show more plainly how wonderfully the God of Israel inter-
fered to save His people and confound their enemies. This the writer has effected by elaborating
upon the events narrated in the canonical volume the following pieces :
1. Chap. i. 1 of the canonical book is preceded in the Septuagint by a piece which tells us that
Mordecai, who was in the service of Artaxerxes, dreamed of the dangers that threatened his people
and of their deliverance (vers. 1-12). He afterwards discovered a conspiracy against the king, which
he disclosed to him, and was greatly rewarded for it (vers. 13-18). In the Vulg. and English this
constitutes chap. xi. 2 — xii. 6.
2. Between vers. 13 and 14 of chap. iii. of the canonical book the Septuagint gives a copy of the
king's edict, addressed to all the satraps, to destroy without compassion that foreign and rebellious
people, the Jews, for the good of the Persian nation, on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month of
the coming year. In the Vulgate and English this is chap. xiii. 1-7.
3. At the end of chap. iv. 17 of the canonical book the Septuagint has two prayers of Mordecai
and Esther, that God may avert the impending destruction of His people. In the Vulgate and Eng-
lish this is chap. xiii. 8 — -xiv.
4. In the midst of vers. 1 and 2 of chap. v. of the canonical book the Septuagint inserts a de-
tailed account of Esther's visit to the king. This is chap. xv. of the Vulgate and English.
5. Between vers. 13 and 14 of chap. viii. of the canonical book the Septuagint gives a copy of
the edict which the king sent to all his satraps, in accordance with the request of Mordecai and
Esther, to abolish his former decree against the Jews. This is chapter xvi. of the Vulgate and
English.
6. At the close of the canonical book, chap. x. 3, the Septuagint has a piece in which we are
told that Mordecai had now recalled to his mind his extraordinary dream, and seen how literally it
had been fulfilled in all its particulars (vers. 4-9). It also gives an account of the proclamation of
the Purim festival in Egypt (vers. 10-13). This is given first in the apocrypha portion of the Vul-
gate, and English (as chap. x. 4-13).
7. The whole book in the Septuagint is closed with the following entry : " In the fourth
year of the reign of Ptolema^us and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and
Ptolemy his son, brought thi3 epistle of Phurim, which they said was the same, and that Lysimachus,
the son of Ptolemy, that was in Jerusalem, had interpreted it." In the Vulgate and English this
forms chap. xi. 1.
The patriotic spirit with which the Jewish nation so fondly expatiated upon the remarkable
events and characters of by-gone days, and which gave rise to those beautiful legends preserved in
their copious literature, scarcely ever had a better opportunity afforded to it for employing its richly
inventive powers to magnify the Great Jehovah, embalm the memory of the heroes, and brand the
names of the enemies of Israel, than in the canonical book of Esther. Nothing could be more na-
26 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
tural for a nation who "had a zeal of God" than to supply the name of God, and to point out more dis-
tinctly His interposition in their behalf in an inspired book, which, though recording their marvel-
lous escape from destruction, had for some reasons omitted avowedly to acknowledge the Lord of Is-
rael. The temptation was too great to be resisted, and, as in the case of all apocryphal writing, we
are readily enabled by this meretricious embellishment to detect the false amid the genuine.
Besides the book implies and suggests far more than it records, and it cannot be doubted that
there are many other things connected with the history it contains which were well known at the
time, and were transmitted traditionally and otherwise to the nation. This is evident from the fact
that Josephus (Antiq. XI. 6, 6 sq.) gives the edict for the destruction of the Jews in the Persian
empire, the prayers of Mordecai and Esther, and the second edict authorizing the Jews to destroy
their enemies, also mentioning the name of the eunuch's servant, a Jew, who betrayed the conspiracy
to Mordecai, and citing other passages for the Persian chronicles, read to Ahasuerus, besides that
relating to Mordecai, as well as amplifications of the king's speech to Haman, etc. The same appears
in the fact that the second Targum, the Chaldee published by De Bossi, and Josephus ben-Gori-
don (ed. Breithaupt, p. 74 sq.) give the dream of Mordecai, as well as his prayer and that of
Esther.
The first addition, in which Mordecai foresees in a dream both the dangers and the salvation of
his people, is in accordance with the desire to give the whole a more religious tone. The latter part
of this addition is intended to develope more distinctly the brief statement given in the canonical
book of the loyal service of Mordecai, so as to explain so important an incident. In like manner the
second addition originated from the fact that chap. iii. 13 of the canonical book speaks of the royal
edict; hence this piece pretends to furnish said document in full. The same is the case with the
third addition, which aims to supply the prayers said in chap. iv. 17 to have been offered by Morde-
cai and Esther. So also the fourth addition, giving a detailed account of Esther's interview with
the king, originated in a desire to furnish more complete information upon a fact merely alluded to
in the canonical passage. The fifth addition originated in the same manner as the second, namely
in an attempt to supply a copy of the royal edict ; while the sixth addition ingeniously concludes
with an interpretation of the dream in the first addition. The final entry was apparently intended
to give authority to this Greek version of Esther by pretending that it was a certified translation
from the Hebrew original. Ptolemy Philometor, who is here meant, began to reign B. C. 181. He
is the same who is frequently mentioned in 1 Mace. (e. g., x. 57 ; xi. 12 ; comp. Josephus, Ant. XHL
4, 1 and 5; Clinton, Fasti Hellen., III. 393). Dositheus seems to be a Greeek version of Matti.-
tiah. Ptolemy was also a common name for Jews at that time. Thus every one of these addi-
tions is naturally accounted for as a fabrication having an adequate and natural motive in the
connection.
From what has been remarked above, it will be at once apparent that these apocryphal addi-
tions were neither manufactured by the translator of the canonical Esther into Greek, nor are they
the production of the Alexandrian, nor of any other school or individual, embracing some of the
numerous national stories connected with this marvellous deliverance of God's ancient people, the
authorship of which is lost in the nation. Many of them date as far back as the nucleus of the event
itself, around which they cluster, and all of them grew up at first in the vernacular language of the
people (i. e., the Hebrew or Aramaic), but afterwards assumed the complexion and language of the
countries in which the Jews happened to settle down. Besides the above references which lead us
to these conclusions, we refer also to the two Midrashim published by Jellinek: in his Bethham-
Midrash, I. (Lpz. 1853), 1 sq.
It is of this Septuagint version that AthanAsius (Test. Epist., p. 39, Oxford translation) spoke
when he assigned the Book of Esther to the non-canonical books ; and this also is, perhaps, the rea-
son why, in some of the lists of the canonical books, Esther is not named, e. g., in those of Melito
of Sardis, and Gregory Nazianzen (see "Whittaxer, Disput. on H. Script., Parker Society, pp. 57-
58 ; Cosin on the Canon of Scripture, pp. 49, 50), unless in these it is included under some other
book, as Euth or Esdras (Lee, Dissert, on 2 Fsdras, p. 25). The fathers, who generally regarded
the Septuagint as containing the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, mostly believed in the ca-
nonicity of the additions likewise. Even Origen, though admitting that they are not in the He-
brew, defended their canonicity (Ep. ad Abiram, ed. West, p. 225), and the Council of Trent pro-
nounced the whole book of Esther, with all its parts, to be canonical. These additions, however,
were never included in the Hebrew canon, and the fact that Josephus quotes them only shows that
J 5. LITERATURE. 27
lie believed them to be historically true, but not inspired. Jerome, who knew better than any other
father what the ancient Jews included in their canon, most emphatically declares them to be spuri-
ous (Prof, in Esth.). Sixtus Sinensis, in spite of the Council of Trent, speaks of these additions in
the same condemnatory manner.
See, in addition to the literature elsewhere cited in this connection, The Targum Sherd on
Esther, in "Walton's Polyglott, Vol. IV.; Eichhorn, Einleitung in d. Apost. Schriften d. A. T. (Leip-
zig, 1795), p. 483: Hottinger, Thesaurus, p. 494; Schnurrer (ed.), Varice Leetiones Estheris
(Tub., 1783) ; Herzfeed, Oeschiehte d. Volhes Israel (Nordhausen, 1857, Vol. I., p. 363 sq.) ; Keel,
Lehrb. der Historisch-Kritischen Einleit. (ed. 1859), p. 105 sq.]
? 5. LITERATURE.
Jewish expositors, next to the Targums, MidrasHm and Rabboth, of which Zunz speaks
(Gottesdienstliche Vortrage d. Yuden, espec. p. 35, 61 and 170 sqq.), have published commen-
taries, some of which embrace the whole of the hagiographa (comp. the literature on Ezra and
Nehemiah), while others are only on the five Megilloth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ec-
clesiastes and Esther).
To the latter belong "UN'S (Elucidation) mVjD Kmrt iy by Abdias Sphorni, an Italian
physician, printed in Venice, 4to.; also tyiTS or exposition of the five Megilloth by Elisa
Galiko, president of the Synagogue in Safed, publ. in Venice, in 1587, 4to. ; also short ex-
planations by Joseph Tttatzack or Taitzack, a Spaniard, who likewise commented on
Daniel (Venice, 1608, 4to.). So also Israel Aramah, a Spaniard, who commented on the
Pentateuch and the Megilloth ([Constantinople, 1518, 4to.], Venice, 1573); Moses Almo-
SHINUS (Venice, 1597, 4to.) ; R. Abraham, of Heilbronn (under the title of {VJf mrw, Amor
Sionis, Lublin, 1639), and others. As specially relating to Esther, we may mention the com-
mentaries by R. Isaak Leon, a Spaniard (Venice, 1565, 4to.; see Bartolocoi, in Bill,
magna Babb.) ; by R. Salomon ben Zemaoh (bant?1 mx an) ; by R. Abraham ben Isaak
Zahalon (Zabulon or Zebulon), which is a literal, allegorical and moral exposition (#E\
D'ilbs, Venice, 1595, 4to.) ; by R. Samuel ben Judah Valerius pVnn T, Venice, 1585,
4to. ; by R. Salomon Levi Alcabaz, R.Leo and others (in Carpzov, Inlrod., I., p. 375).
Few Christian theologians have treated of the book of Esther. The Church-fathers have
left us no exposition or treatment of it at all. Of Roman Catholic authors and their works
we may mention : Dionts. Carthusiani, Enarrationes in libr. Hester, etc. (Colonise, 1534,
fol.); a German exposition of Esther by John Ferns (Mayence, 1567); Frano Feuar-
dentii Commentaria (Paris, 1585, Colon., 1595) ; Serarii Comm. in Tobiam, Judith, Esther
et Maccabceos (Mayence, 1610); Olivierii Bonartii Comm. literalis et moralis (Colon.,
1647) ; and Didaci Celamii3 Comm. cum duplici tractatu de eonvivio Ahasueri rnystico, i. e.,
Be Eucharistia et de Esther figurata i. e. beata Virgine (Lugduni, 1648, fol.). The commen-
tary of Feuardentius, which is written in easy and almost too flowing Latin, far surpasses
all those before mentioned. All the others savor of an intolerably insipid allegorical identi-
fication of Esther with the beata coelestis Regina (the Virgin Mary) ; whereas this of Feuar-
dentius is marked by sober, sound and very practical exegesis, and is based on much general
reading. Although he now and then includes the Lutherans among the Hamanites to be
exterminated, still Feuardentius has very perceptibly and early taken pattern after the evan-
gelical exegesis, and copied some of the work of Brenz almost literally.
On the part of the Evangelical Church Brenz treats of the book of Esther in [Com-
mentarii (Tubing., 1575); in Engl, by Stockwood, Lond., 1584, 4to.; also in] Operr. II.; also
VlCT. Strigel, Zibri Esdrce, Nehemice, Esther et Ruth, ad Ebraiaam veritatem recogniti et
argumentis atque scholiis ittustrati (Lips., 1571, 1572, 8vo.). There follow: Cour. Pellioan,
Comment. Bibl. (Figuri, 1583, fol.); Lud. Lavater, HomUias (Figuri, 1586); Bud. Wal-
ther (Gualtherus) Homiliarum syha (Figuri, 158, 8vo.) ; Franz Burmann, a German
Commentary published at Frankford, 1695; Balth. Kerner, Ehren-Krone der demuthigen
Esther (Ulm, 1666); Gottfried Meisner, Niedrigen aber nachmals erhohen Esther, mit
bibliseh-historischen Schmuck angethan (Hamburg, 1687) ; Com. Adamus, Observatt. theol.phU.
(Gron., 1710, on chap. ii.).
28 INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Among those of more modern date may be mentioned a work which has not been referred
to in the literature on Ezra and Nehemiah; Crusius, De usu libri Estherce ad praxin vitae
Christiana; (Ultrsj.,1775).
The question: Who is to be understood by the Ahasuerus of our book? [which will be
fully discussed in the Exegetical Note3 on ch. i. 1] has been treated by Franc. Wokenitjs
in his Commentatio in I. Estherce (1730), and by Aster in his Diss. phil. de Esterce cum Aha-
suero conjugio (Wittenberg, 1730), both of whom held that Astyages is meant, although Jos.
Scaliger had given the correct interpretation, as also Joh. Watjckel, in his Dissert, de
Assuero Estherce marito, which he directed specially against Jos. Scaliger.
As introductory works we may notice : Schulze, De fide histories I. Estherce, in the Bibl.
LTagana,V., VI. j Kelle, Vindicice Estherce (Frib., 1820); Mich. Batjjigarten, De fide
libri Estherce Comm. hist. crit. (Hal., 1839) ; J. A. NlCKES, De Estherce libro et ad eum quce
pertinent vaticiniis et Psalmis libri ires (Romas, 1856) ; also the articles on Esther by Eoedi-
ger in Ersch and Gruber's Encycl., by Batjmqarten in Herzog's Beal-encycl., and by
Reuss in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexihon.
[Additional Literature. — Raban Mattrus, Commentaria (in his Opera); BanolAS,
t!n"V3 (Rivadi Trento, 1560, 4to.) ; Ashkenazi, npS tpr (Cremona, 1576, 4to., etc.); Me-
LAMilED, 'JTTO "1DNO (Constantinople, 1585, 4to.); Drttsitjs, Annotationes (Leyden, 1586,
4to.); Alsheich, ntyn mm (Venice, 1601, 4to.) ; Cooper, Notes (London, 1009, 4to.);
D'Aquine, liaschii Scholia (Paris, 1622, 4to.); Holder, Dispositions (Dantzig, 1625, 4to.);
Sanctius, Commentarii (Lyden, 1628, fol.); Cotrzio, Commento (Chieri, 1628, 4to.); Duran,
rhirz -I3D (Venice, 1632, 4to.); Crommius, Theses (Lovan, 1632, 4to.); Merkel, *ODT NTa
(Lublin, 1637, 4to.); Montanus, Commentarius (Madrid, 1648, fol.); Trapp, Commentary
(London, 1656, fol.); Jackson, Explanation (London, 1658, 4to.); Barnes, Paraphrasis
poetica (London, 1679, 8vo.); Rambach, Notce (in his Adnot. V. T. II. 1043 sqq.); Hetj-
MANN, Estherce auctoritas (Gotting., 1736, 4to.); Meir, J" nniTO (Furth., 1737, 8vo.); Ne-
8TORIDES, Annotazioni (Venice, 1746, 4to.); Aucher, De auctoritate Estherce (Hanniaa,
1772, 4to.); Vos, Oratio (Ultraj., 1775, 4to.); ZlNCK, Commentarius (Augsb., 1780, 4to.);
De Rossi, Varies Lectiones (Rome, 1782, 8vo.); Pereles, mron nSj (Prague, 1784, 4to.);
Wolfssohn, "TON (Berlin, 17S8, 8vo.); Samson, Discourses (Edinburg, 1804, 12mo.);
Lowe, tf-in IIX (Nouydwer, 1704, 4to.); Schirjier, Observationes (Vratiolav, 1820, 870.) ;
Calmberg, Commentarius (Hamburgh, 1837, 4to.) ; McCrie, Lectures (in his Works, 1838,
8vo.); Morgan, Esther typical (London, 1855, 8vo.); Cordthtwaite, Lectures (London,
1858, 12mo.); Davidson, Lectures (Edinburgh, 1S59, 8vo.); Bertheatt, Kommentar. (in
the Eurzgefastes exeget. Handbuch des A. T„ Leipzig, 1862, 8vo.); Oppert, Commentaire
d'apres les inscriptions Perses (Paris, 1864, 8vo.); Wordsworth, Notes (in his Commentary
on the Bible, Lond., 1866, 8vo.) ; Keil, Biblical Commentary (translated from the German of
Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the O. T, Edinburgh, 1873, 8vo.) ; Terry, Commentary
(in Whedon's Commentary on the Old Test., New York, 1873, 12mo.); Rawlinson, Com-
mentary (in the Speaker's Commentary, London and New York, 1873, Svo.l
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
PART FIRST.
ORIGIN AND INCREASE OF DANGER TO THE JEWS.
Chaps. I.— V.
INTRODUCTION:
The Occasion of the History. The Feast of Ahasuerus and Vashti's Rejection.
Chap. I. 1-22.
I. Ahasuerus assembles the princes of his empire around him, and prepares a great feast, in which he
endeavours to show his power and glory. Vers. 1-8.
1 _ Now [And] it came to pass [was] in the days of Ahasuerus [Achashverosh], (this
is Ahasuerus which reigned [the one being king] from India [Hodu] even unto
2 [and till] Ethiopia [Cush], over a hundred and seven and twenty provinces,) That
in those days when [as] the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which
3 was in Shushan the palace,1 In the third year of his reign, he made a feast2 unto all
his princes and his servants; the power3 of Persia [Paras] and Media [Madai], the
4 nobles4 and [the'] princes of the provinces, being before him. When he showed the
riches of his glorious [the glory of his] kingdom, and the honour of his excellent
5 [the excellence of his] majesty, many days, even a hundred and fourscore days. And
when these days were [had] expired, the king made a feast2 unto all the people
that were present [found] in Shushan the palace,1 both unto great and [to great and
6 even to] small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's palace ; Where
were white [linen], green [cotton], and blue [violet] hangings, fastened with cords
of fine linen and purple to [on] silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were
of [there were beds of] gold and silver, upon a pavement of red [white] and blue
7 [marble], and white [pearl], and black marble [colored stone]. And they gave
them [there was a giving of] drink in vessels of gold, {the vessels being [and the
vessels were~\ diverse one from another,) and royal wine in abundance, according to
8 the state [hand] of the king. And the drinking was according to the law ; none
did compel : for so the king had appointed [ordained] to [upon] all the officers [every
great owe] of his house, that they should do [to do] according to every man's plea-
sure.
II. Queen Vashii refuses to appear before the king, and he is very much incensed thereat. Verses 9-12.
9 Also Vashti the queen made a feast2 for [of] the women in the royal house which
10 belonged to king Ahasuerus. On the seventh day, when [as] the heart of the king
was merry [good] with [the] wine, he commanded [said to] Mehuman, Biztha, Har-
bona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains [eunuchs]
29
30 THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
11 that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, To bring Vashti the queen be-
fore the king, with the crown royal [of royalty], to show the people [peoples] and
12 the princes her beauty : for she was fair to look on [good of appearance]. But
[And] the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment [word] [which
was] by [the hand of] his [the] chamberlains [eunuchs] : therefore [and] was the
king very wroth, and his anger burned [heat devoured] in him.
III. In accordance with the counsel of his wise men the queen is rejected by a public decree of the king.
Verses 13-22.
13 Then [And] the king said to the wise men, which knew [knowers of ] the times,
(for so was the king's manner [word] toward [before] all that knew [knowers of]
14 law and judgment : And the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tar-
shish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia [Paras] and Me-
dia [Madai], which saw [seers of] the king's face, and which sat [the sitters] the
15 first in the kingdom) ; What shall we do [is there to do] unto [in the ease of] the
queen Vashti according to law, because [upon the fact that] she hath not performed
[done] the commandment of the king Ahasuerus by [the hand of] the chamber-
16 lains [eunuchs] ? And Memucan answered [said] before the king and the princes,
Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to [upon] the king only, but [for] also to
[upon] all the princes, and to [upon] all the people [peoples] that are in all the
17 provinces of the king Ahasuerus. For this deed [word] of the queen shall come
abroad [go forth] unto [upon] all [the] women, so that they shall [to cause them to]
despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported [in their saying], The
king Ahasuerus commanded [said] Vashti the queen to be brought [to bring] in
18 before him, but [and] she came not. Likewise shall the ladies [princesses] of Per-
sia [Paras] and Media [Madai] say this day unto all the king's princes, which
[who] have heard5 of the deed [word] of the queen. Thus [And] shall there arise
19 too much [according to plenty] contempt and wrath. If it please [be good upon]
the king, let there go [forth] a royal commandment [word] from [before] him, and
let it be written among the laws of the Persians [Paras] and the Medes [Madai],
that [and let] it be not altered [not pass], That Vashti come no more [not] before
king Ahasuerus ; and let the king give her royal estate [royalty] unto another [her
20 neighbor] that is better than she. And when the king's decree which he shall make
shall be published [heard] throughout [in] all his empire [kingdom], (for it is
great,) [and] all the wives [women] shall give to their husbands honour, both to
21 great and small. And the saying [word] pleased [was good in the eyes of] the
22 king and the princes ; and the king did according to the word of Memucan : For
[And] he sent letters into [unto] all the king's provinces, into [unto] every province
according to the writing6 thereof, and to [unto] every people after their language,
that every man should bear rule [for every man to be prince] in his own house, and
that it should be published [spoken] according to the language of every [his] people.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 [Ver. 2. iTV3t whence 0apis, denotes properly a fortress, hence the capital. — Te.]
T ■ .
2 [Ver. 3. nntyD, a drinking, i. e., a banquet, in which the wine was the principal feature, as represented freely
on the Assyrian monuments. — Te.]
3 [Ver. 3. Vn, military force.— T&.]
4 [Ver. 3. D^OrnS, a Persian word Hebraized. As it is here in the " absolute form," it does not qualify " pro-
vinces" following, but stands as an official designation, probably of civil rank at court. — Te.]
6 [Ver. 18. The English Version has unwarrantably transposed this clause (" which have heard," etc.), which
belongs to " ladies," etc., above. — Te.]
6 [Ver. 22. 3fl3 here evidently signifies the style of writing peculiar to each province. Thus the cuneiform
T :
differs according to the several districts of the Persian empire. — Te.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-8. The King's Banquet. — The point of
departure in this history is formed by a feast at
which Ahasuerus was unexpectedly humbled and
provoked to wrath, while purposing to show hia
great majesty.
Ver. 1. Now it came to pass, etc. The sen-
tence begun here, in its chief fact really follows
CHAP. I. 1-22.
31
ver. 8. There it is stated that Ahasuerus made
a feast in the third year of his reign. The 1 at
the beginning has not the conjunctive sense that
it has in Ezra i. 1, but stands more indefinite.
A Hebrew would understand this as a matter of
which much had already been related, and of
which the following is only a continuation. Thus
he would proceed often with a 1 without attach-
ing any definite meaning to it. TVl has come to
be a conventional formula for a beginning, comp.
Jonah i. 4 ; Ez. i. 1 ; Isa. liii. 2, et al. Aha-
suerus (Achashverosh) written in cuneiform
letters (comp. Lassen, Zeitschr. zur Kunde des M.
L. VI., p. 123 sqq. ; Benfey, Die pers. Eeilin-
schrift, p. 63 sqq ) Khsy-arsha, whence Cyax-
ares (comp. Dan. ix. 1), or Khsay-arsha, whence
Xerxes (comp. Ezra iv. 6), early interpreted
by Herodotus (vi. 98, etc.), as meaning apijioc, ac-
cording to Spiegel (Eranische Altherthumskunde,
II, p. 377), a mighty man, here does not mean, as
in Dan. ix. 1, Oyaxares I, the father of Astyages,
a's Ferrand holds (Reflexions sur la religion Chri-
tienne, I., p. 159), and Des Vignoles (Chronol. II.,
p. 274), and Nickes (De Estherse libra, I., p. 43-
69) would have it, since they especially insist
that, according to chap. ii. 6 sq., Mordecai be-
longed to the first period of the exile, and that
our book nowhere indicates that a new people
had again arisen in Jerusalem. Nor is the mo-
narch referred to the same as Astyages, as is as-
serted in the works referred to in \ 5 ; and still
less Artaxerxes, as Josephus assumes out of re-
gard to the Septuagint version ; but he is cer-
tainly Xerxes, as has been well proved by Sca-
liger (De emend, temp., ed Genev., p. 591 sqq.) ;
also by Justi (inEichhom's iJepert. XV., p. 338),
and still more emphatically by Baumgarten (De
fide I. Esth., pp. 122-151, and in his treatises re-
specting Cyrus the Great, in the Stud. u. Krit.,
1853, p. 624 sqq.). On the different views in
reference to Ahasuerus, see especially Feuardent
on our book, and Pfeiffer, Dubia vex, p. 481 sqq.
Against the identification with either Cyaxares
or Astyages, are the following facts: (1) Shu-
shan was already the capital of the empire, which
it became through Cyrus (comp. Strabo, XV.);
(2) the Persians are now the chief people (comp.
the frequent collection of HBl D^3, e. g„ in ch.
i. 3) ; (3) the number seven indicates that of
princes at the court of the king (comp. chap. i.
14); (4) many other specifically Persian pecu-
liarities. Further, the empire at the time in
question extended from India to ^Ethiopia, and
stretched also to the coasts and isles of the Me-
diterranean sea (comp. chap. i. 1 and x. 1), as
was the case since the time of Darius Hystaspis.
The Jews, moreover, are here represented as
scattered over all parts of the empire (comp. iii.
7, 8) and particularly numerous in the city of
Shushan (comp. chap. ix. 12, etc.). On the con-
trary Artaxerxes is called in the Bible (in Ezra
and Neh.) Artachsharshta or Artachshasta. For
Xerxes, on the other hand, we may claim the
identity of names (comp. Ezra ix. 6). In his fa-
vor is also the whimsical and tyrannical charac-
ter manifested by the Ahasuerus of Esther (chap,
i. and elsewhere). Besides, there is the remarka-
ble circumstance that Vashti was rejected in the
third year of Ahasuerus, although Esther was
not made queen till the seventh year of his reign,
which in the case of Xerxes may be explained on
the basis that between his third and seventh year
he made war on Greeoe.* The clause beginning
with XIH (comp. Gen. ii. 11) and referring us
back — this is Ahasuerus -which reigned
from India even unto Ethiopia, etc. — is no
doubt intended to designate Ahasuerus more dis-
tinctly,-)- but at the same time to make known his
greatness of dominion and power. Thus the
danger that threatened the Jews, as well as the
elevation of Esther and Mordecai, and of the Jews
through these, is more powerfully brought out.
nil stands for the original HJil, as Eidhu in the
onneiform inscriptions of the Persians stands for
Hindhu (in Zend and Syrian Hendu), and is there-
fore India, in the Sanscrit Sindhu which is really
the river Indus, then the inhabitants along the
Indus, and at last the land of the Indus (comp.
Lassen, Judische Altherthumskunde, I., p. 2) ; so
also in the Vedas Sapta Sindhavas, or "the
seven streams," really stand for India (comp.
RSdiger in Gesen. Thesaurus, Append, p. 83).
The o sound in WH, and the tone falling on the
first syllable are quite remarkable, but perhaps
only a provincialism. Herodotus testifies to the
great extension of the Persian empire under
* [We condense the following summary of the argu-
ment on the identity of the Ahasuerus of the book of
Esther, from MeCHntoek & Strong's Ci/clop. s. v. Ahasue-
rus. " From the extent assigned to the Persian empire
(Esth. i. 1), ' from India even unto Ethiopia,' it is proved
that Darius Hystaspis is the earliest possible king to
whom this history can apply, and it is hardly worth
while to consider the claims of any after Artaxerxes
Longimanus. But Ahasuerus cannot be identical with
Darius, whose wives were the daughters of Cyrus and
Otanes, and who in name and character equally differs
from that foolish tyrant. Josephus (Ant. XL 6, 1) makes
him to be Artaxerxes Longimanus; but as his twelfth
year (Esth. iii. 7) would fall in B. C. 454, or 144 years af-
ter the deportation by Nebuchadnezzar, in B. C.598(Jer.
hi. 28), Mordecai, who was among those captives (Esth.
ii. 6), could not possibly have survived to this time. Be-
sides, in Ezra vii. 1-7, 11-26, Artaxerxes, in the seventh
year of his reign, issues a decree very favorable to the
Jews, and it is unlikely, therefore, that in the twelfth
(Esth. iii. 7) Haman could speak to him of them as if he
knew nothing about them, and persuade him to sen-
tence them to an indiscriminate massacre. Nor is the
disposition of Artaxerxes Longimanus, as given by Plu-
tarch and Diodorus (XI. 71), at all like that of this weak
Ahasuerus. It therefore seems necessary to identify
him with Xerxes, whose regal state and affairs tally
with all that is here said of Ahasuerus (the names be-
ing, as we have seen, identical); and this conclusion
is fortified by the resemblance of character, and by cer-
tain chronological indications (see Rawlinson's Hist.
Evidences, p. 150 sq.). As Xerxes scourged the sea, and
put to death the engineers of his bridge because their
work was injured by a storm, so Ahasuerus repudiated
his queen, Vashti, because she would not violate the de-
corum of her sex, and ordered the massacre of the whole
Jewish people to gratify the malice of Haman. In the
third year of the reign of Xerxes was held an assembly
to arrange the Grecian war (Herod. VII. 7 sq.); in the
third year of Ahasuerus was held a great feast and as-
sembly in Shnshan the palace (Esth. i. 3). In the se-
venth year of his reign Xerxes returned defeated from
Greece, and consoled himself by the pleasures of the
harem (Herod. IX. 108) ; in the seventh year of his reign
'fair young virgins were sought' for Ahasuerus, and
he replaced Vashti by marrying Esther. The tribute he
* laid upon the land and upon the isles of the sea ' (Esth.
x. 1) may well have been the result of the expenditure
and ruin of the Grecian expedition." — Tr.J
f [The principal purpose of this clause is to distin-
guish the Achashverosh in question from all other Per-
sian monarchs bearing that general or regal title, by add-
ing the extent of his dominion. It thus becomes, as
was evidently intended, an important chronological dv
turn.— Te.]
32
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Xerxes, and in chap. xii. 9 he says that Mardo-
nius reported to Xerxes that the Saccse and Assy-
rians, as well as the Indians and ^Ethiopians, had
been conquered. See also vii. 97, 98, and viii.
65, 69, where the Ethiopians and Indians are
enumerated as being under tribute. According
to Arrian, Cyrus extended his conquests up to
India, and the people of the Acvaka were by him
made to pay tribute. Darius added still greater
parts of northwestern India to the Persian em-
pire (comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Altherthuma, 3d
ed., II., page 468). The auxiliary sentence : A
hundred and seven and twenty provinces,
is merely to be regarded as an additional sen-
tence in loose apposition, to indicate what pro-
vinces were included in the region just men-
tioned. If this sentence depended upon ^Vsn,
it should have 7JJ [or 3] before it. According
to Herod. III. 89 sqq., Darius Hyst. on account
of the raising of taxes divided the empire into
twenty apxai which were termed aarpavtrjai. A
further division into lesser portions was not
thereby excluded ; with so many petty tribes and
peoples this came as a matter of course. So there
were contained in the fifth satrapy (comp. He-
rod. III. 91) a small Jewish people, a separate
rUHD, which really means a judicial or official
circuit (comp. Ezra ii. 1). Our 127 provinces re-
mind us of the 120 Satraps whom Darius the
Mede placed over his empire (Dan. vi. 2).
Ver. 2. In those days, when the king
Ahasuerus sat, etc. — Sitting is a posture com-
mon to judges and kings, but more particularly
characteristic of the kings of Persia. The Per-
sian kings are always painted as sitting on a
throne under a lofty canopy. This is true of
them even in the time of war, and in their jour-
neys. Xerxes, indeed, was present in the bat-
tles sitting; thus it was at Thermopylae accord-
ing to Herodotus (VII. 102), and at Salamis ac-
cording to Plutarch (Themistocl. 13). See also
Baumgarten, I. v., p. 85 sqq. Which was in
Shushan the palace. — He had a royal estab-
lishment in several cities ; but at the time here
referred to it was in Shushan, which was his fa-
vorite winter and spring residence (comp. Neh.
i. 1). iEschylus calls it the palace ornate with
gold of the Cissians, and Strabo asserts that
every Persian king built his own palace there.
J107D was in use in later language, and i"D7QD
in earlier times.
Ver. 3. In the third year of his reign he
made a feast, etc. — All his princes and servants,
for whom this feast was made, are specified as
follows : The power of Persia and Media,
the nobles and princes of the provinces
(being) before him. — These words form an ex-
planatory sentence, and assert distinctly that all
the princes and servants were really gathered
around Xerxes. We are to understand by the
" power," the representatives of the same, who
probably consisted of the body-guard of the king,
which formed the flower of the entire army-
power. According to Herod. VII. 40 sqq., this
was in itself sufficiently large, and oonsisted of
two thousand pioked horsemen, two thousand
lancers, and ten thousand common foot-soldiers.
The □'DjFn3, who are mentioned also in chap.
vi. 9, and Dan. i. 3, were the principes, chief men
(in Sanscrit we find it parthama = " first ;" in
the Behistualnscription/ratorea, in Pehlevijoar-
dom), i. e., the magnates. [" It is a superlative
from a root fra, equivalent to the Greek 7rp6,
"before." — Rawlinson]. The princes of the
provinces are the Pashas or governors of those
one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. That
D13 is more correct than D"13 has been men-
-T TT
tioned in the note on Ezra i. 1.
Ver. 4. When he shewed the riches of
his glorious kingdom, etc. — Keil connects
these words with the inserted explanatory sen-
tence, " the power — before him," and thus he
gets the sense, not that the feast itself, at which
Xerxes showed his riches, lasted one hundred
and eighty days, but that he prepared a feast for
the army lasting seven days, after they had
viewed his riches for one hundred and eighty
days (ver. 5). But the connection of our verse
with the main assertion in ver. 3: "He made a
feast " is much closer ; as may be seen in th'e
fact that nearly all exegetes have declared them-
selves for this rendering. Something again dif-
ferent seems to be meant in the seven days' feast
of ver. 5, which Xerxes had caused to be made,
not for the army, but for all the people in Shu-
shan the palace. The feast during a hundred
and eighty days may have been only for the
purpose of consultation, and the real feast
may have followed in the seven days succeed-
ing. Keil's objection, that then the mention
of the preceding feast of a hundred and eighty
days was purposeless, does not hold, since
the fact that Xerxes could entertain his princes
and servants so long, is a proof also to the read-
er of his great riches. That such magnificent,
long and great feasts were very popular at the
Persian court, is elsewhere stated (comp. Dunc-
ker, as above, p. 609 sqq.). Herod, vii. 8 in-
forms us that after the re-subjection of Egypt,
Xerxes called the magnates of his empire to Shu-
shan, in order to consult with them in reference
to the oampaign against Greece ; and in vii. 2,
he further states that the preparations for this
undertaking lasted four years. Hence the as-
sumption is not unfounded that in these long as-
semblages it was specially designed in the third
year to counsel together regarding the war with
Greece. This is the more evident since in the
inserted clause of ver. 3 the power of the Medes
and Persians is prominently stated. If Xerxes
ascended the throne in the year B. C. 486 then
there were still three or four years until this
happened. There were three years until the
battle of Salamis (480) beginning with his first
year of empire. Clericus asserts that these
princes of the provinces could not possibly have
remained away so long a time as a hundred and
eighty days from their provinces and govern-
mental activity. Hence he would have them en-
tertained one after the other ; a view which is
without foundation. They doubtless had subor-
dinate officers, who ranked high enough to take
their places for one half year.*
* [" We are not obliged to suppose that all or any of
the governors were present during the whole period of
festivity. Rather we may conclude that the time was
extended in order to allow of the different persons
CHAP. I. 1-22.
S3
Ver. 5. And 'when these days ■were ex-
pired, the king made a feast to all the peo-
ple.— This does not, as Keii would have it, take
up the third verse again, but forms the transi-
tion from the counseling to the purely festive
entertainment to which the king invited (in ad-
dition to those already assembled to the army
and great rulers, comp. ver. 11) all the people
, at Shushan the palace. fiK'PD is not an abstract
form with an infinitive signification, which would
.' properly have to be punctuated thus riOT7D) as
are Mb©, ndy (comp. Ewald, J 239 a), but the
1 stands in the wrong place iu the originally de-
fectively written n«7D (corap. Lev. xii. fi), in
order that it might be known as having been
added later (comp. Joh. xx. 22). — To all these
people who were invited, belonged also the lower
classes of servants, and probably the common in-
habitants likewise, as is evinced by the phrase
both unto great and small — from the highest
to the lowest. But these were only the male po-
pulation, as is shown in ver. 9. In reference to
D'XXDJn comp. the note on Ezra viii. 25. VhJdS,
. . ... r T . ,
with 7, as in 2 Chron. xv. 13 ; without it 1 Sam.
xxx. 19. — In the court of the garden of the
king's palace. — lfV3 for JV3 occurs often in our
book, but is found connected with /UJ as also in
chap. vii. 7. The kingly palace or Beries of
houses was situated, in Oriental manner, as is
customary also to-day, in a large park (Xenoph.
Cyrop. I. 3, 12, 14).
Ver. 6. The language describing the court of
the garden where this entertainment took place,
i. e., the tent-like, enclosed, and covered space
of the park, specially prepared for this festive
occasion, and likewise the entertainment itself in
vers. 7, 8, must be understood as explained by
the exclamations of wonder, white, green, and
blue (hangings), etc., these latter being em-
ployed as coverings. Iin designates the white
cloths as to color, not as to a certain quality of
oloth; from "VTI> to be white. D2~)3, occurring in
the Sanscrit, Pers., Armen., and Arab., corre-
sponds to the Greek napnaaoc; designating cotton
cloth; and, because of the two preceding and
corresponding words, a splendid parti-colored
fabric. fi/3.n is the glistening blue-black hya-
cinth color, and here means any kind of cloth
which bad this particular hue. White and blue
were, according to Curtius VI. 6, 4, the regal
colors of Persia (comp. alsoDuncker, as above, pp.
891 and 951). These cloths were held fast (l?nx)
with cords to rings, and by these to the pillars.*
The last words: The beds (divans) were of
gold and silver (lying) upon a pavement
of red and blue, and white and black
marble, etc. , describe the seats for the guests.
making their appearance at the court successively."
Rawlinson. — Tr.J
* ["Nothing could be more appropriate than this
method at Susa and Persepolis, the spring residences
of the Persian monarchs A massive roof, covering
the whole expanse of columns, would be too cold and
dismal; whereas curtains around the central group
would serve to admit both light and warmth." Lofius.
-Tb.1
Gold and silver here mean the cloths, which
were woven with gold and silver threads.
Hence they were brocades with which these di-
vans were covered. But they lay upon PIBin,
Sept. em /\i$oaTp6>Tov, a tessellated (mosaic) floor-
ing, which was formed of various kinds of stones.
Bn3, in Arab., a false stone, accords to the Sept.,
o-piapaySlTTic, a stone of a green color, similar to
the emerald (smaragth), is perhaps malachite or
serpentine. VJVt is white marble ; "H, in Arab.
damn and darratun, pearl, is, according to the
Sept., izivvivoc. Xi&oq, a stone similar to pearl, per-
haps mother of pearl. fHTlb (from iriD="in$,
dark), is very likely black marble, with scuti-
form spots.*
Ver. 7. And they gave (them) drink in
vessels of gold. — This actually occurred, or
was seen transpiring. fiipK/n, Infin. Hiph. is
a substantive here. The vessels being di.
verse one from another, i, e., very different
drinking-vessels were in service. According to
Xenoph. Cyrop . VIII. 8, 18, these constituted an
essential part of Persian luxury. And royal
wine, i. e., such as was drunk from the royal
vaults, as especially costly, perhaps coming from
Chalybon, which it was usual for Persian kings
to drink (comp. Ez. xxvii. 18). In abundance,
according to the state of the king. — T3,
according to the hand= power of the king, mean's
that the great quantity did honor to the power
of the king, or that it corresponded to the ability
and riches of the king (comp. chap. ii. 18 ■ 1
Kings x. 13; also Neh. ii. 8).
Ver. 8. And the drinking -was — i. e., went
on — according to the law (custom) ; none
did compel, etc. 1113 hardly means a law
enacted for this special occasion ; for this pur-
pose the expression would be too general; — but
as custom, especially Persian royal etiquette re-
quired. This means, not moderately (as Cleri-
cus, — moralizing was not here intended), but on
the contrary that the guests in a courageous and
vigorous carousing should show their apprecia-
tion of the liberal hospitality of the kiug, and
at the same time evince their ability to do some-
thing in their drinking worthy of the royal table.
The Greeks knew how to do justice to hospitality
(see Baumgarten, p. 12 Bq.). While fn was held
to be a special law made for this ocoasion, it was
thought that its substance was contained in
DJX TX, DJX being taken in the sense of urging.
The meaning is that the drinking was not to
occur, as was usually the case, in compliance
with the wishes or encouragements of the court
officers. In contrast with the customary exces-
sive drinking, because of too frequent urging,
this should remain free to all to remain sober.
While the Septuagint, in a. free rendering, has
joined D3& TN with rH3 (ov mra. ■Kponeijievov
vdfiov), the Vulgate has it thus: "Nee erat, qui
* [Herodotus mentions (IX. 80-82) the immense quan-
tities of gold and silver vessels of various kinds — which
we know from the monuments were of the most elegant
style and costly ornamentation— together with couches
and tables of the precious metals, besides various co-
lored awnings (irapaTreTa.fj.aTa), which Xerxes carried with
him on his 'expedition to Greece. — Ts.]
34
THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
nolentes cogere ad bibendum." But the true in-
terpretation of the phrase evidently is as already
indicated ; every one having entire liberty to
drink of the wine, without urging. The whole
tone of the passage expresses abundance and
luxuriance: yet we need not make "urging"
out of DJX, but rather "creating a real neces-
sity, preparing difficulty, standing in the way in
a preventive manner." In Dan. iv. 6, at least,
it has this signification. It may possibly be an
additional form for W)X (Hitzig on Ez. xxiv. 17).
At any rate it frequently stands in the Targums
for the Heb. Sll pEty. and }>!n. That no one
should hinder another in drinking must have
been self-evident and understood at a decently-
conducted feast. But here it is stated : For so
the king had appointed to all the officers
of his house ; here not our own, but Persian
customs, give the key. Besides there is a nega-
tive hindrance in drinking, whioh obtains even
among us, and which would seem to have been
necessary in a company where high and low
mingled together, namely that of not so fre-
quently filling the cups. IB] means, as it does
in 1 Chron. ix. 22, arranging (ordering). With
7.J? it is, first of all, giving orders in reference to
or for some one. JT^iVJI = the chief of the
house, i. e., court-officer.
Vers. 9-12. The Queen's Banquet, and her Refu-
sal to appear in the Royal Presence. — The festival
of the king went hand in hand with that of the
queen, which doubtless was intended to bring
into view at the same time the royal majesty and
magnificence. Usually the queen ate with her
husband (see Herod. IX. 110), and even in greater
feasts she was not under all circumstances ex-
cluded, ns is proved by the reference to Lucian
by Brissonius, De regio Pers. princ. I., o. 103. At
this time sli e was compelled to remain away, since
she also gave entertainment to the ladies. To
permit the participation of women in all the feasts
of the men would certainly not have been very
desirable, since it was a mixed company.
Ver. 9. The name Vashti, 'PW\, has probably a
connection with the Old-Persian vahista ("the
best"), or with the related behisht ("paradisi-
acus"); comp. Pott, JJeber all-pers. Eigennamen,
in the Zeitschrift. d. £>. 31. G., 1859, p. 388. In
modern Persian Vashti signifies a beautiful woman.
Vashti gave the feast to the ladies in the king's
palace, i.e., either in her own apartments, whioh
also were in the royal residence, or in some other
dwellings there which were placed at her dis-
posal for this festive occasion.*
Ver. 10. On the seventh day, as the last
of the feast, in which perhaps there was the
greatest joviality. When the heart of the
king was merry ■with wine, i. e., well dis-
* ["If the Ahasuerus of Esther is rightly identified
with Xerxes, Vashti should be Amestris, whom the
Greeks regard as the only legitimate wife of that mo-
narch, and who was certainly married to him before he
ascended the throne. In that case the name may be
explained either by corruption of Ame9tris, or as a
title ; and it may be supposed that the discrace recorded
was only temporary; Amestria in the latter part of
.Xerxes' reign recovering her former dignity. Raw-
LINSON. — Ta.J
posed, happy (31133, as in 2 Sam. xiii. 18; Judg.
xvi. 25; Dl£3 is the infin. constr. Kal, with an in-
transitive signification), would grant a still greater
favor to his guests, and one too which he would
not have been willing to grant in a more sober
mood. He turned to the seven eunuchs that
served before him, ,}3~fi&<, together with fntS\
as in 1 Sam. ii. 18. Their names signify nothing
for the present purpose; and there are no certain
data for their interpretation.* But our author
names them because they were transmitted to
him, and in order that the historical character
of his narrative may be strengthened thereby.
Certain it is, they were the medium between the
king and the ladies. They were to transmit the
commands of the former to the latter. Their
number, seven, has close connection with that of
the Amshaspands. This number was peculiarly
sacred to the Persians, see ver. 14.
Ver. 11. They were to bring the queen in the
regal crown, "1H3, n\dapic or Kcrapic, i. e., in a
high, pointed turban, and consequently bring
her in her entire royal apparel, in order to show
her beauty to the prince, as well as to the entire
people, of whom at least there were representa-
tives present. Xerxes was desirous of glory, not
only because of his riches, but also because of
his beautiful wife.t
Ver. 12. But the queen Vashti refused to
come. — •'^I/Hn l?")? here has reference to the
word of the king, as in chap. iii. 15; viii.14; 1 Ki.
xiii. 1, 8. By (his) chamberlains, i. e., which
was brought to her in a formal manner, and
which therefore ought to have been obeyed all
the more (comp. ver. 15). Persian etiquette
gave to ladies, and especially to the queen, a cer-
tain reserve, and this under all circumstances.
It was regarded as something unheard of if the
queen appeared in public unveiled. But here,
where there was no doubt of the fact that she
should become the gazing-stock of a drunken
company, that, so to speak, Bhe should make a
show of herself to the lascivious eyes of so many
— according to the extremely literal view of the
Targums, she was to appear naked — she had a
right, indeed she was compelled to guard and
keep in mind her dignity. There is no doubt
that as the queen she was safe from such shame-
less proceedings as Herodotus (ver. 18) relates
of Persian foreign ministers. But instead of
being rejoiced at the modesty of his queen the
king felt deeply humbled in the eyes of those to
whom he would have shown himself in his high-
est glory. It is possible, and even probable, that
a well-known self-assertion of Vashti had some-
thing to do in the matter. But this we need not
necessarily assume in connection with his pecu-
liar character in order to explain his wrath.
Pride and self-exaltation perhaps so blinded him
* [" These names, being those of eunuchs, are not un-
likely to be of foreign origin. They have generally but
little resemblance to known Persian names." Ratv-
linson. — Ta.J
+ [" It has been said that this is invariable, and indi-
cates an ignorance of Persian customs on the part of the
author. But even De Wette allows that such an act is
not out of harmony with the character of Xerxes (Ein-
leitung, \ 198, a, note 6) ; and it is evidently related as
something strange and unusual. Otherwise the queen
would not have refused to come." Rawlinson.— Tb.]
CHAP. I. 1-22.
85
that he did not dream of such a rebuff. Per-
haps, too, she might have found some way, had
she been wise, in which without compromising
herself she might have rendered obedience. But
however bad the fact, the unfavorable light does
not fall on her, but upon the king. He appears
so thoughtless that one is quite prepared to expect
still other rash and inoonsiderate acts from him.
Vers. 13-15. The King's Inquiry. — 'When the
king said to the wise men, which knew
the times. — To know the times means to judge
the times as did the astrologers and magicians,
according to the heavenly phenomena, and to
give counsel corresponding thereto, (comp. Dan.
ii. 27 ; v. 15 ; Isa. xliv. 25 ; xlvii. 13 ; Jer. 1. 35).
But it also means in a general sense to be
learned; for according to the expressions follow-
ing, these wise men were likewise those skilled
in the law. For so, adds the author, (was)
the king's manner toward all that knew
law and judgment. — ^HH 13T does not here
mean the word of the king, for then we might ex-
pect, instead of 'JS/i a preposition expressive
of direction ; but it is a matter of the king, i. e.,
all that relates to the king, or what he under-
takes.
Ver. 14. And the next to him or standing
nearest to him, — thus the explanation becomes
clear, were Carshena, Shethar, etc. — There
is no doubt that all seven should be named as
standing before the king, and not the first only.*
The sing. V7S 2^pTt caa application to the se-
cond and third no less than to the first, and is,
therefore, equal to a neuter plural. The sense,
however, is clear. By these words, the wise
were meant, the chief persons, who during and
after consultation were to have a word before the
king in this matter. The clause 'which saw
the king's face, expresses their intimate rela-
tion to the king, and their great and high pre-
ference in an especially significant manner, since
the approach to the king was very difficult. The
seven princes that had conspired against the
Pseudo-Smerdis had a perfect understanding that
it should be permitted them to enter at any time
into the presence of the king, who had been
elected from their midst, and that, too, without
previous announcement (see Herod, iii. 84). But
that these princes themselves formed the court
either before or after the event spoken of here,
although mentioned "as the seven princes of the
Medes and Persians," is not to be assumed.
Those seven before mentioned did not, as did
these, belong to the learned class, to the selected
counsellors of the king, although they had inter-
course with the king. These were the seven su-
preme counsellors (comp. Ezra vii. 14), who
formed a complement to the seven Amshaspands.f
* ["These names have a general Persian cast, though
they are difficult of identification. They have probably
suffered to some extent for corruption (i. e.r transcrip-
tion into Hebrew): and perhaps ttiey were not even at
first very close to the Persian originals. In Marsena we
may perhaps recognize the famous Mardonius, and in
Admatha Xerxes' uncle, Artabanus." Rawlinson. — Te.]
t ["According to Herodotus (III. 84), there were seven
families of the first rank in Persia, from which alone
the king would take his wives. Their chiefs were en-
titled to have free access to the king's person. The Be-
histun Inscription, which gives Darius six coadjutors
The number seven, which is retained by the Per-
sians in ver. 5, and again in chap. ii. 9, was ori-
ginally instituted because of the seven planets,
or the weekly cycle, or finally with regard to the
seven Amshaspands. Perhaps its being composed
of the numbers three and four gave it significance.
njtfKT DOt^'H, first =presiding, is, first of all, to
preside, constituting the highest authority. The
feminine HJB'&n is a substitute for the adverb
(comp. Gen. xxxiii. 2 ; Num. ii. 9).
Ver. 15. First, here, the discourse of the king
follows. They are asked : What shall we do
unto the queen Vashti according to law ?
fnS is expressly prefixed here, and that without
the article ; hence, legally. Because she hath
not performed the commandment of the
king Ahasuerus. — Thus the king expresses
himself, instead of simply saying : my word;
since this was just the matter that came into con-
sideration, that it was the king's word. For the
rest comp. ver. 12 and notes.
Vers. 16-20. The Courtier's Reply.— M emu-
can, although last mentioned among the seven,
is spokesman, doubtless after the wise men had
had a consultation. For J301D is here the same
as J31DD in ver. 14, as is shown by the Keri.
The assumption is natural that the Scriptio defec-
tiva was really employed, and that the 1 was
added later by the Masoretes. This is evident,
further, in ver. 5, where the full form is distin-
guished as having been added by them at the
wrong place. Feuardent thinks that, accord-
ing to a more general custom, the last of the seven
responded first " lest he might seem to say aught
in view of the favor and protection of the chiefs
and elders, but on the contrary out of mere
liberty, and the full determination of his own will
and judgment." But Memucan seems to have
spoken first not only here, but also above ; hence
he seems to have been chairman (spokesman).
He judges the offense of the queen very strictly
in order to justify a severe verdict. But he also
correctly premises that the offenses of persons
high in office, on account of the influence which
their examples will have, are punishable in a
very high degree. Vashti the queen hath
not done wrong to the king only, etc.—
niy with 7J£ occurs only here.*
Ver. 17. For (this) deed of the queen
shall come abroad to all women. — XX1 with
l%_, usually with -7X. They shall despise,
properly, make them to despise, their husbands
in their eyes. — Those that despise are of course
the wives, as is clear from the connection with
D1DX3. The masc. form of the suffix is substi-
T : T :
tuted for the fem. form.
Ver. 18. (Likewise) shall the ladies of
Persia and Media say this day unto all
the king's princes, ntn OVTI is used in its
in his conspiracy, confirms the Greek writer." Rawlin-
son.— Te.]
* [" It is not surprising that the judgment delivered
by Memucan was one of condemnation, for it was rarely
indeed that any Persian subject ventured to offer op-
position to the mildest caprice or to the most extrava-
gant whim of the monarch. (See Herodotus III. 31,
35)." Rawlinson.— Te.]
13
36
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
direct meaning. What the speaker means to say
is, as regards the rest of the lower women, who were
referred to in ver. 17. It may take a long time
before the new law of the court shall have come
to the knowledge of all, because some will hear
of it later. But the princesses who live at the
court and who have immediate news of Vashti's
conduct, will relate what has been indicated in
ver. 17. After njIDNfl the same sentence is to
T : —
be understood as follows : D1DX3 in ver. 17 ; for
t : t:
the last words of the verse : Thus (shall there
arise) too much contempt and -wrath, can-
not be construed into the definition of an object
in view, as Bertheau would have it, as if the 1
stood before H3 only as an attachment to the
long phrase, but these form a separate sentence.
The predicate ; thus there shall arise, must be sup-
plied. ^12, really for a sufficiency, is by litotes, e.
</., " more than enough."
Ver. 19. This contains the verdict. — If it
please the king, let there go a royal com-
mandment from him. — hy 3l'D occurs often
in our book as also in Neh. ii. 5. flOyO "I?!, a,
■word of the kingdom or a king's word (comp. ver.
8), hence first of all a royal order. And let it
be written among the laws of the Persians
and the Medes, that it be not altered, i. c,
let it have express legal authority, so that it must
remain unaltered (comp. Dan. vi. 9).* That
Vashti come no more before king Ahasu-
erus ; and let the king give her royal es-
tate unto another that is better than she.
— D07D = nTTOD (comp. ver. 2), royal stale,
royal government, here means royal highness, dig-
nity, Hflyn = her female companions. 310, as to
its connections, is especially referable to obedi-
ence. It may be that Vashti was hated as being
a proud, assuming person. But the severity of
the sentence against her is explainable also in
this, that there remained no alternative to the
judges either to declare her innocent, which, as
respects Ahasuerus, they could not do, or to make
her for ever harmless. Even if she had again
obtained an influence with the king, they would
have had to expect her wrath.
Ver. 20. We here notice the consequence of
the decree of the king. — And when the king's
decree, which he shall make, shall be pub-
lished— all the wives shall give to their
husbands honour, etc. The predicate i>0#J
is chosen, since it makes a presupposition for the
13JT which is expressed. It is first of all neuter :
when it shall be published (heard). 0303, as in
Ezra iv. 1 7. i"lto.jr_ "It^X may mean : which he
shall execute, inasmuch as this decree would be
sanctioned by the example of the king himself;
otherwise : which he shall decree. Memucan re-
minds him of the greatness of the empire, since
* ["The theoretical inviolability of the laws of the
Persians is often touched on by the Greek writers.
Practically the monarch, if he chose, could always dis-
pense with the law. It was therefore quite within his
power to restore Vashti to her queenly dignity, notwith-
standing the present decree, if he so pleased." RAW-
LINSON—TR.l
the success of the punishment and its importance
is connected with it. Vnjpb, as in ver. 5.
Vers. 21, 22. The Decree Issued. The king ac-
cepts the proffered counsel and rejects Vashti;
indeed he does even more. In order that her
punishment may become as well-known as her
offense, he sends letters into all the provinces;*
and in order that these may be intelligible, he
writes according to the language of every pro-
vince, and to every people in their own lan-
guage.f That every man should bear rule
in his own house, and that it should be
published according to the language of
every people.— nVrn does not really indicate
the substance of what was written — this consists
of the rejection of Vashti and the reasons there-
for— but only its aim. Yet this object, strange
as it may have sounded, has nevertheless
received sufficient prominence. Feuardent
thinks that the edict may be explained on the
ground that there was too much petticoat go-
vernment in Persia. But there exists no proof
of such an assertion. It is true, in chap. v. 10,
that Haman drew his wife into the council of
consultation, but his friends first. It may be
asked, what is the sense and connection of the
phrase, and (it) should be published ac-
cording to the language of every people.
Older commentators and also Keil find therein
only a command, that a man in his own house
should speak his own native language. Hence
if he was possessed of one or more foreign wives,
who spoke a different language, they should be
compelled to learn his language and speak only
in it. Thereby the man was to show his autho-
rity as master of his own house. J But if we ap-
prehend this decree in such a general manner, it
would not only have been a very peculiar, but
also a separate edict, and it would apply in fact
to the rejection of queen Vashti, neither in its
object, nor yet in its communication. It might
much belter have read thus, " that the wives
speak the language of their husbands' people."
Hence Bertheau, according to Hitzig's advice,
changed fej? ptjSp to 'ID^ Hlt^-SS: (and every
one) shall speak what to him is appropriate ; but
* [" The Persian system of posts is described with
some minuteness both by Herodot. (VIII. 98) and Xeno-
phon (Oyrop. VIII. 6). The incidental notices in this
Book (see chaps. III. 12-15; VIII. 9-14) are in entire har-
mony with the accounts of the classical writers. Hero-
dotus describes the system as in full operation under
Xerxes." Rawlinson. — Tr.]
f [The practice of the Persians, to address proclama-
tions to the subject-nations in their own speech, and not
merely in the language of the conqueror, is illustrated
by the bilingual and trilingual inscriptions of the Ach-
remonian monarchs, from Cyrus to Artaxerxes Ochus,
each inscription being of the nature of a proclamation."
Rawlinson — Tr.]
X ["This decree has been called 'absurd1 and 'quite
unnecessary in Persia' (Davidson). If the criticism
were allowed, it would be sufficient to observe that many
absurd things were done by Xerxes (see Herod. VII.
35; IX. 108-111). But it may be questioned whether the
decree was unnecessary. The undue influence of women
in domestic, and even in public affairs, is a feature of
the ancient Persian monarchy. Herodotus tells us that
Alesia ' completely ruled' Darius (VII., 3). Xerxes him-
self was. in his later years, shamefully subject to Ames-
tris (ib. IX., 111). The example of the court would na-
turally infect the people. The decree, therefore, would
seem to have been not so much an idle and superfluous
act as an ineffectual protest against a real and growing
evil." Rawlinson. — Tb.]
CHAP. I. 1-22.
37
this would introduce a thought foreign to the
subject, and besides Hlty according to chap. iii.
8, should have 7 before it. Perhaps the mean-
ing is this: that he speak, etc., in short, that he
have the right to use his people's language in his
own house, even though he have a foreign wife ;
moreover that it is obligatory upon his wife to
so far learn the language of her husband that she
may understand the orders he may give in it.
This phrase receives further light from the con-
sequence which would follow upon the usurpa-
tion of the wife, since she would then compel her
husband to learn her own language.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
On vers. 1-12. 1. Ever and anon the question
arises, whether there is not upon earth some-
where, a condition of true satisfaction and un-
clouded happiness. One very much desires such
a state of things, and one is tempted to believe
it, especially when regard is had to the most
beautiful dreams of the past, which had the ap-
pearanoe of bright promises. But this is not all.
In spite of all assurances and experiences to the
contrary, one is ever inclined to think that the
world, and especially its lords, could give an
affirmative answer to our question.
At the very beginning of our book there is un-
folded to our eyes a picture full of riches and
affluence, full of splendor and glory. Whatever
is beautiful to look upon, whatever is enjoyable
to the taste, whatever could rejoice the heart and
elevate the soul, is here combined. A ruler,
whose height of power leaves hardly anything to
be desired, who has united under his sceptre the
most powerful, the richest, and most celebrated
nations, from India to iEthiopia, has called to-
gether the chief men of the various countries,
and they are gathered around him in the beauti-
fully situated and magnificently built city of the
lilies, the most beautiful of all Persian resi-
dences (comp. Neh. i. 1), there to revel in luxury
and enjoyment. He, it seems, is happy to be
their ruler, and they are happy as his sub-
jects. At the same time the women are also
called to this festive enjoyment. The higher
in station mingle on equal terms with those
lower, and all celebrate and enjoy the occasion
together. It seems as if every one must feel
happy in his place. Yet the old adage asserts
itself that the world, the rich, the high, the proud
world possesses least of that which we here seek.
It may be said, indeed, of this world alone, that
it passes away with all its pleasures, and that its
apparent wealth at last becomes sheer poverty.
Ahasuerus, w'ho is admired because of his great-
ness and lauded as happy by so many, is deeply
humiliated ; a woman dares to defy his command,
and his joy is changed to anger and chagrin.
Again, all the efforts that he makes to remove
the object of his disappointment serve but to
complete his misfortune. However widely and
effectually his power may be felt, he is still only
a man, and as such he has human needs. The
empire cannot displace his house. All the wealth
of earth cannot give him the joy that one person
does, who submits herself entirely to him. Her
he cannot gain by his measures, but rather she
becomes for ever lost to him by those very mea-
sures. Vashti, however, this second person at
the highest point of worldly glory, now sees the
crown of her exalted station and her happiness
torn to pieces. For her the day of highest joy
becomes the day of her misfortune. The sub-
jects, who had to bear the cost of these feast-
ings, must have groaned and sighed the most
in advance, instead of rejoicing. Feuardent:
"David once called water blood, because it had
been drawn at the manifest risk of life on the
part of his chieftains, and he therefore held it
wrong to drink of it. But .... from another's
hide, as the proverb goes, since shoe-strings are
cut by chiefs."
1. There is but One, who — Himself ever
blessed — can make all kings and nations truly
happy with the great wealth of His treasury.
He also will bring to pass that if those whose
beauty ought to be His honor and joy — mankind,
whose love would have given Him more pleasure
than a man would find in the love of his wife —
if these will not come to Him, will not honor nor
rejoice Him, indeed if all but one family desire
each to go their own way ; yet has this its ground
in His highest, in His most liberal greatness, by
which He has found means from the very begin-
ning to unfold more and more the wealth of His
glorious kingdom, in contrast with such stub-
bornness, and especially to reveal to us the riches
of His grace.
2. Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, who had received
this great and powerful kingdom from Darius his
father, and who now governed it in its fullest
extent, possessed the greatest glory among the
people of his own time and those succeeding, as
being the greatest and most powerful king. And
in the feast, which in our chapter he instituted,
he made it his special business to maintain this
distinction to its fullest extent. But it is this
very feast that while it reveals his greatness, also
reminds us of his weakness. Perhaps even then
many of his friends felt that he did not quite de-
serve all the distinction that he claimed for him-
self. By reason of his thoughtlessness and folly —
and this may not have been the first time when
these were manifested, though he now revealed
them in a more public manner before the eyes of
his princes — he demanded of the queen what was
against all custom and good breeding. This lapse
in moral strength of which he was guilty — in
that he lived more for sensual gratification than
for the duties of his government — especially re-
veals the fact that, though never so mighty a
king and ruler, yet in fact in himself he was
nothing more than a poor slave.
3. While Ahasuerus was intent to show how
far the limits of his empire extended, by calling
to his court the governors of the most distant
provinces, he found in close proximity, yea, in
his very house, insubordination to his will.
Though he knew how to punish it, yet he could
not conquer it, nor turn it into obedience to his
wishes.
There is, therefore, a power higher than that
of man, were he even the mightiest ruler of
earth. Though the latter may prescribe laws
and issue commands, the former has long ago set
in order His ordinances, indeed stamped them on
the very face of nature so deeply, so ineffaceably
38
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
and unchangeably, that in contrast with human
commands, they appear holy and irrefragable,
and in case of a conflict bear away the palm of
victory. To obey human laws may be a sacred
duty; but to follow dutifully the eternally divine
ordinances, is a holy and most glorious privilege,
which no one must permit to be abrogated. To
disobey human commands may be dangerous,
may bring temporal disadvantage, but to despise
God's laws is degrading, and will bring eternal
ruin. If an earthly ruler with his laws come
into conflict with divine ordinances, he will begin
a war in which he will finally be destroyed. Feu-
ardent: "Not even the heathens were un-
aware, under the instruction of Plutarch, that a
man ought to govern his wife as the soul does
the body, not as a master does a beast."
Starke: "Great pleasure is often followed by
equally great displeasure. Occasions of joyous
feasting commonly end in sorrow (1 Mace. ix.
41). Wine disperses sorrow and rejoices the
heart of man (Sir. xxxi. 32 sq. ). In a drinking-
company all kinds of useless counsels are gene-
rally brought forth (Wis. ii. 10). Men with
men, women with women, thus it was among the
heathen, and so should it also be among us Chris-
tians. How much that is unchaste would thereby
be avoided, which is usually found in such ga-
therings (Sir. xix. 2). Although beauty is a
gift of God, still one should not make a boast of
it nor yet be proud (Prov. xxxi. 30). Pride oc-
casions much sorrow, and often plunges others
into destruction (Sir. iii. 30; Prov. xxix. 23;
1 Pet. v. 5)."
On vers. 13-22. 1. The wise men, on whom
Ahasuerus depends to give a decision as to how
Vashti should be treated, are both judges and
masters of ceremonies. They are to execute law
and justice, but they are also to see to it that
court-etiquette be maintained. Instead of at
once following out the suggestions of his wrath,
and doing what he thinks best to be done, Aha-
suerus subjects himself to an objective will-
power, namely that of law and custom. This in
itself is great and beautiful. This is the victory
of culture over crudeness and passion. But in
the manner in which this is done here, it amounts
to nothing after all. We seem to feel in advance
that nothing good will come of it. It sounds to
us as if the advice of Memucan came from a
court of judgment: where what was held to be
light is changed into darkness, and what was
deemed to be sweet is changed into bitterness.
The queen's act, which was at the most but a
trivial mistake, is now stamped as a dark crime,
and this sentence is supported by them with
learned reasons and wise references. There is
guardianship of justice and of morals which is
nothing more than hypocrisy, by means of which
injustice and violence are made a cloak for the
performance of abominable deeds. Hence we
mnst seek to know, not what pleases man, but
what pleases God. What is good and beauti-
ful in itself is to be sought after. Feuardent:
"All might have been explained in a milder sense,
and a reasonable excuse might have been offered.
She was forbidden to enter that promiscuous as-
sembly by the very modesty which is a woman's
chief ornament."
2. However wisely the counsellors of Ahasuerus
counsel together, yet all their wisdom in truth is
nothing but folly; to such a degree as to cause
us to smile, but yet pity. They would forestall
the assumptions of the women, and would pro-
tect the respect due to men. They suppose that
they firmly ground the honor of man, if they
suppress the rights of woman. They do not
perceive that if they compel woman to be sub-
ject to them, even to the sacrifice of her modesty,
they will divest her of all humanity, and thereby
make her truly and offensively bold and arro-
gant. Ahasuerus appears equally foolish. By
not rendering a decision himself, but deferring
to his court for judgment, he would protect him-
self from the reproach of cruelty and blind pas-
sion. But the real responsibility nevertheless
falls upon him. Nor does he by any means guard
himself against the great loss of a wife, of whom
he has been so proud, and whose merits he will
so soon be compelled to recognise. Now the
question remains, Were other heathen princes or
judges really any wiser? We know that it has
ever pleased God to bring to shame the wisdom
of the world ; and we would not hazard much,
were we to say that the folly of Ahasuerus and
his counsellors would be found repeated more or
less in all human measures and arrangements
which have not proceeded from a fear of God, but
have reference solely to human desire, inclina-
tion, and advantage. The divine law only is
truly wise, and those who are led thereby are
surely protected from loss. Though that law
pronounces sentence of banishment against those
who are rebellious, still it is just; and even those
so banished, if they but come to themselves and
look within, must recognise its justice. It only
rejects these, to make room for all those who do
turn within and strive to give place to grace.
Starke : " Vers. 13-15. ' For the wrath of man
worketh not the righteousness of God' (Jas. i.
20). Vers. 16-18. Thus it is ever in the world:
as long as one is able to stand, others run to aid,
knowing that their help is not needed. When,
however, signs of falling are seen, all help to
push him down. Ver. 19. True counsellors must
set aside all respect for private interests, they
must keep their eyes fixed upon public dangers.
They must exert themselves to avert general mis-
fortune, though thereby they even endanger their
own welfare. Oh that all great lords would have
respect to the laws of the great God, as they de-
sire to have their laws respected ! _ God's law is
truly of such a nature and obligatory character
upon us that it neither can nor ehould be changed.
Vers. 20, 21. This is the manner of all great
lords; when their honor is insulted, they are
very severe, and promptly bring their laws into
exeoution. But when God's honor is insulted,
then they are easily quieted, and can readily and
quiokly change their purposes."
CHAP. II. 1-23.
FIRST SECTION.
The Rise and Conflict of Opposite Elements.
Chaps. II., III.
A.— ESTHER IS RAISED TO THE PLACE OF VASHTI, AND MORDECAI MAKES HIMSELF
DESERVING OF THE FAVOR OF AHASUERUS.
Chap. II. 1-23.
I. Esther's Elevation. Vers. 1-18.
1 After these things [words], when [as] the wrath of king Ahasuerus was ap-
peased [subsided], he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was
2 decreed against her. Then [And] said the king's servants [young men] that
ministered unto him [his waiters], Let there be fair [good of appearance] young
3 virgins sought [let them seek] for the king : And let the king appoint officers in
all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may [and let them] gather together all
the fair young virgins [every young virgin good of appearance] unto Shushan the
palace, to the house of the women, unto the custody [hand] of Hege the king's
chamberlain [eunuch], keeper of the women ; and let their things for purification
4 be given them [let there be a giving their furbishments] : And let the maiden
[young woman] which pleaseth [that seems good to] the king be queen instead of
Vashti. And the thing pleased [seemed good to] the king, and he did so.
5 Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain [man] Jew, whose [and his]
name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite,
6 Who had been carried away [made captive] from Jerusalem with the captivity
which had been carried away [made captive] with Jechoniah king of Judah, whom
7 Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away [made captive]. And he
brought up [was supporting] Hadassah (that is Esther) his uncle's daughter ; for
she had neither father nor mother, and the maid [young woman] was fair [beauti-
ful of figure] and beautiful [good of appearance] ;J whom [and her] Mordecai,
when her father and mother were dead, took for his own [to him for a] daughter.
8 So [And] it came to pass [was], when the king's commandment [word] and his
decree was heard, and when many maidens [young women] were gathered together
unto Shushan the palace, to the custody [hand] of Hegai, that [and, i. e. then]
Esther was brought [taken] also unto the king's house, to the custody [hand] of
9 Hegai, keeper of the women. And the maiden [young woman] pleased him
[seemed good in his eyes], and she obtained kindness of [received favor before]
him ; and he speedily gave [hastened to give] her her things for purification [fur-
bishments], with [and] such things as belonged to her [her portions], and seven
maidens [young women], which were meet [seen, i. e. chosen] to be given [give] her,
out of the king's house : and he preferred [changed] her and her maids [young
10 women] unto the best [good] place of the house of the women. Esther had not
showed [told] her people nor [and] her kindred [lineage]: for Mordecai had
11 charged [enjoined upon] her that she should not show [tell] it. And Mordecai
walked [was walking to and fro] every day [continually]2 before the court of the
women's house, to know how Esther did [the peace, i. e. welfare of Esther], and
what should become of [be done with] her.
12 Now [And], when every [each] maid's turn was come [approached] to go in to
[the] king Ahasuerus, after that she had been [at the end of her being] twelve
months, according to the manner [law] of the women, (for so were the days of their
purifications [furbishments] accomplished, to wit, six months with oil of myrrh,
40
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
and six months with sweet odors [spices], and with other things for the purifying
13 [furbishments] of the women,) Then [And] thus [in this time'] came every maiden
unto the king ; whatsoever she desired [might say] was [would be] given her, to
14 go with her out of the house of the women unto the king's house. In the evening
she went, and on the morrow [in the morning] she3 returned into the second house
of the women, to the custody [hand] of Shaashgaz the king's chamberlain [eunuch],
which kept [keeping] the concubines : she came [would come] in unto the king
no more, except the king delighted in her, and that she were called by name.
15 Now [And] when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihai] the uncle of Morde-
cai, who had taken her for his [to him for a] daughter, was come [approached] to
go in unto the king, she required [sought] nothing but what Hegai the king's
chamberlain [eunuch], the keeper of [keeping] the women, appointed [might say] :
and Esther obtained [was receiving] favor in the sight [eyes] of all them that looked
16 upon [seeing] her. So [And] Esther was taken unto [the] king Ahasuerus into
his house royal in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year
17 of his reign. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained
[received] grace [favor] and favor [mercy] in his sight [before him] more than all
the virgins ; so that [and] he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her
18 queen instead of Vashti. Then [And] the king made a great feast [banquet] unto
all his princes and his servants, even Esther's feast [banquet] ; and he made a
release [rest] to the provinces, and gave gifts [a contribution] according to the
state [hand] of the king.
II. Mordecai makes himself deserving of the favor of Ahasuerus. Vers. 18-20.
19 And when the virgins were gathered together the second time, then Mordecai sat
20 [was sitting] in the king's gate. Esther had not yet showed [was not telling] her
kindred [lineage] nor [and] her people, as Mordecai had charged [enjoined upon]
her : for Esther did the commandment [saying] of Mordecai, like as [what she
21 was] when she was brought up [in her being supported] with him. In those days,
while [and, i. e. when] Mordecai sat [was sitting] in the king's gate, two of the
king's chamberlains, Bigthan and Teresh, of those which kept [keeping] the door
[threshold] were wroth [was enraged], and sought to lay hand on the king Aha-
22 suerus. And the thing [word] was known to Mordecai, who [and he] told it unto
Esther the queen, and Esther certified [said to] the king thereof in Mordecai's
23 name. And when inquisition was made of [they sought] the matter [word], [and]
it was found out ; therefore [and] they were both hanged on a tree : and it was
written in the book of the Chronicles [words (i. e. deeds) of the days] before the
king.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 [Ver. 7. Of the two expressions here used, the former refers to general symmetry of person, *1t<n-n5\ and
the latter specially to comeliness of countenance, r\N*1D /"OICO. Esther had not only a fine form, but also a fine
face.— Te.]
2 [Ver. 11. The expression here used is doubly emphatic, DH DV-7^3, to show Mordecai's intense solici-
T T :
tude for his ward. — Te.]
8 [Ver. 14. The pronoun, being expressed, is here emphatic = each individual singly. — Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vera. 1-4. Plan for procuring a new Queen. —
The history which informs us how Ahasuerus
caused virgins to be brought together from all
the parts of his kingdom; how in consequence
he loved Esther in the place of Vashti, begins
properly here, at the point when the anger of the
king against Vashti had allayed, and when he
thought of what she had done, and what was de-
termined respecting her. In view of ver. 16 we
would be led to assume, since Esther was brought
to the king's palace in the seventh year, and the
tenth month of the year, that now we stand in
the fifth or even the sixth year of the reign of
Ahasuerus. Hence there would be between ch.
i. (comp. ver. 3) and chap. ii. a period of nearly
three years. We may assume that it did not
take longer than a half year to execute the order
here given ; and the preparation of the virgins
described in ver. 12 did not continue more than
a year. Meanwhile Ahasuerus was employed in
Greece during the sixth year of his reign, but he
returned in the seventh. In all probability we
are still in the time of the Grecian war. Wo
may also very naturally conclude that under the
circumstances many years were not suffered to
CHAP. II. 1-23.
41
pass before It was thought to find a substitute
for Vashti. This resolution was formed soon af.
ter the rejection of Vashti, but its execution may
have been delayed because of the newly under-
taken Grecian war. The literal meaning of ver.
1 seems to be that Ahasuerus rued in his sober
moments what had passed, that hence the fear
might have arisen lest he would now direct his
anger from Vashti and let it fall upon his coun-
sellors.
ilitf from ^3tj, to let down, to lie down, is here
and in chap. vii. 10, spoken of the swellings of
anger, in Gen. viii. 1, of movements of water, and
is related to nnttf, to be low or become low. "ITJ
-t -T
is to decide, to conclude firmly, irrevocably, comp.
mti, Dan. iv. 14.
tt :
Ver. 2. The youths* that served before the
king sought to avert the danger that threatened.
Those here mentioned are his attendants (comp.
Neh. iv. 10), who were employed about his per-
son (oomp. chap. vi. 3, 5). They advised that
maidens, virgins, be brought to the king, and
that these Bhould be beautiful to look upon.
IttfM', the 3d pers. plur., represents, as is usual
in the Aram., the impersonal "one," as a pas-
sive expression. /Vni>J, marriageable persons, is
in itself too indefinite to be other than an append-
age to n'l^na.f
Ver. 3. They also gave the plan of execution of
this project: The king, through his appointed
officers, or through specially authorized men, was
to cause to be brought together from all the pro-
vinces of his kingdom the most beautiful virgins,
and placed under the hand of Hege in the house
of the women. This Hege was the chief eunuch
of the king, the keeper of the women, under
whose care and direction every young maiden
taken into the harem was placed, and by him
prepared for one whole year to go into the pre-
sence of the king (comp. ver. 12). NJH in vers.
8 and 15 called 'JH, was, as above stated, the
chief overseer of the king's harem. J And let
their things for purification be given
(them). — jinjl, the infin. absol., gives promi-
nence to the act purely as such, since it presup-
poses the subject as being self-evident : " Let them
be given" [rather, "Let there be a giving"'].
pni3f\ (comp. vers. 9 and 12), from p^O, to rub,
to cleanse, to make clean, is an abstract image,
purification in the sense of cleansing; while
D'pllD in ver. 12 means rather [passively] be-
* ["1^3, however, like n-ats in Greek, and boy in Eng-
lish, often denotes merely a male domestic, with little
regard to age. — Te.]
f [It here, however, denotes something additional to
the charms of the candidates for the queenly state. All
young females are not virgins, nor are all virgins young.
These were to be both, and more besides, to be fair.
— Te.]
% [" The ' gynseceum ' or ' harem ' was always an
essential part of an Oriental palace (comp. 1 Kings vii.
8). In the Persian palaces it was very extensive, since
the Persian monarchs maintained, besides their legiti-
mate wives, as many as 300 or 400 concubines (Parmen.
ap. Athen. beipon XIII. p. 608 a). Hege, strictly speak-
ing, seems to have been ' keeper of the virgins ' only,
since the concubines were under the care of Shaashgaz
(ver. 14)." Rawlinson. — Te.]
come cleansed, or pure. Evidently such a purifi-
cation meant a cleansing and anointing with pre-
cious oils, ver. 4, Their purpose was that the
one who should please the king might become
queen in the room of Vashti. IJ^D here speaks
of the queen, as it elsewhere does of the king.
Ahasuerus approved of this proposition also
(comp. chap. i. 21).
Vers. 5-7. Now our author can and must make
a reference to Mordecai and Esther as the chief
persons on the one side in the conflict that is to
follow. Ver. 5. A certain Jew — remained
about there — in Sliushan the palace — whose
name (was) Mordecai. — It is a characteris-
tic of our author in his vivid mode of statement
that, instead of continuing the connection, he
makes U3e of 'STl, so taking a fresh start (comp.
chap. i. 9, 10). Thus a new element, which
comes into play in this history, receives greater
prominence.
The name Mordecai which in the later recen-
sions is not written '3110, but \3"HD, has per-
-::t' -t: : t
haps connection with the Persian mordkai, "little
man" (mannikin). Its derivation from the name
of the Chaldee God, Merodach, is, however, ex-
tremely improbable. Its import is equally as
uncertain with that of most of the names men-
tioned in chap, i.* The son of Jair, the son
of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite.
— According to most commentators, also Clericus
and Bambach, Jair, Shimei and Kish were the
nearest antecedents of Mordecai. f Still it is
much more natural to hold with Josephua, who
traces the genealogy of Esther to a royal house,
that King Saul is meant (Arch. XI. 6) ; while both
Targums hold both Shimei and Kish as being
much earlier in the line, namely, identical with
the men mentioned in the Books of Samuel, Shi-
mei, the son of Gera, who cursed David (2 Sam.
xvi. 5sqq.; 1 Ki. ii. 8, 36 sqq.), and Kish, the
father of Saul (1 Sam. ix. 1 ; 1 Chron. viii. 33).
This agrees with the statement that the former
Shimei, the same as the one here mentioned,
should have been a son of Kish. In 1 Sam. xvi.
5 he is designated as being of the lineage of
Saul. Further we discover that Mordecai, by
this derivation, was a Benjamite, and that al-
ready by this genealogical descent he is placed
in opposition to Haman as his enemy. This is
most clearly shown by our author in designating
* ["Mordecai has been probably identified with a
certain Matacas, who, according to Ctesias, was the most
powerful of the eunuchs during the latter part of the
reign of Xerxes That Mordecai was a eunuch
is implied by his adoption of a young female cousin, and
also by the ready access which he had to the harem of
Ahasuerus." Rawlinson. — Tu.l
■f [So also Rawlinson : " If the writer had intended tq
derive Mordecai from a royal stock, he would scarcely
have omitted the name of Saul himself. Nor would he
have designated Kish as a mere "Benjamite." The
same writer adds that on the supposition "that the list
is simply the true line of Morclecai's descent from a
certain Kish otherwise unknown, who was his grandfa-
ther," and had been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar ;
then " the four generations, Kish, Shimei, Jair, Morde-
cai, exactly fill up the space of 130 years from Jeconiah's
captivity to the latter half of Xerxes' reign The
age of Mordecai at the accession of Xerxes may have
been about 30 or 40; that of Esther, his first cousin,
about 20." Still these coincidences seem to be out-
weighed by the considerations advanced by our au-
thor.—Te.]
42
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
the latter ag an Agagite (comp. oh. iii. 1). It is
also well known that it wag a custom of Biblical
historians not to give the genealogy complete,
but rather to form a connection more or less close
with celebrated names of the older times (comp.
e.g. Maaseiah in Neh. xi. 5, the son of Shiloni;
or Pethahiah, Neh. xi. 24, the son of Judah ; or
Shallum, 1 Chron. ix. 19, the son of Korah).
The relative sentence in ver. 6: Who had been
carried away from Jerusalem ■with the
captivity, -which had been carried away
with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Ne-
buchadnezzar the king of Babylon had
carried away cannot by any means be referred
to the last named Kish, as is thought by older
commentators, and also by Clericus and Baum-
garten (I. c. p. 127), but only to Mordecai, to
whom special reference is made ag being a Ben-
jamite. Not only the analogy of similar pergonal
designations found in the Scriptures demands
this, but especially the circumstance that this
reference to Kish as a Benjamite would be purely
arbitrary. Thus it gives the appearance as if
Mordecai had himself belonged to the firgt pe-
riod of the exile, and not hig great grand-father,
and as if the history of our book, instead of be-
longing to the period of Xerxes, really belonged
to the period of a pre-existing king of Media
(perhaps to that of Cyaxares, comp. chap. i. 1).
For the assumption that Mordecai had lived
from the beginning of the exile up to the time
of Xerxes, and then, being perhaps 120-180
years old, had become prime minister, is quite
improbable. So is also the statement that he
was identical with the Mordecai mentioned in
Ezra ii. 2 ; Neh. vii. 7, an exile returned to Je-
rusalem with Zerubbabel and Joshua, but after-
wards coming back again to Chaldeea, or rather
to Shushau (Rambach). The contrast with the
youth of Esther renders it in that case well nigh
impossible then that she should come into notice
here. Still this natural consideration may be
deceptive. Since all the other incidents point to
the later time of Xerxes, we are justified, indeed
compelled, to bear in mind that mode of speech
which was then employed. This treats of things
done by predecessors as having been witnessed
by their progeny, who had a certain part in
them; such an analogy is found in Gen. xlvi.
8 eqq. Perhaps also the expression here indi-
cates in advance that Mordecai had been carried
away not only along with Jeconiah, but also
together with the captives led away at the time
of Jeconiah.* One thing, however, is clear : that
though a Benjamite, he belonged to the "cap-
tivity" of Judah, and not to that of Israel, to
which Joachim Lange would assign him. But
in this place reference ig made to him, as is in-
dicated in ver. 7, because of his relationship to
Esther. And he brought up Hadassah
[that is, Esther] his uncle's daughter. —
|3X, a participle connected with an accus., means
* ["The relative clause, 'Who had been carried
away,' need not be so strictly understood as to assert
that Mordecai himself was carried away ; but the object
being to give merely his origin and lineage, and not his
history, it involves only the notion that he belonged to
those Jews who were carried to Babylon by Nebuchad-
nezzar with Joconiah, so that he. though born in capti-
vity, was carried to Babylon in the persons of his fore-
fathers." Keil.— Te.]
a guardian (2 Ki. xi. 6 ; Num. xi. 12), but it may
also mean one who cares for, or who is a foster-
parent (Isa. xlix. 28). HD^n, myrtle, usually
masc. Din, plur. CO^H' may ^e compared with
the Greek names for maidens, Mvpria, Mvppivn.
The phrase, "that is, Esther," has joined with
it also the other name by which she has become
known. Without doubt she received this at the
Persian court. "l-HpN is old Persian stara with
X prosth.; see the term for star, modern Persian
silareh, Greek aarfip. As the daughter of his un-
cle, his father's brother, hence also his cousin,
it was very likely that she was somewhat younger
than her foster-father, but not one hundred or
more years younger, as would be the case if he
had lived at the beginning of the exile. Her fa-
ther's name, according to ver. 15, was Abihail.
In vers. 8-11 it follows how Esther, and
through her Mordecai, were involved in the his-
t ory of Ahasuerus. Ver. 8. So it came to pass
(literally "when was heard," comp. chap. i. 20
and Neh. vi. 1), when the king's command-
ment and his decree was heard — i. «., the
decree of the king as expressed in the publicly
proclaimed law, so that all were obliged to give
it obedience; among other maidens Esther was
brought also into the king's house. — Per-
haps quite ii time was allowed to elapse be-
fore executing the decree, on account of the war
with Greece, which had broken out meanwhile.
It is quite certain, according to what follows,
that Esther was not brought into the palace of
the king Ahasuerus before the sixth year of his
reign.
Ver. 9. Now since Esther appeared very beau-
tiful in the eyes of Hegai, and found favor
in his sight ion Nii'J or \7\ NfrJ (vers. 15, 17;
T T I " T T v
chap. v. 2) occurs only in our book, commonly
in N2?D, to obtain or bear away grace or favor
— he speedily gave her her things for
purification with such things as belonged
to her (comp. ver. 3). JIUO are portions, not
so much of oils for anointing as rather good food
(comp. chap. ix. 19, 22). Perhaps thoge maid-
ens that were selected by the king received
during their time of purification an especially
good diet (comp. Dan. i. 5). But they were
prepared one after the other. Hegai expedited
matters that Esther should be counted among
the virgins of the harem as soon as possible.
The accus. : the things for her purification and such
things as belonged to her, does not depend upon
7rD\ but upon HP n(r7 ; the object is placed
before the infin. according to Arameean usage.
But the infin. is here added after the following
object; and "the seven maidens selected" is
repeated, lest the previous objective statement
might seem too long. The seven maidens se-
lected, i. e. from the king's service, were by law
given to her as servants and to keep her com-
pany. ni'JO means primarily selected for a de-
finite purpose (comp. Kin, Dan. iii. 19) ; in the
Talmud and Rabbing 'INI takes the meaning of
dignus, decens, conveniens.* — And he preferred
* [It is implied that each concubine received seven
maidens, but that by the favor of Hegai, Esther received
picked maidens. Rawlinson. — Te.J
CHAP. II. 1-23.
43
her and her maids unto the best (place)
of the house of the women, i. e. an espe-
cially good and beautiful part of it, the state-
rooms of the women's house. Thus she might
in every respect live as belonged to the distinc-
tion awaiting her.
Ver. 10. Esther owed this fortune next to her
fairness to the shrewdness of Mordecai. Be-
cause of his advice Esther had not showed
her people nor her kindred, as being one
of the captive and despised Jews, else she would
soon have been set back. Mordecai showed his
love and shrewdness also in this, that even now
he kept up his relationship to her. And Mor-
decai -walked every day before the court
of the women's house, to know how
Esther did, and what should become of
her. — This was to find out whether she was
really in preparation for the king. It appears
that he could still approach her without hin-
drance, whereas in chap. iv. it is stated, that
when he put on clothes of mourning, he was no
more permitted either to stand in the gate of
the king, or to pass up and down before the house
of the women. Perhaps the laws of the harem
were in those days not so strict that, though he
could not speak to Esther directly, still he could
find out about her by her associate maidens.
We have neither a right nor claim on the expla-
nation of Jewish commentators that he was a
Persian official high in rank, and therefore he
had admittance to her (comp. ver. 19).*
Vers. 12-18. Esther was preferred before all
the other virgins. But in order to give promi-
nence to the modesty and simplicity of Esther,
our author tells us beforehand, in vers. 12—14,
what would have been granted her in this deci-
sive hour had she requested it. Now when
every maid's turn was come to go in to
king Ahasuerus, etc. — Tin, really order, ac-
cording to Ewald, § 146 d, probably connected
with mifl (comp. 1 Chron. xvii. 17), here in
our verse corresponds to "turn," "row" (ver.
15) ; comp. D'lin, rows, chains, Cantic. i. 11.
So instead of saying: "When the turn of each
maid came," we would say : " When it was the
turn of each maid." After that she had
been twelve months, according to the
manner of the women. — One would be led
to expect: "At the end of twelve months, after
that," etc. But the author desires to give ex-
pression to the thought: "At the end of the
purifications and necessary preparations." The
"manner of the women" does not mean the
custom of the women (Gen. xviii. 11 ; xxxi. 35,
Clericus), for it would not then be necessary to
add "twelve months;" but it is the law pre-
scribing those preparations which are more fully
set forth in what follows. The term "women"
instead of "maidens" must not seem strange
to us at this place any more than 'pOori at the
end of the verse. Six months with the
* ["Mordecai occupied, apparently, an humble place
in the royal household. He was probably one of the
porters or door-keepers at the main entrance of the
palace (see ver. 21, and comp. eh. iii. 2 ; v. 13, etc.). This
position separated him from his adopted daughter, and
some effort was needed to keep up communication
with her." Eawlinson.— Tk.]
oil of myrrh, etc., is more fully supplemented
by: ''They were purified" or prepared. The
purifications of the women laBt mentioned are
still other means which were employed by the
women for this purpose. The clause following
in ver. 13 should perhaps road : "At the coming
of every maiden to the king all these things
were given her," etc. For this is really the
declaration upon which a fact is based, namely,
that when Esther came, she required nothing
more of Hegai than what he appointed, as is
stated in ver. 15. The expression: "At her
coming" is made with a previous clause of con-
dition, and is attached by the conjunction " and "
to the sentence gone before; and it is also con.
nected in its participial form with the principal
sentence, so that it is best introduced by the
terms "and when" or "now when" (comp.
Job i. 13, 16, 17 seq., and Ewald, \ 341 d).
Such participial sentences of condition as are
found in ver. 14 correspond to the nominative
absolute, somewhat like the genitive absolute
of the Greeks. Then thus came (every)
maiden unto the king ; whatsoever she
desired was given her to go -with her, —
nt3 may be understood to mean from that time,
as does also the Sept., i. e., Mo, sc. tempore; but
it may also have reference to the condition, hoc
modo, sc. ornata (comp. JD3, chap. iv. 16). The
subject, "whatever" (all that), precedes for
emphasis, and does not mean a companion
(Rambach) — opposed to this is ver. 15 — but all
kinds of articles of decoration and of precious
value with which she would decorate herself to
appear before the king. The lot that befel most
virgins in spite of all preparation and decora-
tion is also on this account made note of by the
author in ver. 14, in order to give due promi-
nence to the good fortune that came to Esther
in her simplicity and attractive demeanor by
placing it in Buch contrast. In the evening
she went, and on the morrow she re-
turned into the second house of the wo-
men, to the custody of Shaashgaz, etc. —
'J© is for H'Jt!', as in Neh. iii. 30; another part
of the harem which was occupied by the concu-
bines. Shaashgaz, who had the special over-
sight over the concubines, may have been a
subordinate officer. She came in unto the
king no more, except the king, etc. — We
find that DN"lpJ is in other good MSS. also
written with the usual punctuation nx"lp3.
Following ver. 15 we have Esther's conduct
and success. Now when the turn of Es-
ther, the daughter of Ahihail, the uncle
of Mordecai, who had taken her for his
daughter, was come, etc. Thus fully is this
account given, since now the decisive moment
had come, in which she should come into such
an important relation to her people. She re-
quired nothing but what Hegai the king's
chamberlain, the keeper of the women,
appointed. — Not, perhaps, because of shrewd-
ness, as if she depended on the fact that Hegai
understood best the taste of the king; she did
not design to please the king by means of orna-
mentation, and only put on what was deemed
44
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
indispensable by Hegai.* And Esther ob-
tained favor in the sight of all them that
looked upon her. — She was attractive, sc. in
this momentous hour, jn NtM, like "IDfl KK'J
in ver. 9.— [Ver. 16. The month Tebeth. —
" This word, which does not occur elsewhere in
Scripture, is singularly like that of the corres-
ponding Egyptian month, Tobi or Tubai. A
name but slightly different is found in the Pal-
myrian inscriptions (Gesenius, Thesaur, p. 543).
Tebeth corresponded nearly to our January." —
Rawlinson.]
Ver. 17. And the king loved Esther,
and made her queen instead of Vashti :
no doubt at the time of the first interview.
Ver. 18. In addition he also made a joyous
marriage-feast, viz. : a great feast unto all
his princes and his servants (even) Es-
ther's feast. — Perhaps such a feaBt, named in
honor of the queen, was a custom on these occa-
sions, and its import is this: Esther's marriage
with the king was thereby celebrated in due
form. To this it may be added that Ahasuerus
gave to the provinces a release, and gave
gifts, according to the state of the king. —
The verbal form of the Hiphil of nmn in Chal-
r tt-:
dee may mean a release from taxes; the Sept. has
it more indefinilely as atpsoie. But the Vulg.
has it requies, as if it meant only a day of rest,
for which TMi)p may be more appropriate.
WD, according to Amos v. 11 ; Jer. xl. 5, is a
gift of corn or articles of food. ^/.HH T3, as
in chap. i. 7.
Vers. 19-23. The author connects with the
elevation of Esther a meritorious act of Morde-
cai, namely, the discovery of a conspiracy
against the life of Ahasuerus. This fact, though
not at once apparent as to its present bearing,
became of very great importance in the history
yet to be developed. And it could even now
serve to confirm the hope, by means of Esther's
elevation, that henceforth an especially good
time was coming for Judaism in Persia. Mor-
decai, who had previously shown himself a
very shrewd man, now also reveals himself as a
righteous subject. It seems that he, even more
than Esther, was to be celebrated. The intro-
ductory sentences in vers. 19 and 20 are very
obscure. And -when the virgins were ga-
thered together the second time, then
Mordecai sat in the king's gate. — Tt may
be asked what is meant by this second gather-
ing of virgins. Clericus thinks " they seem on
the first occasion to have been collected into the
various provinces, and afterwards at Susa,
before they were introduced into the royal
gynocieum. The writer returns to what had
happened before the marriage of Esther." So
likewise Grotius : "It is an e-rravodoc or retro-
gression ; for reference is made to the incidents
in chap. ii. 2."
* ["No doubt the virgins generally took the opportu-
nity— one that would occur but once in their lives — to
load themselves with precious ornaments of various
kinds, neck-laces, bracelets, ear-rings, anklets and the
like. Esther allowed Hegai to dress her as he would."
— Rawlinson. Thus, as ever, it proved that true piety
is the highest ornament, even in a hoathen's sight;
and modesty is the brightest jewel of female beauty (1
Pet. iii. 3. <t).J— Taj
But the word rvjE? does not well correspond to
this, nor the circumstance that, now, according
to ver. 20 sqq., Esther is already queen; so
that Mordecai now no more takes his post at the
inclosure of the house of the women, but in the
gate of the king, and thus through him she is
enabled to give information to Ahasuerus. Dru-
sius and Bertheau assume that the writer speaks
here of the gathering or transfer of those maids
who had been with the king into the other part
of the house of the women which was under the
care of Shaashgaz. Thus we may explain the
fact that Mordecai no longer walked up and
down before the house of the women, but stopped
in the gate of the king, and was at his post when
the virgins were conducted from the house of the
king back to the house of the women, where he
might expect that Esther would pass, since as
the beloved queen she frequently came to the
king. But then we would not read of a gather-
ing, especially one of virgins, nHinS. Besides
JTJl? does not well have a place in this explana-
tion, and the idea that in the gate of the king
one would be nearer to the women when return-
ing from the king's palace is incorrect. The
choice of the same expression Y^P, which waa
employed in verses 3 and 8 with reference to the
first collection of women, as well as then JVJtjfi
leads to the sense, as is recognised by Corn, a La-
pide, as also by more modern expositors, Keil
included, that after the elevation of Esther a still
further collection of virgins was made, perhaps
of such as came from distant provinces, and who
arrived later. We must keep in mind that the
selection of Esther did not prohibit Ahasuerus
from loving other virgins also and crowning them
queens, even though she had the preference be-
fore all the others. Solomon had seven hundred
queens and three hundred concubines. The lat-
ter were only secundaria uzores (concubines).
Then it may further be asked, What purpose was
served by the mention of the second gathering in
this connection ? Keil's assumption that thereby
the period of the history following is designated,
is insufficient, especially since it does not well
serve as a designation of a period of time. The
words immediately following make it probable
that it. was intended thereby to express how Mor-
decai could before this remain the more readily
and oftener at his post in the gate of the king
without attracting attention, or even without re-
gard being paid to him. It may be assumed that
at that time people did often come to the gate of
the king except when the virgins had arrived,
and in order to see them, while at other times
they remained away. Usually, however, it was
the seat for the officials, whether high or low in
position (comp. chap. iii. 2, 3, and Dan. ii. 49;
also Xenophon's Cyrop. VIII., 1, 6; Herodot.
II., 120). We find nothing leading us to suppose
that Mordecai was already an officer of the court,
and as such had a place in the gate. If such had
been the case it would have been mentioned, since,
as an explanation to sitting in the king's gate, it
was essential to the matter in hand. But, in chap,
iii. 2, we again find him sitting in the king's
gate, and that too, day after day. This may be
accounted for. We may assume that, in conse-
CHAP. II. 1-23.
45
quence of the event stated of him in this place,
he had in a certain sense obtained the right to
stand among the servants of the king who had
their position there. A confirmation of this view-
may be found in ver. 20, the objeot of which,
without this connection, will remain obscure.
Esther had not (yet) shewed her kindred
nor her people, etc. If we look at what fol-
lows, where the door-keepers did not pay much
regard to him, the sense seems to be : Mordecai
did not remain there as the foster-father of
Esther, for as such he would have been a distin-
guished personage, and one to be feared, but
simply as an unimportant stranger. The refe-
rence is clearly to ver. 10. The author, in the
repetition of this remark, and as is also clearly
shown by the use of the participle, desires to in-
dicate that Esther, as from the first so now also,
maintained » strict secrecy, even after having
become queen. Besides, the position of the word
PirnVlO is notable. JVwiO, in distinction from
Uy, signifies the family connection or relation-
ship, kindred. This is here placed first, because
the relation of Esther to Mordecai is under con-
sideration. The strong emphasis laid on the fact
that, Mordecai had so instructed her, that she
only carried out his wishes, as when she was
under his care, seems to oppose the opinion that
she did it from other reasons, as that she was
ashamed of her descent, and hence kept silence.
"I#N3 here means "like as when;" comp. Job
x. 19, where it signifies "as if." HJOX, educa-
° t : t
tion, care, has the raphe over the H, so that the
ending may not be taken for a suffix.
Vers. 21-23. In these days when Mordecai
sat in the gate of the king, Bigthan and Te-
resh,* two of the king's chamberlains, of
those -which kept the door (Sept. apxiau-
fiaro^v^a/ces), or watchmen of the palace (comp.
2 Kings xii. 10), -were wroth, became angry
CjXp), and sought to lay hand on the king.f
Contrary to ver. 20 the Sept. adds: Because Mor-
decai had become distinguished. But the matter
became known to Mordecai in some way, accord-
ing to Josephus through the Jewish slave of one
of the conspirators; in truth, perhaps, because
the lower officers, who had become party to the
conspiracy, did not exercise sufficient discretion.
Mordecai, through Esther, gave the king notice
thereof.
Ter. 23. The matter was investigated, and it
was so found, i. e., established, and they -were
both hanged on a tree, i. e., they were hung
on a stake, or impaled; a customary mode of
crucifixion (comp. chaps, v. 14; vi. 4; vii. 9, 10;
Ezra vi. 11; and Herodot. III., 125). J These
events were recorded in the book of the history
of the reign, i. e., in the chronicles of the em-
* {"Bigthan (the Bigtha of ch. i. 10) is probably the
Old-Persian Bagadana, i. e., God-given. Teresh is by some
derived from tars, ' to fear ;' but it is more like a foreign
than a Persian name." Rawlinson. — Te.]
t [" Conspiracies inside the palace were ordinary oc-
currences in Persia. Xerxes was ultimately murdered
by Artabanus, the captain of the guard, and Aspamitras,
a chamberlain and eunuch (Ctesias, Fers., § 29; Diod.
Sic. XL, 69, \ 1). A similar fate befell Artaxerxes Ochus."
Rawunson. — Te.1
X [Especially " of rebels and traitors in Persia (see
Herod. III.. 159; IV., 43; and the Behistun Inscription,
passim)." Rawlinson. — Te.]
pire (comp. chaps, vi. 1 ; x. 2; Ezra iv. 15), and
that before the king, which may mean, either
in his presence, so that he might be assured of
their correct insertion, or that the chronicles of
the empire were deposited before him, in his
palaoe (comp. chap. vi. 1). It was a Persian cus-
tom to insert the names of those into the chroni-
cles of the empire, who had deserved well of the
king, as is confirmed by Herodot. VIII., 85. He
also relates that Xerxes, on his campaign against
Greece, had historians in his train, who were re-
quired to record the deeds of the Persians in a
book.*
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
It is of the every-day life of a purely worldly,
of a heathen court, that the author of our chapter
treats. This moves in the high places of this
world, and yet it is a very low life. Ahasuerus
begins to feel the loss which he has brought on
himself by the rejection of his wife, and his cour-
tiers advise him to procure for his lust another,
most liberal indulgence. He lends an ear to their
suggestion, and orders what might be expected
to follow as a matter of course. Nothing seems
more improbable in these events than a divine
control and government ; and we would hardly
be led to expect the thoughts and guidance of
God under such circumstances. Yet we are soon
made aware that we are standing right in the
midst of divine providence. Independent as the
world may appear in its outward life, still the
Lord knows how to make even the lowest im-
pulses and movements — indeed even the sin
present in them — serviceable to His purposes.
While on the one side Ahasuerus desires nothing
but to find the most beautiful of virgins, God on
the other side places Esther in the right position,
and through her brings help and protection to
His people in the face of the dangers that threaten
them on the part of the world. He permits His
people to become involved in the low life of the
world, nay, He has humbled them to such an ex-
tent that even their virgins must be brought to
Shushan at the king's command. But in thus
revealing the full depth of their degradation He
also begins again to elevate them. Besides, it is
remarkable, how the life of human love, even in
its sunken state, can illustrate the work of divine
Love. For just as Ahasuerus caused virgins to
be brought together from all peoples and tribes,
in order to select the most beautiful for himself,
so God has in a certain sense tested all the peo-
ples of mankind to see if He could find one that
would be peculiarly His own. And then, in
preference to all others, however many there
might be, and however many excellencies they
might have in certain directions, He would select
the one least noticed as His bride and spouse.
On vers. 1-7. The author permits us here to
take a hasty but deep insight into the domestic
life of a powerful and wealthy heathen ruler,
who lives in the world merely to live, and on the
other hand he gives us a view into the every-day
life of a seemingly poor Jew, who is also despised
in the common lot of his people, but who never-
theless incontestably stands under the blessing
* f" These royal chronicles were distinctly mentioned
by Ctesias, who said that he drew his Persian history
from them (Diod. Sic. II., 32)." Rawlinson.— Te.]
46
THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
of his fathers. Ahasuerus, amid all his wealth
and splendor, feels an oppressive want. He re-
members his wife whom he has rejected, and es-
pecially regrets the wrong which he has done her.
Without doubt the feeling gains a place in him
that the loss of a personal being whom he could
call peculiarly his own, was a loss which could
not be made good by any other possession, how-
ever precious. And the wrong which he thinks
he had experienced from her, is, like all the
wrongs of men of the world of which they accuse
each other, rather of a doubtful kind. It may
be a question whether it could not have been ex-
cused, or even taken in a good sense. In truth
it was only because of his despotic and mistaken
view of common rights, which even the wife has,
that caused him to reject her. He had trampled
under foot her feminine feelings. Nevertheless
she was now for ever lost to him. He was not
prudent, not cautious enough. He must even
confess to himself that though he had consulted
his counsellors, he still had acted in a passionate
manner, and given too free a rein to his wrath.
Though surrounded by affluence, he is yet dis-
contented, more especially with himself; he is
filled with vexation and conflict, though no one
has dared to oppose him. Of course there are
not wanting those who recommend to him means
and ways for shaking off this oppressive feeling.
One thing, however, is evident: he cannot attain
to a true satisfaction in the manner which they
recommend to him as regards the points in ques-
tion. This can only be brought about by true
love. But love, as is beautifully shown and car-
ried out in Canticles, cannot be commanded nor
yet purchased; it can only be won, and can only
be brought into life and sustained by true love's
labor. The view into the domestic life of Aha-
suerus is, therefore, a view of the brilliant, but
hopeless misery of heathendom, whioh only de-
ceives the sensual fool with reference to its true
nature, but which convinces those more circum-
spect of the poverty of those living without God
in the world.
How different a picture is presented to U3 in
the domestic life of Mordecai ! Mordecai is a
lowly descendant of a formerly distinguished,
indeed royal family. He belongs to the scattered
foreigners fallen under contempt, who were car-
ried away captives from Jerusalem. He is in a
strange land. He has, it appears, neither father
nor mother, neither wife nor child. Even his
relatives, his uncle and his aunt, are dead. But
the latter left an orphan; he is to her a father,
she to him a daughter, indeed a precious trea-
sure. Doubtless he is aware how great a trust
was left to him in her and with her, how God is
justly called the Father of orphans, and that He
especially blesses those who pity and minister to
them. He knows bis duty toward her, and its
fulfilment brings to him satisfaction, makes him
happy. God has blessed her with beauty, but
what is more, He has bestowed on her an obe-
dient, humble, and unassuming spirit, as is after-
ward fully shown by her conduct in the royal
house of the women, and as had doubtlesB been
often manifested before. She loves her people,
and surely also its customs, laws, and religion.
Thus she is to him indeed a Hadassah, a myrtle,
in the true sense of the word, an unpromising
and yet promising bud. Indeed to him she has
developed into a lovely flower of hope ; and
though it happen that she is taken into the royal
house of the women, she will still be to him a
lovely flower, whose presence he seeks, whose
prosperity lies at his heart day by day, whose
development will cause him to rejoice. Again
she will more and more become to him a brilliant
star, an Esther (aster), in whose light he views
his own and his people's future. In this manner
bis life is not poor, though he appear insignifi-
cant and obscure, though it be filled with pain-
ful reminiscences and great perplexities which
he must combat daily in his heathen surround-
ings. On the contrary he is rich in light and
hope ; and even if he had realized the latter in a
less degree than he eventually did, still his ex-
istence would not have been in vain.
On vers. 8-11. That which gave Esther dis-
tinction above all the other virgins, who were at
the same time selected with her, and whereby she
obtained first the favor of the keeper of the ha-
rem, and then the love of Ahasuerus, waB cer-
tainly not merely greater personal beauty. This
would hardly have made Buch a favorable im-
pression upon the eunuch. But it was rather
a certain graciousness of being and carriage,
which could only be present where the spiritual
element does not occupy a lower plane than the
physical, as was the fact with most Persian
poorly-trained maidens, but rather where the
spiritual element elevates and transfigures the
mere bodily element. This grace had its ground
partly in her fortune, but also for a great part
in the spiritual nature of Judaism through the
blessing of an adoration of the true, exalted, and
spiritual God. It was therefore not without
reason that the then existing Jews thought, them-
selves recognised and honored in the preference
of Esther, which, no doubt, they did to its full
extent. They all more or less participated in
her spiritual advantages, or at least all could or
should have participated in them. This, how-
ever, affords little ground for beholding in the
victory she won an indication of the triumph
which Judaism, then so oppressed and despised,
should obtain over proud heathendom at large.
Nevertheless in the before insignificant but lovely
Hadassah, who is now the powerful Esther, we
see a symbol of the weaker but better element in
Israel perfecting itself as the powerful commu-
nity of the Spirit in the Christian church, which
will yet conquer the world.
Luther: " Whatever heart is thus minded, will
bear ornamentation without danger to itself; for
it bears and yet does not bear, dances and yet
dances not, lives well and yet not well. These
are the heavenly souls, the sacred brides of
Christ; hut they are scarce. For it is difficult
not to have a lust for great ornamentation and
display." Stolberq : " Undazzled by splendor
and royalty, the tender virgin rejected all these
things. With noble simplicity she took the
ornaments, neither selecting nor demanding
anything, whioh the chief chamberlain brought
to her. Even after she became queen above all
the wives of the king, her heart still clung not
only with gratitude, but with childlike obedienoe,
to her pious uncle and foster-father, as in the
time when he trained her as a little girl."
CHAP. II. 1-23.
47
On vers. 12-18. In the small compass of what
has here been said respecting heathen virgins on
the one hand and Esther on the other, we find a
beautiful picture of the world and of the king-
dom of God — the opposite tendencies as also
destinies, by which these conceptions are desig-
nated. Doubtless the heathen maids decorated
themselves with all possible precious things, for
the evening for which they had so long prepared
themselves by their purifications and anointings,
in order to make the best possible impression
upon Ahasuerus, upon whose favor or disfavor
their whole future happiness of life depended.
But by all this tinsel they gained nothing more
than to look beautiful in their own eyes, and
that for a moment which flew away so soon, and
in which they were allowed to harbor hope. The
majority were only permitted to see the king, and
thereafter for ever to bury their hopes. For
them there remained the sad lot of the concu-
bines; they must bid farewell to the joys which
they might have had in another sphere of life,
without obtaining any compensation for that loss
in their strict seclusion. The elevated feeling
that they had fulfilled their life-work must for
ever be denied them. They had missed their
life-purpose; life became to them more and more
a uniform dark monotony. In like manner the
children of this world act and deceive themselves.
Although they are firmly intent on enjoying the
pleasures of life, although they direct all their
endeavors to this one object, and prepare and
decorate themselves in their way at their very
best, still they enjoy it but for a single fleeting
moment. Esther, on the other hand, was distin-
guished by her lack of desire or claim to Bhine
in external decoration. She only put on, what
so to speak, was forced upon her. But she was
thereafter beautiful not only in her own eyes,
but in the eyes of all that beheld her.
Thus also her fortune was not a speedy disap-
pointment; she really obtained, not what she
had desired, but what she had never hoped nor
expected. She really obtained a favorable in-
tercourse with the king; she became his choice,
his wife, she became queen. All these things
plainly indicate that she possessed in an unusual
degree God's favor and friendship, which still
accompanied her. The children of God enjoy a
still higher happiness. They who reckon it to
be a great favor to serve God in all simplicity,
yea to be even door-keepers in His sanctuary, are
made His chosen and loved ones, if in other re-
spects they have properly decorated themselves
for Him. He adopts them as His children, and
cares for them according to what is needful for
them, even with temporal blessings; for the meek
shall inherit the earth. He also elevates them
to kings and priests, and adorns them with the
crown of life, for He brings them to the inheri-
tance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them
(comp. 1 Pet. iii. 3; i. 7).
On vers. 17, 18. It is quite possible that Aha-
suerus did not clearly know why Esther was pre-
ferred before her heathen virgin competitors, and
what he was pleased with in her, why he crowned
her as his queen. Still we can readily discover
in his demeanor an indication that heathenism is
always desirous, even when it has tasted to the
full all that it can procure for its own enjoy-
ment, to obtain something different and higher.
Certain it is that these higher needs, which could
be satisfied with nothing low, and which exhibited
a higher receptivity, should arrive at this point.
It was meet also that the heathen should see the
fact fulfilled, that they themselves, their heathen
kings and princes must pay homage to the people
of the Lord, as to a queen who above all is
worthy to be placed upon the throne, and to im-
part to the world her laws and ordinances (comp.
Isa. xlix. 23; lxii. 4 sqq.). When this shall be
entirely fulfilled, then the marriage-feast which
Ahasuerus made in honor of queen Esther, with
the edict proclaiming a temporary freedom from
taxation of the people, and the relief from their
oppressive yoke granted at the same time, shall
correspond to the entire life of mankind.
On vers. 19-23. 1. Esther was silent in regard to
her Jewish descent and religion, and this was
permissible so long as she was not asked to reveal
it, so long also as the weal of her people did not
require a different course. This she could the
more readily do, inasmuch as the Old Testament
religion, by reason of its limitation, did not im-
pose the duty of a missionary confession. Even
the Christian can keep his faith out of sight so
long as its confession will not benefit, but would
rather do injury, and so long as the duty of ve-
racity is not violated. At all events the mar-
tyr's crown, if it is not hastily seized, bat rather
borne with dignity, is far more glorious than a
royal crown. Yet true faith will manifest its
world-conquering power, and be encouraging to
its devotees only when it is openly confessed,
though its confessors stand at the martyr's stake,
or die by the claws of wild beasts.
2. Nothing justifies us in assuming that Mor-
decai reported those conspirators because of
selfish reasons, or in order to gain distinction
and merit, or because Ahasuerus as the husband
of Esther was nearly related to himself. Be-
sides being an indication, it may be an expres-
sion of shrewdness, of his sense of duty. Al-
though the Jew as such did not have a very
warm feeling of attachment to the Persian king,
still, in so far as he lived according to the divine
Word, he sought to perform his obligations also
toward the heathen governmental authority
(comp. Jer. xxix. 7). Thereby he also becomes
a practical illustration of the fact that the piety
which is nurtured by God's Word is also of bene-
fit to the heathen state and to heathen rulers.
The governments of modern times, which treat
religion not only with toleration but also with
indifference, should remember that godly fear,
as it is useful for all things, is also the most sub-
stantial bulwark for the continuance of the state.
Bkenz: " We have here a daughter bereft of
the protection of man by the death of her pa-
rents, but God elevated her to great distinction,
so that all men gave her honor. Why was she
carried into exile, but that she should reign?
why bereft of parents, unless that she might be-
come the favorite of God and man ?"
Feuardent : On vers. 8, 9. "From this it may
be concluded, as later is actually affirmed by
Paul, that God hath chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise ; and the weak
things of the world to confound the things which
48
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
are mighty; and the base things of the world,
and things which are despised, and things which
are not, to bring to naught things that are: that
no flesh should glory in His presence, for what
is weaker than a little girl, or what more lowly
and contemptible than an exiled orphan, born
among a people of all other nations the most ig-
nored and hated ? What, on the other hand, in
the estimation of the flesh and this world, is
more wise and prudent, more glorious and pow-
erful than Ahasuerus, Vashti, Human and the
other Persian and Median satraps ? Yet by the
means of a single person, Esther, they are con-
founded, superseded, ejected. By her ofBce, I
said, but by the help of God, although by the
authority and arrangement of judges, of whom
Esther was only the organ ; lest the flesh should
have aught whereof to glory, but that all the
praise of the church preserved in the Persian
realms should be referred to God. He was able,
as in former days, so to have rallied under a
brave Samson or Gideon His entire people scat-
tered hither and thither, and to have fortified
them with arms and strength, as to destroy by
mutual slaughter all His foes when the great
battle was joined; but in that case men would
have arrogated something to themselves, and
perhaps have said: Our own right hand, and not
God, has done all this." — On ver. 15: "Let then
both men and women learn by this case so to
direct all their aims and desires as to please God
alone by the ornament of a good conscience and
by the forms of minds well adjusted; but to de-
spise the adventitious bodily ornaments of this
world as vain in His sight, and by this piety
gain the surer rewards of heaven. For this
alone is the true beauty, which is precious in
God's view, and which causes us to be approved
by the King of kings, and joined to Him in spi-
ritual matrimony Surprising that even
the heathen saw and taught this. For Crates
says: 'That is ornament which adorns. But
that adorns which makes a woman more adjusted
and more modest. For this end neither gold nor
gems nor purple avails, but whatever has the
import of gravity, modesty, and chastity.' "
Starke: On ver. 1. "Whatever has been un-
dertaken in anger against God's command can
well be changed (1 Sam. xxv. 34, 35)." — On ver.
2. " To heap sin on sin is the master work of
art of all ungodly persons (2 Sam. xv. 1 ; xvi.
22; Isa. xxx. 1; Jer. ix. 3)." — On vers. 3, 4.
"The advice of courtiers is most generally di-
rected towards the object to which they think
their lords are chiefly inclined, and they speak
to their wishes (2 Sam. xv. 4; xvi. 21). Carnal
ears love to hear nothing better than what will
please their lustful hearts (2 Sam. xvi. 22)." —
On vers. 5-7. "When orphans fear God, He will
also care for them (Ps. xxvii. 10). In a pious
and virtuous maiden beauty of person is a great
gift of God (Prov. xi. 2). We should not neglect
the orphans of blood relatives. God is the Fa-
ther of orphans (Ps. lxviii. 6), and He knows how
to open the hearts of pious people who will faith-
fully care for them (Ps.x. 14)." — On vers. 8, 9.
" What care and cost is required for the decora-
tion of the soul, when it would prepare as an ac-
ceptable bride for Jesus (Ps. xlv. 14.)" — On
vers. 16, 17. " God will raise the miserable one
from the dust, so that He may seat him next to
princes (Ps. cxiii. 7, 8)."
B.— HAMAN ATTAINS TO POWER AND DISTINCTION. HE DETERMINES UPON THE
DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWS.
Chap. III. 1-15.
1. Hamaria elevation. His resolve with reference to the Jews. Vers. 1—7.
1 After these things [words] did [the] king Ahasuerus promote [elevated] Ha-
inan the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced [make great] him, and set
2 [put] his seat above all the princes that were with him. And all the king's ser-
vants, that were in the king's gate, bowed [were bending] and reverenced [bowing
themselves to]1 Hainan: for the king had so commanded concerning [enjoined for]
him : but [and] Mordecai bowed not [would not bend] nor did him reverence [and
3 would not bow himself]1. Then [And] the king's servants, which were in the king's
gate, said unto Mordecai, Why transgresaest thou2 the king's commandment?
4 Now [And] it came to pass [was], when they spake daily unto him, and he heark-
ened not unto them, that [and] they told [it to] Haman, to see whether Mordecai 's
5 matters [words] would stand : for he had told them that he was a Jew. And when
Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then [and] was Ha-
6 man full of wrath.' And he thought scorn [despised in his eyes] to lay hands
[hand] on Mordecai alone ; for they had showed [told] him the people of Mordecai ;
wherefore [and] Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout [in]
CHAP. III. 1-15. 49
7 the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordeeai. In the first month,
(that is the month Nisan,) in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus, they cast4 Pur,
that is, the lot, before Haman, from day to day, and from month to month, to the
twelfth month, that is the month Adar.
2. With the permission of Ahasuerus Hainan issues the decree to exterminate the Jews. Vers. 8-15.
8 And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is5 a certain [one] people scattered
abroad and dispersed among the people [peoples] in all the provinces of thy king-
dom ; and their laws are diverse from all [every] people, neither keep they6 the
king's laws, therefore [and] it is not for the king's profit [fit for the king] to suffer
9 them [let them rest]. If it please the king, let it be written that they may be de-
stroyed [to cause them to perish] ; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to
the hands of those that have the charge [the doers] of the business [work], to bring
10 it into the king's treasuries. And the king took his ring [signet] from [off] his
hand, and gave it unto Haman the son of Hammedatha [the Medatha] the Aga-
11 gite, the Jews' enemy. And the king said unto Haman, The silver is given to thee,
the people also [and the people], to do with them [it] as it seemeth good to thee [in
12 thy eyes]. Then [And] were the king's scribes called on the thirteenth day of the
first month [in the first month in the thirteenth day in it], and there was written ac-
cording to all that Haman had commanded, unto the kiDg's lieutenants [satraps],
and to the governors [pashas] that were over every [each] province, and to the
rulers [princes] of every [each] people of every [each] province,' according to the
writing thereof, and to every [each] people after their [its] language ; in the name
of [the] king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king's ring [signet].
13 And the letters [books] were sent by posts [the hand of the runners] into all the
king's provinces, to destroy, to kill [smite], and to cause to perish all Jews, both
young and old [from lad even to old man], little children8 and women, in one day,
even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to
14 take the spoil of them for a prey. The copy of the writing, for a commandment
[law] to be given in every province,9 was published unto all people [the peoples],
15 that they should be [to be] ready against [for] that day. The posts [runners] went
out, being hastened by the king's commandment [word] ; and the decree [law] was
given in Shushan the palace [citadel]. And the king and Haman sat down to
drink ; but the city Shushan was perplexed.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 [Ver. 2. The different degrees of deference are well expressed by these two terms, of which the first, JH.3,
denotes a simple inclination of the body as to an equal in courtesy, and the latter, HPty, a complete prostration in
T T
Oriental style of homage to a superior. — Te.]
3 [Ver. 3. The pronoun is emphatic, being expressed. — Tb.]
s [Ver. 6. DDn, a more intense feeling than the ordinary fix.— Te.]
4 [Ver. 7. 7^371 is impersonal, one caused to fall. — Te.]
6 [Ver. 8. \yifr the J is epenthetic for euphony between the yerbal noun $' and its suffix V— Tb.]
• [Ver. 8. The' original is emphatic, "And there is none of them doing."— Te.]
7 [Ver. 12. The true construction is " In province by [lit. and] province was it written" etc. — Tr.]
8 [Ver. 13. t]D, a collective term for girls and boys.—Tn.]
8 [Ver. 14. The original is emphatic, " In every province, and province, i. <j., severally.— Te.]
Ver. 1. After these things did king
Ahasuerus— in ver. 7 we are in the twelfth
year of the reign of Ahasuerus, five years after
chap. ii. 16, but here somewhat sooner — pro-
mote Haman the son of Hammedatha. —
b^i, usually used in bringing up children, here
means to make him a great man — and set his
seat above all the princes that (were)
■with him, i. e. above all those princes who
were in his immediate presence, above his chief
officers. He made him, so to speak, his Grand
EXEGETICAL AITD CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-7. The author in very brief terms
places the elevation of Haman, the Agagite, by
the side of the exaltation of Esther, as shown in
the previous chapter. Hence it is the more
surprising that he adds what we would least
expect upon the elevation of Esther, namely,
that Haman, provoked by the apparent, irreve-
rence shown to him by Mordeeai, resolves to
destroy the Jews.
50
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Vizier. Haman from humajun=magnus, auguslus,
or according to Sanscrit soman, meaning a wor-
shipper of Somar, was a son of Hammedatha,
whose name is formed from haomo, soma, and
signifies one given by the moon (Benfey, Monats-
namen, p. 199). Nowhere else do we find it
Hammedatha, but rather Madathas (in Xeno-
phon) or Uada-thes (in Curt. v. 3, 6). This form
according to Pott (Zeitschr. der D. M. G., 1859,
p. 424) has the same signification; and proba-
bly the il is placed at the beginning on the
ground that it may readily have fallen away,
and thus is regarded as the article and so
pointed. It is quite possible that the author
knew the meaning of these names, and found
them significant in what follows. Haman would
accordingly be noted as a representative of hea-
thendom.* The epithet \JJXn leads us to this
IT-T
conclusion. One thing is certain, that this de-
signation with Jewish interpreters, as Josephus
and the Targums, had in it a reminder of the
Amalekitish king Agag in Saul's time (1 Sam.
xv. 8, 3b). But we have evidence more nearly
at hand, since Esther and Mordecai in chap. ii.
6 are traced back to a family that had to do
with the Agag just mentioned. Haman may not
have been an actual descendant of the Amaleki-
tish king, nor yet have been known as such
But possibly our author desired to designate
him as a spiritual offshoot of that race.j- Agag
was a king, and hence also a representative of
that people which had kept aloof from Israel
from motives of bitt»rest enmity, and at decisive
times had placed itself in the way in a very
hateful manner (comp. Ex. xvii. 8 sqq. and my
Comment, on Dcut. xxv. 17), and against whom
the Lord also declared an eternal war (Ex. xviii.
15; Num. xxiv. 20). As an Amalekite, he
formed, as is fully shown in the Targums, a
link for Haman wiih the equally rejected and
hateful rival people, the Edomites. Again, the
author would seem to indicate that the flame of
conflict, which soon broke out between Haman
and Mordecai, inasmuch as it was originally
war between heathendom and Judaism, had
burned from ancient ages ; and when Mordecai
so vigorously withstood his opponent, causing
his fall and destruction, he thereby only paid
off a debt which had remained due from the
time of Saul upon the family of Kish, since Saul
had neglected to manifest the proper zeal by
destroying the banished king (Agag). In the
second Targum (on chap. iv. 13) Mordecai gives
expression of this view to Esther, namely, that
* [" The name Haman is probably the same which is
found in the classical writers under the form of Oma-
nes, and which in ancient Persian would have been
XJmana or Umanish, an exact equivalent of the Greek
Eumenes. Hammedatha is perhaps the same as Madata
or Mahadata ('Madates' of Q. Curtius), an old Persian
name signifying "given by (or to) the moon." Eawlin-
son.— Te.]
t I" It is certainly difficult to assign any other mean-
ing to the word; but on the other hand it seems un-
likely that Agag's children, if he had any, would have
been spared at the time of the great destruction of
Amalek, without some distinct notice being taken of it.
Haman, moreover, by his own name, and the names of
his sons (ch. ix. 7-fi), and of his father, would seem to
have been a genuine Persian." Bawlinson. — We may
therefore conclude that the epithet " Agagite " is here
used symbolically of a heathen enemy of the Jews.
— Ta.]
if Saul had obeyed and destroyed Agag, Haman
would not have arisen and opposed the Jews.
The author doubtless placed Haman in relation
to Agag in particular, and not to the Amalekites
in general, since he was a leader and prince,
and not a common man of the people. The
Arabs and even later Jews applied such gene-
alogical distinctions to Greeks and Romans
(comp. e. g. Abulfeda, Historia Anteislamica).
In the Old Testament the word Efa.3 in Ps. vii. 1
offers only a doubtful analogy ; but on the other
hand in Judg. xviii. 30 the change of Mosheh
into Menashsheh is a parallel case wherein the
faithless Levite Jonathan comes into a spiritual
connection with the godless king Manasseh.
Ver. 2. All the servants of the king, who had
their posts in the gate of the king, i. e., all royal
court-officers, were obliged to bow the knee be-
fore Haman and to prostrate themselves; for
the king bad so commanded concerning
him (7, as with "IDN and similar verbs, comp.
e. g. Gen. xx. 13). It was a custom among the
Persians to bow before the king, fall prostrate,
and kiss the ground (Herodot. iii. 86; vii. 136;
viii. 118; Xenophon, Cyrop. v. 3, 18; viii. 3,
14), so also before the high officials and other
distinguished men (Herodot. iii. 134). Morde-
cai, however, refused to do reverence to Haman.
He did this not from stubbornness or personal
enmity. It is clear from ver. 4 that it was
because of his character as a Jew alone ; other-
wise that fact would not have been mentioned
in this connection. Again the Jews could not
have thought such ceremony under all circum-
stances unfitting or non-permissible, as did the
Athenians, perhaps, who regarded its obser-
vance (before Darius) by Timagoras, as a crime
worthy of death ; or as did the Spartans (Herod,
viii. 136), and later still the Macedonians, who
would not fall down before Alexander the Great
according to Persian custom. This mode of
obeisance was established and sanctified for the
Jews by the manifold examples of the fathers
(comp. e.g. Gen. xxiii. 12; xlii. 6; xlviii. 12;
2 Sam. xiv. 4; xviii. 28; 1 Kings i. 16). Even
the Alexandrine translators and the authors of
the Targums, as also the majority of modern
interpreters, agree that bowing the knee and
prostration upon the face has here a religious
significance. Persians regarded their king as
a Divinity, and paid him divine honors, as is
abundantly attested by classical authors. In
iEschylus, Pers., 644 sqq., it is said: "Darius
was called their Divine Counsellor, he was full
of divine wisdom, so well did he, Persia's Shu-
shan-born god, lead the army." Curtius says
(viii. 5, 11): "The Persians not only out of
devotion, but also from motives of policy, reve-
renced their kings as gods, for majesty is the
safeguard of the empire." Comp. also Plutarch
Themist. 27. In Haman as the chief officer it
was doubtless intended to manifest a reflection
of the divine dignity of the king, whioh should
have reverence paid to it. Mordeoai, it is held,
thought that bowing the knee before Haman
would be idolatry, and contrary to the com-
mandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness." But this
law in itself would hardly have restrained him
CHAP. III. 1-15.
51
therefrom. Against this speaks, not only ver.
4, which does not make a reference to the word
of his God, nor yet to his monotheism, but only
to his general character as a Jew; this, how-
ever, might be explained from the very slight
indication in the stylo of our author. But the
greatest difficulty in the way of this view is the
circumstance that from such n conviction in
regard to the act of bowing the knee, he must
also refuse its performance even before Ahasue-
rus. In that case a later more intimate relation
could not have subsisted between them. More-
over the facts seem against this view, since such
Jews as Ezra, and especially Nehemiah, pious
and loyal to the Law, found no difficulty at all
observing the usual customs in their relations
with the Persian kings of their time. It must
certainly have been in his mind that to him
Hainan was an Agagite and Amalekite, i. e. a
man placed under the curse and bann of God.
He regarded bowing the knee before him as
idolatry, if at all such, for the reason that a dis-
tinction only belonging to the representative of
God would here be shown to one cast out and
banished by God. Brenz says correctly : " The
apocryphal statement (in the Sept. version) that
Mordecai is said to affirm, that he would adore
none but God, although a pious remark, is
nevertheless not appropriate to this place. . . .
Mordeoai had in view certain passages (Exod.
xvii. 15 and 1 Sam. xv.), from which he under-
stood that the whole race of Amalek and all the
posterity of Agag the king of the Amalekites, to
which Hainan belonged, were accursed and con-
demned by God. Therefore Mordecai, stirred
by the Holy Spirit, confesses 'with magnanimous
candor that he is a Jew, and is unwilling to
bless by his veneration one whom God had
cursed." In this view of the case Feuardent
and Rambach substantially concur. If, on the
contrary, we hold that Haman was not really
an Agagite, and that the Jews regarded him as
such only because of his disposition, then, of
course, we must suppose that it was Mordecai's
arbitrary will which regarded Haman as one
rejected by God. Haman' s inimical disposition
against the Jews would not in itself have given
a valid ground to the enmity of Mordecai. On
the contrary it would still have been his duty
to honor him because of his office. But this
objection rests upon a stand-point such as we
cannot assign either to Mordecai nor yet to the
author of our book. It would have been differ-
ent had it only had reference to a common per-
sonal enmity of Haman against Mordecai. But
as the enemy of the Jews, who hates and perse-
cutes them in toto because of their laws and reli-
gion, every one thought it proper to count him
among those transgressors for whose extermina-
tion nearly all the Psalmists had prayed, over
whom they had already seen the curse of God
suspended, before whom one was not to manifest
reverence, but rather abhorrence. It is well to
bear in mind that Haman is not an enemy of
the Jews, such as were so many heathen kings
and rulers before him, but that in him the hate
specially against the Jewish law was perfected,
whereas other heathen magnates had usually
manifested great indifference towards it. Mor-
decai had certainly abundant opportunity to
become informed as to the kind of enmity thus
exhibited. The author has not given this point
great prominence because in his usual manner
he thought he had done enough if he desig-
nated him as the Agagite. If this assump-
tion be correct, then the import of our
book is somewhat more general than is
usually held; it does not in that case sig-
nify that the people of God can as such
refuse to pay homage to men in certain definite
ways and modes, but rather that to certain per-
sons, as those who are rejected of God, all hon-
orable distinctions may be denied. But it at all
events amounts to this, that God's people may
not lessen the reverence due to Him by doing
reverence to others ; for homage shown to those
rejected of God would be against the honor of
God, would be idolatry. In so far as Haman is
an enemy of the Jews, who will not allow the
observance of their law and religion, the final
question would after all be whether the people
of God, together with its law and religion, can
be suppressed by heathendom, or whether it will
have the victory. Comp. also Seiler on this
chapter.
Vers. 3 and 4. The other officers daily ques-
tioned Mordecai because of his refusal, and finally
reported him to Haman to see 1171161:1161 Mor-
decai's matters would stand (would with-
stand, succeed) : for he had told them that he
was a Jew. — By " his words," we can only un-
derstand an assertion that, as a Jew, he was pre-
vented from participating in the ceremony of
doing homage to Haman.
Vers. 5 and 6. Haman, when he had convinced
himself of the conduct of Mordecai, regarded it
lightly, and did not deem it sufficient to punish
him alone ; for the people to whom Mordecai be-
longed, had been told him, hence Haman knew
that he belonged to the despised people of the
Jews. But he rather strove to destroy all the
Jews in the whole realm of Ahasuerus as being
of the same mind with Mordecai.*
Ver. 7. Haman reasoned that for such a diffi-
cult and great undertaking he must select an
especially appropriate day, and for this purpose
he caused lots to be cast day after day through-
out the whole year, and stopped at every day to
see whether it was the one most proper for the
undertaking. It was in the first month, that
is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year
of king Ahasuerus, when this was done. Since
he found a suitable day only in the twelfth month,
namely, the thirteenth day of the month, accord-
ing to ver. 13, it is clear that he manifested much
persistency and endurance. Possibly, what in
itself is not of great moment, namely, the time
in which he examined every single day, is here
given, in order to give due prominence to the
greatness of his zeal. Possibly another reason
may have obtained in this designation of time.
* [" In the West snch an idea as this would never have
occurred to a revengeful man ; but in the East it is dif-
ferent. The massacres of a people, a race, a class, have
at all times been among the incidents of history, and
would naturally present themselves to the mind of a
statesman. The Magophonia, or a great massacre of the
Magi at the accession of Darius Hystaspis, was an event
not fifty years old in the twelfth year of Xerxes, and
was commemorated annually. A massacre of the Scy-
thians had occurred about a century previously." Eaw
iissos.— Te.]
52
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
If the day of extermination waB determined on
already in the month of Nisan, and proclaimed
on the thirteenth of that month (comp. ver. 12)
then it is clear that the Jews were for a whole
year harassed in their mind regarding their fate
in view of the edict which was now no longer a
secret to them. Especially, if those living in
and around Shushan had already heard on the
14th or 15th Nisan what was determined relative
to them, then the most sacred joy which came to
them in the Paschal festival was turned into ut-
ter sorrow. That it was the Paschal month in
which their destruction was determined on, is by
our author not so clearly expressed, since he
seems to omit what might be understood as self-
evident, but deserves consideration here. It
seemed as if the old Paschal celebration, which
indicated the ancient redemption out of the sla-
very from the world, was now to be abolished ;
as if Israel was now again to be handed over into
the despotism and cruelty of foreign rulers. In-
stead of partaking of a feast it was enjoined on
Mordecai, Esther and her friends to fast, as is
shown in the old Targums (comp. chap. iv. 1,
16). But the more the ancient deliverance from
Egypt seemed to be divested of its import, the
more the new deliverance from Persia must have
risen in significance ; the more doubtful the joy
of the Paschal-feast became, the more was the
rejoicing of the feast of Purim enhanced. The
feast of Purim as the second celebration of deli-
verance was hence co-ordinate with the Paschal
festival as being the first deliverance, but in such
a manner that the former became a vital support
to the latter.
We do not regard Haman as the subject (Ber-
theau) to be supplied with "113 rBH, as is gen-
erally assumed according to ver. 6, but an inde-
finite " he," some one, i. e., " they." The author
seems to presume that casting of lots in such
cases as the one in hand was not infrequent, and
that some one had the office of casting the lots,
so that the subject of T3H may be implied as
impersonal. If Haman himself had been the
subject, then the words ton 'jaS following N1H
7"Vljn would be remarkable, instead of which one
T
would expect to find it V337. Bertheau connects
TT V
this sentence with the explanatory phrase Kin
7"Yun, as if the use of the foreign word 113 by
the Jews did not mean every lot, but only that
cast before Haman. But then the author would
have expressed it more easily and shorter: This
is the lot. of Haman and not the lot before Ha-
man. That *113 in the Old-Persian signified lot
may not be doubted. Even in Modern-Persian
it is behr and behre, "appointment," fate, porlio,
pars; so that a ground meaning, suoh as "lot,"
is not improbable (comp. Zenker, Turkisch-arab.-
pers. Handworterbuch, p. 229). It lies still more
natural to compare it with, para or pare —
" piece," morceau, piice, originally perhaps also
porlio (ib. p. 162).* The casting of lots in an-
* [" Pur is supposed to be an Old-Persian word etvmo-
logically connocted with the Latin pars, and signifying
"part" or "lot." In modern Persian pareh has that
meaning. The recovered fragments of the old language
cient times was very common (comp. Van Dale,
Orac. ethn. c. 14; Potter's Archseol. I. 730) and
is especially mentioned of the Persians (comp.
Herod. III. 128). The opinion, so closely con-
nected with Astrology, that one day was favor-
able and another unfavorable for a certain un-
dertaking, is met with also among other ancient
peoples, and very extensively among the Per-
sians. Indeed it obtains in those regions even
to-day (comp. Rosenmiiller, Morgenland, III., p.
302).*
The words : from day to clay, and from
month to month, are not to be understood as
if the casting of lots had been continued from
one day to another, etc., and thus repeated over
and over, but, as is clear from ver. 13, the mean-
ing is that, in the first month every day of the
year one after the other was brought into ques-
tion.! I' 's noticeable that, in addition to the
words : ''from month to month," the number of
the chosen month is added, the twelfth. One
would expect such a sentence as this to follow:
"And the month was chosen, and then the num-
ber." At least after the phrase, "from month
to month," it would have been added " up to the
twelfth month." Hence Bertheau concludes that
the Sept. has given the words here: "And the
lot fell upon the fourteenth day of the month,
which is Adar," because they found them in the
text, and that the eye of the copyist slipped all
between the first EH!"!/ to the second, after which
latter follow the designation of the day and its
number. But since the Sept. also adds : " In
order to destroy the people of Mordecai in one
day," it is plain that it supplemented our verse
with the thirteenth verse ; and since it was not
the fourteenth day, but the thirteenth (according
to ver. 13; chap. ix. 18, 19) that was designated,
it is clear that the Sept. assumed to make changes
arbitrarily. Probably the author in his custo-
mary short style spoke just as we read it. The
use of the cardinal number instead of the ordinal
made such a contraction possible ; and the state-
ment as to which day had been decided by the
lot, might readily be wanting here.
Vers. 8-11. In order to gain the king also over
to his own murderous plan, and to obtain of him
a legal edict, Haman said to the king : There
is a certain people scattered abroad and
dispersed among the people in all the pro-
vinces of thy kingdom. J — 'US?' has the Nun
inserted before the suffix as in 1 Sam. xiv. 39;
xxiii. 23; Deut. xxix. 14 (Ewald's Lehrb., p. 262
e). inx is a numeral. He means : " Only one
of the many peoples has dared to disobey the
have not, however, yielded any similar root." Rawxin-
son — Tr.]
* [" The practice of casting lots to obtain a lucky day
continues still in the East, and is probably extremely
ancient. Assyrian calendars note lucky and unlucky
days as early as the eighth century B. C. Lots were in
use both among the Oriental and the classical nations
from a remote antiquity." Eawlinson.— Tr.J
t [" A lot seems to have been cast, or a throw of some
kind made, for each day of the month and each month
of the year. The day and month which obtained the
best throws were then selected." Rawlinson.— Te.]
I L" Although a part of the Jewish nation had returned
to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel, the greater portion was
still despised among the provinces, in Babylonia, Meso-
potamia, and elsewhere (see Ezra vii. 6 ; viii. 17 ; Neh.
1. 1, 2, etc.)." Rawxinson.— Te.J
CHAP. III. 1-15.
63
laws of the ting." This one, however, is so ge-
nerally scattered and dispersed among the others
that the evil example is of no small moment. It
seems as if Haman here gave expression to a pre-
sentiment, whose fulfilment is deolared by Seneca
when he (De superstit. 3, p. 427) Bays : " Such
power have the customs of this detestable people
already gained that they are introduced into all
lands ; they the conquered have given laws to
their conquerors." Their laws (are) diverse
from all (other) people, especially from the
laws of this realm (oomp. in ver. 1, " above all
the princes").* Therefore it (is) not for the
king's profit to suffer them. — nils', as in ch.
iii. 8 ; v. 13, while in chap. vii. 4 it has a some-
what different sense. DITirn, to leave them in
t • - :
peace.
Ver. 9. If it please the king let It be writ-
ten = let it be commanded by a public announce-
ment, which is as irrevocable as a formal edict
of the empire (comp. chap. i. 19), that they
may be destroyed. And I will pay ten
thousand talents of silver to the hands of
those that have the charge of the busi-
ness.— Such a great sum (according to the Mo-
saio Shekel twenty-five million, and according to
the common shekel, twelve and a half million
(holers; vide ZSckler on 1 Chron. xxii. 14) does
he hope to bring in by the confiscation of the
property of the J ews.f " Those that have charge
of the business," in 2 Kings xii. 11, designated
builders (masons, etc.) ; but here and in chap.
ix. 3 are meant the officers of the treasury [" the
collectors of the revenue." Rawlinson].
Ver. 10. The proposal of Haman seems to have
pleased the king so much that he gave him his
seal ring, and thus empowered him not only to
cause the before-mentioned public proclamation
to be made, but also to issue other suitable de-
crees, and by imprinting the royal signet to give
them the authority of irrevocable commands
(comp. chap. viii. 8, 9). In private relations the
present of a ring was the token of the most inti-
mate friendship. Princes, however, thereby de-
signated the one who held it as their empowered
representative, (comp. chap. viii. 2; Gen. xli.
42; 1 Mace. vi. 15; Curt., X. 6,4; Aristoph.,
Ea. 947; Schulz, Lntungen, etc., iv. 218 sq.;
Tournefort, R., II. 383). J Sometimes successors
to the crown were also thus appointed (comp.
Josephus, Ant. XX. 2, 3). The significant de-
signation of Haman as " the son of Hammedatha
* [" Compare the charges made against the Jews by Re-
hum and Shimshai (Ezra. iv. 13-16)." Rawlinson. Th.]
t ["According to Herodotus (III. 95), the regular re-
venue of the Persian king consisted of 14,560 silver ta-
lents, so that if the same talent is intended, Haman's
offer would have exceeded two-thirds of a year's reve-
nue (or two and a half millions sterling). With respect
to the ability of Persian subjects to make presents to
this amount, it is enough to quote the offer of Pythius
(Herod, vii. 28) to present this same monarch with four
millions of gold darics, or about four and a half millions
of our money, and the further statement of the same
writer (Herod, i. 192), that a certain satrap of Babylon
had a revenue of nearly two bushels of silver daily.
Rawlinson. — Tr.1
t [" The signets of Persian monarehs were sometimes
rings, sometimes cylinders, the latter probably sus-
pended by a string round the wrist. The expression
here used might apply to either kind of signet. ' Raw-
linson.— Tr.J
the Agagite, the Jews' enemy," points out how
eventful this bestowal of authority upon Haman
became to the Jews.
Ver. 11. The prospect of the great treasure
thus to be acquired must have had considerable
weight with Ahasuerus, who needed much money.
Still it must not assume the appearance as if co-
vetousness had anything to do with it. Hence
he left the money to be gained to Haman, for
thus he would also be the moro Bure of him in
possible and coming events. The silver (is)
(let it be) given to thee, the people also, to
do with them as it aeemeth good to thee.
— The participle Mnj is a short mode of expres-
sion appropriate to the king. Thesenseis: "It
is," or: "Let it be given." So also ^1^7,
" let it be,'' or : " It must be done."*
Vers. 12-15. Haman at once caused the neces-
sary proclamations to be prepared, and had them
sent into all tbe provinces of the kingdom. Ver.
12. [Then were the king's scribes called.
— " The ' scribes ' of Xerxes are mentioned more
than once by Herodotus (vii. 100; viii. 90). They
appear to have been in constant attendance on
the monarch, ready to indite his edicts, or to
note down any occurrences which he desired to
have recorded." — Rawlinson]. In the very same
month in which he had the lot cast, and on the
thirteenth day of the same (13, in it, the said
month). Perhaps it appeared that the thirteenth
day of the first month was favorably indicated to-
gether with the thirteenth of the twelfth month. f
And there was written according to all
that Haman had commanded unto the
king's lieutenants, and to the governors
that (were) over every province, and to
the rulers of every people of every pro-
vince.— B'ja'nttfnX and Hin3 are here, as in
Ezra viii. 36, placed together, the satraps of the
larger provinces and the rulers among the se-
parate peoples of the provinces. The D'-W are
the native so-called born princes of the different
peoples. Before the following Hr"ia, and like-
wise before Dj; further on, it should really be
repeated: to the satraps, etc. Thesenseis: "For
the governors of each province according to their
mode of writing (style), and to those of every
people according to its language." In the addi-
tion : " In the name of king Ahasuerus was it
written, and sealed with the king's ring," the
perfect tense only is fitting, and not the parti-
ciple. And though 3fUJ may have a Kamels, to
give it greater distinctiveness, si ill this is not
true of DJlfU, though so given in several editions.
* ["Some understand this to mean that Xerxes re-
fused the silver which Haman had ottered to him but
the passage is better explained as »|»»'t»taol all
the property of such Jews as should be executed, in
the East confiscation follows necessarily upon public
execution the goods of criminals escheating to the
erown which do*ea with them as it ch pose ■ (corner.
13 ad fin., and chap. viii. 1, and 11 ad fin.). Rawlinson.-
Tt'][" Haman had apparently (comp. ver 7 with ver. IS)
obtained by his use of the lot the 13th day of Adar as
the lucky day for destroying the Jews. This may have
caused him to fix on the 13th of another month for the
commencement of his enterprise.' Riwlinson.— 1R.J
54
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Ver. 13. And the letters were sent by-
posts, etc. — Tynpi, infill, abs. Niph., instead of
the finite verb in vivid description (comp. chap,
vi. 9; ix. 6, 12). Letters, without the article,
for the thought is: "Letters whose contents are
that should be destroyed." By the run-
ners, by whom they were sent, are meant the
posts, the angari or pressmen, who were posted
on the main roads of the empire at definite dis-
tances from each other, from four to seven para-
sangs, and who rapidly expedited the royal
(mail) letters or commands (comp. Herodot. V.
14; VIII. 98; Brisson, De. reg. Pers. princ. I. u.
238 sq.). To destroy, to kill, and to cause
to perish, all Jews, etc. — The crowding of verbs
impresses the murderous import. And to take
the spoil of them — i.e., to thus obtain their
property as spoils. Haman, of course, did not
desire to come short in that which fell to him ;
but by giving the people the privilege of plun-
dering, he desired to awaken their zeal the more.
Thus they would either give him a share of the
spoils, or else he hoped to obtain the sum before
mentioned by the help of his servants or his co-
adjutors.*
Ver. 14. The copy (contents) of the
writing, etc. — The statements respecting the
contents in ver. 13 are too indefinite. It was not
yet ordered that the officers only should fall upon
the Jews, but that the people themselves should
do this. This is expressly made to appear here.
With reference to JJEfriS, see Ezra iv. 11. The
substance does not there follow verbatim, but is
indicated by the infinitive. For a command-
ment to be given in every province. — But
the decree itself reads: Let it be published
unto all people that they should be ready
against that day. — What was to be published
is also indicated, but briefly. Thus in the style
of expression the details are noted as is common
in edicts, with abbreviation of points referred to.
Since JV1 is feminine, as is seen, for example, in
vers. 8, 15, we cannot render : " That they should
publicly proclaim the edict — make it manifest to
all." Still less are we to understand it, as does
Keil: "A copy of the writing of the substance
that a law be given, and be declared to all peo-
ples.'' Instead of M/J this verb would then have
to be in the perfect tense, and Villi does not
mean, as Keil interprets, open or unsealed in its
transmission; neither does it mean opened, re-
vealed, made known. '1 7j is rather in the opta-
tive, the same as is JlfU in ver. 11 (so also Ber-
theau).
* [" By the issue of the decree at this time (' the first
month') the Jews throughout the empire had from nine
to eleven months' warning of the peril which threat-
ened them. So long a notice is thought to be 'incre-
dible' (Davidson), and the question is asked, ' Why did
they not then quit the kingdom?' In reply we may
pay — (1) that many of them may have quitted the king-
dom; and (2) that those who remained may have be-
lieved, with Mordecai (chap. iv. 14), that enlargement
and deliverance would arise from some quarter or
other. As to its being improbable that Haman should
give such long notice, we may remark that Haman only
wished to be quit of Mordecai, and that the flight of the
Jews would have served his purpose quite as well as
their massacre." Rawlinson.— Tr.J
Ver. 15. The posts went out, being has-
tened, etc. — Him, went speedily , in haste ; in 2
Chron. xxvi. 20 is the Niph. *\TX~\1. The addi-
tional clause: and the decree was given in
Shushan the palace means to assert from
whence they went out. But the remark: And
the king and Haman sat down to drink ;
but the city of Shushan was perplexed
reveals the terrible contrast between the gluttony
of these men and the distress into which they
plunged the land. It also indicates by what
means Haman sought to draw the king away
from the business of government. HDOJ prima-
rily does not mean that it was distressed by ter-
ror or sorrow, but that it was perplexed, did not
know what to think of such a terrible command
(comp. Joel i. 18); in an external sense "^21
means to have erred (Ex. xiv. 3).*
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
On vers. 1-7. 1. Mordecai's meritorious act,
though recorded, had not yet been rewarded.
One would naturally think that at. this period he
would obtain the deserved honor. But instead
it is expected of him on his part to do honor to
a man such as Haman, who was the sworn enemy
of his people and a bitter opponent of the Jewish
law; who finally, as an Agagite, was under the
curse of God. Esther, who no doubt was true to
Judaism, although she had not yet openly pro-
fessed it, was seated on the throne as the chosen
queen. And now one would be led to expect —
certainly the Jews hoped — that Bhe would bring
the people relief from oppression, and restore for
them liberty which would secure them from in-
juries such as they had hitherto experienced, or
at least had been threatened with. Instead of
this, Haman, empowered with full authority, re-
solves to wholly exterminate the people; indeed
he is in haste, although this exterminating pro-
cess was to begin only after eleven months, to
make the people acquainted with their fate long
before the event comes to pass. Now it happens
that Haman thereby utterly ruins their holiest
joy, and the season of Paschal rejoicing is con-
verted into a time of distress and grief. It seems
by such notice as if the people could no more
place any reliance in their God as their Saviour;
as if their Lord, who had at one time chosen them
as His peculiar people, and who, if He would,
could even now deliver them from the distress
of exile, was no more to be the source of their
joy. But, however unexpectedly these turns in
their affairs may seem to some, and however the
question might be raised, which is so often
mooted, why it must thus transpire, seemingly
against all hope; still that which came to pass
was not so very surprising, but quite natural.
One would very naturally expect of a prince
* ["The remark that 'Shushan was perplexed' has
been attributed to ' Jewish conceit,' but without reason.
Susa was now the capital of Persia, and the main resi-
dence of the Persians of high rank. These, being at-
tached to the religion of Zoroaster, would naturally
sympathize with the Jews, and be disturbed at their
threatened destruction. Nay, even apart from this bond
of union, the decree was sufficiently strange aud omi-
nous to 'perplex' thoughtful citizens." Rawlinson.
CHAP. HI. 1-15.
55
who, like Ahasuerus, did not live to perform his
duties, but to indulge in sensual gratification, —
who sought, not the welfare of his subjects, but
their wealth, would leave the power and govern-
ment in the hands of men who knew how to flat-
ter his weaknesses and to gratify his desires.
But above all, we cannot but notice the sharp
contrast between the heathen state, as such, and
the people of God. It looks very much like a
merely casual human command, when Ahasuerus
decreed that every one should bow the knee to
such a man as Haman, and as if this single in-
stance called forth a, conflict. But in reality
there is expressed the unconditional subordina-
tion which the state, especially the heathen one,
must insist upon in reference to its laws and re-
gulations. So long as the latter have proceeded
not from the Spirit of God, but from the unrege-
nerate heathen heart, so long will they contain
demands to which the people of God cannot sub-
ject themselves. So long as the State is not en-
tirely irreligious, it will be even inclined to ope-
rate within the religious domain, and thus the
conflict takes its rise immediately between it and
the people of God. We may also expect that the
state will avail itself of such instruments to carry
out its orders as of themselves are little disposed
to be friendly to God's people ; instruments who,
because of that people's peculiarities, look upon
them as a disturbing element, and are little dis-
posed to exercise forbearance and toleration to-
wards them. The people of God, on the other
hand, have their obligation to obey all authori-
ties under whose dominion they may be placed,
even to the extent that they must endure con-
demnation to death, and suffer execution (Rom.
xiii. 1 sqq.). But they are equally obligated to
give honor to God and not to man. They can
only give honor to man in so far as God has so
ordered it. They must refuse honor to those who
are opposed to God, at the risk of provoking the
most powerful and dangerous men of authority
in the government. There is in short a great
contrast between those who know nothing higher
than the law of the state and state religion and
those who look above and beyond these to the
true and living God, and who supremely reve-
rence His law. Thi3 contrast in later times gave
rise to the wars of the Maccabees, and still later,
though differently in form, to the war against the
Romans; and it was this, too, which more espe-
cially brought on the persecutions of the Chris-
tians. In short, it is the contrast which in the
history of mankind has asserted its power even
at the cost of conflict for life or death. It is so
irreconcilable and so powerful that it could not
and can not be removed by any compromise what-
ever, but only unconditional subjection on the
one part — namely, of the kingdom of the world —
and by victory on the other — namely, of the king-
dom of God. This contrast has always revived
arvew where the powers of the world have thrown
off from themselves the bands of the Lord and
His anointed.
Berlenburq Bible: "That believers obey not
tho laws of the king has always been the chief
complaint among the anti-Christian rabble, of
which Haman furnishes a copy. The children
of God, in their eyes, must ever be insurrection-
ists, disturbers of the peace, persons subject to
no law or order, and by whom the publio weal is
endangered." Thus we have expressed the view
in whioh Christ and His apostles were regarded
(Luke xxiii. 2, 5). But this is the greatest of all
falsehoods."
2. It is not only offended ambition that incites
Haman against Mordecai ; it is also hate against
Judaism. It offends him that it has privileges
and laws so different from those of the other peo-
ples in the empire (comp. ver. 8). Hence he is
not content to lay hands on Mordecai alone, but
he resolves also to exterminate all Jews. As his
offended ambition strengthens his hate against
Judaism, his hate receives fresh occasion from
the offence to his ambitious designs on the part
of Mordecai. The contrast between him and
Mordecai has therefore a more general and deeper
reason. Even Mordecai's religion is endangered
thereby. Haman demands the bowing of the
knee, because according to the Persian notion,
Deity is thereby honored in him. This is to him
a religious rite. This is especially clear from
the fact that he does not himself arbitrarily de-
termine the day in which he will carry out his
designs respecting the Jews, but he is rather de-
pendent on the voice of Deity, as it is revealed
to him by means of the casting of the lot. Ne-
vertheless he gives religion a subordinate po-
sition in his thoughts, tendencies, desires and
purposes, — so that the former really becomes
merely a means to the latter. It is just the op-
posite with Mordecai. Had it lain in his power
to determine, he would doubtless cheerfully have
obeyed the king's order to bow the knee before
Haman. He no doubt comprehended the great-
ness of the" danger that threatened him in case
of refusal. He would perhaps the more easily
have given in, since no doubt a voice often whis-
pered in his ear that it might be very question-
able whether or not he should view Haman as an
Agagite, as one rejected of God. But the facts
were too plain, and God's Word required Mor-
decai to abominate instead of honoring Haman.
This he must perform not only when it was most
agreeable to his disposition, but also in the most
opposite case. Viewed in this light Haman and
Mordecai clearly indicate to us that the emphatic
difference between heathen and Jew is true piety.
The former serves when the worship of deity is
only worship of self; in the lower plane it is only
worship of nature and of the flesh; in the higher
grades it has its basis in worship of human ideals.
True piety, however, is a surrender to another
will, to the will of the Holy God. Hence the
former perfectly corresponds to the selfish man-
ner of men, as they live at present, because of
sin ; the other opposes this in sharp contrast.
Bat while the first is a flatterer, who, if any man
will give heed, will deceive, the latter is a trusty
friend who will lead upon a right way and
toward salvation.
Brenz: " Satan, as Christ says, is a liar and
a murderer. Hence he is ever busy in perse-
cuting the church with his lying and murderous
designs. You have heard before his lie : ' The
people are using new laws and ceremonies, and
they despise the edicts of the king.' Now hear
his murderous words : ' If it pleases thee, decree
that this people be destroyed.' " Feuardent:
"The sorrowful condition of the Jews becomes
56
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
very apparent and plain as here revealed ; like-
wise the just judgment of God is here fulfilled.
He says : ' They would not obey God in their
own land, where they enjoyed such great free-
dom, but now they groan under the severe ser-
vice that presses upon them, and they are brought
into the risk of life itself. They refused to as-
semble in the sanctuaries of Jerusalem under
tbeir own kings, they ran after the golden calves,
the sacred groves, and idols and superstitions
of the heathen. Now they are placed and scat-
tered under the most tyrannical form of govern-
ment. They neither can nor dare congregate to
offer a service of praise to God." Starke:
"A man resigned to the will of God will disre-
gard the laws of men, whenever these stand op-
posed to the will and laws of God, however much
he may suffer thereby (Acts v. 19; Dan. vi. 10
sq.). Although we should hold in honor those
whom the higher authorities command to be ho-
nored, still such homage must not conflict with
that due to God. When men disobey the laws
of man and violate them, it is very soon taken
notice of (Dan. vi. 11-13) ; but if they violate the
law of God, then no one seems to observe the fact.
We should not make man our idol, nor make flesh
our arm (Ter. xvii. 5). Immoderate ambition
generally breaks out into cruelty. The anger
of great men is fierce (Prov. xvi. 14); hence one
Bhould have a care not to arouse the same against
one's self."
On ver. 24. The people of God, in the conflict
with their enemies, may rely on the protection
of God, if they are morally in the right. Thus
also the enemies of such people will be their
own destroyers by virtue of their machinations.
Such is the tenor of this whole book. But u,
more difficult question arises here, whether Mor-
decai, in refusing to bow the knee to Haman,
and thereby bringing on the conflict, was really
in the right. This question is the more grave,
inasmuch as Haman could not properly be termed
either an Agagite or an Amalekite; and all
turned upon a form of homage proper and per-
missible in itself. The question would be more
simple if Haman, as opposed to Mordecai, had
been only a private individual. That in that case
the latter's conduct would have been right and
proper, cannot be doubted. As the Lord sanc-
tioned enmity against all that are like-minded
to Amalek in the command: "Remember what
Amalek did unto thee" (Deut. xxv. 17), David
justifies himself before God in hating those that
hate God, and is grieved at those who raise
themselves againBt Him; indeed he hates tbem
with perfect hatred (Ps. exxxix. 21, 22). When he
would recount the chief characteristics of a truly
pious person in the church, he makes this trait
prominent (Ps. xv. 4). This, according to Luther,
means that the just man is no respecter of per-
sons; nor does he care how holy, learned, or
powerful one be. If virtue be reflected from any
one, the just man will honor him, though he were
even a beggar. But if virtue be not found in
him, then he will be esteemed as bad, and as
nothing; the righteous man will tell him of it,
and censure him. He will tell him, "Thou dost
despise the Word of God, thou dost slander thy
neighbor; therefore I desire no connection with
thee." The Christian must in like manner per-
form this duty. He must do it for the sake of
mercy, if no other means will avail ; or for the
sake of truth, which pronounces evil to be evil,
and censures it. He must hold up to reproof
him who by a persistent immoral life brings dis-
grace upon the name of Jesus Christ, or even
by his conduct manifests enmity against the
same. This the Christian should do often, not
only as respects the particular person, but also
as respects his acts or disposition. In re-
gard to this, Harless says very justly: "It
were a gross error to think that the Chris-
tian should content himself with reproving
Bimply the offence and its tendency, but that
thereafter he could nevertheless maintain per-
sonal and external relations with such a per-
son. On the contrary, the blessings of the
Spirit of Christ given to His church, will mate-
rially depend upon the principle that in the se-
lection of personal companionship the consciousness
and true unity which should unite the church
must be maintained by external separation. The
Christian, in so far as it depends on his own selec-
tion and is consistent with his calling, should avoid
the society of those whose disposition he has
found to be reprobate. We cannot term it other
than a lack of Christian consistency when such
Christians call it Christian love to seek out so-
ciety from all the world in an indiscriminate
manner, and cultivate it, and that according to
one's own choice (comp. 1 Cor. xv. 33, etc.) "
( Christliche Ethik, j} 47, p. 456, 7th ed.). But all
this has reference primarily only to the relation
of the common intercourse of neighbors. Ha-
man was to Mordecai an official magisterial per-
son. Besides, it was expressly commanded by
the king that he should be thus honored by bow-
ing the knee before him. Hence the command:
" Honor thy father and mother," and also the
other that, " one should not revile the gods, nor
curse the ruler of thy people" (Ex. xxii. 27),
demanded respect. Neither was the precept
to be forgotten: "My son, fear thou the Lord
and the king" (Prov. xxiv. 21). In the New
Testament the two chief apostles exhort us to
submission under authority: Paul in Rom. xiii.
1 sqq. ; Peter in 1 Pet. ii. 13 sqq. Peter closes
the paragraph cited with the words: "Pear
God. Honor the king." If by the word honor
we are to understand merely the rendering of
obedience, as seems to be implied in verse 13,
then it would not be doubtful as to its proper
limits. The word of the apostle : " We ought to
obey God rather than man" (Acts v. 29) is very
conclusive and direct, and needs no further con-
firmation. The church-fathers of the first cen-
turies, in treating of this point, strongly assert
that we should honor the authorities in, and not as
opposed to God. Comp. J. Gerhard, in De magis-
tral politico, I 474. Then when the stability of
order within an organized community is attacked
and overthrown in defiance of right, — and such
was the situation in Persia when Haman in an
inimical manner attacked the Jews, who up to
this time had had the undisputed right to live
according to their law and faith; when he be-
came to them an Agagite and an Amalekite, — then
resistance, and individual participation therein,
is justified and commanded. This, of course,
holds within the limits of the existing order of a
CHAP. III. 1-15.
57
people and of the individual calling. Stahl (Die
Partheien in Staat u. Kirche, p 288), as also Har-
less (Ohristl. Ethik, \ 54), is very clear on this
point that, " the doctrine of the blamableness of
any active resistance, and the unconditioned
obligation of passive obedience is opposed to the
Christian's sacred maintenance of right. So also
is the assumption false that obedience must be
rendered to authority because it is authority,
even though it deny and disregard all right and
law in the enforcement of its own claims to au-
thority— an authority which it has not received
for its own sake, but because of the right whose
guardian and executor it is its calling to be"
(Harless, as above, p. 541). Hoffmann (Schriftbe-
weias, II., 2, p. 409) speaks from the same con-
viction: "It is certainly not morally permissi-
ble that one people rise against the righteous
order in the existing government of another peo-
ple, or of a foreign ruler. But it is a moral
duty that it should not submit to be despoiled by
a foreign power of that element, which, in God's
order, is essential to its existence and to its sub-
stantial peculiarity." Experience has ever proved
that resistance grounded upon a good conscience,
and supported by so high and noble an enthusi-
asm, is indeed countenanced by God in so de-
cided a manner, that no force, however great,
can accomplish anything against it. It is worthy
of notice that the command to honor the king
and secular authority demands more than obe-
dience, it embraces also regard and homage.
Hence arises the question, whether or not we
ought to meet certain persons with esteem and
homage, to whom we must refuse obedience, in-
deed against whom — in contrast with Mordeeai —
we are compelled to offer resistance. There are
doubtless many cases where these conditions ob-
tain. Such a case would especially occur where
the authorities think that right is on their side.
When they proceed from a different view or con-
viction with reference to the case, they are by
no means to be disregarded. The admonition in
1 Peter ii. 18 is in place here: "Servants, be
subject to your masters with all fear; not only to
the good and gentle, but also to the froward."
Now if the authorities, as says Harless, really
assume to disregard and deny right and law, in
its claim of jurisdiction, which it can only have
as the guardian and executor of justice, then
practically it ceases to be authority. If it sanc-
tion oppression and pillage; if it touch the ex-
isting right, religion, and conscience, then it
becomes a chief enemy of those who will not sub-
mit to the spoiling of these possessions — for so
did Haman, nor otherwise could he justly be
called an Agagite.
Hence homage can only be denied to the ma-
gisterial office where the bearer of the name is
regarded as unworthy of the position he occupies.
An external homage, in connection with which
one must manifest hostility, would then become
hypocrisy, and the more so since instead of giving
the honor due from a sincere heart, we can only
despise and execrate. To refuse it is only to act
honestly, though it often requires courage. This
is the more necessary since the opposition is
grounded upon and confined to what is permitted
according (o right and calling. As was the case
with Mordeeai, we should take an early oppor-
tunity to manifest our determination to refuse
homage to authority, since its false ways cannot
be too severely condemned.
On vers. 8-16. 1. So long as Israel possessed
a political independence the chief support of its
religion had been the State. The State had ju-
risdiction over its own laws and those of reli-
gion. Now, however, the State takes an opposite
stand to its religion. The complaint of Haman
was, that this people had different laws from
those of the other peoples of the kingdom, and
hence did not obey those of the king (which was
correct as regarded' the laws that were opposed
to its own). For this reason also, Ahasuerus
permitted the decree for the extermination of
Israel. The State, even at this period, could not
avoid demanding decided submission; and where
it encountered insuperable obstinacy it adopted
extreme measures, even banishment and exter-
mination. But it would have been belter had it
been tolerant to the last degree. All the means
of might were at its command, by which to carry
out its will. All the offices and organizations
which the State had established for the weal of
its subjects, as is indicated in vers. 12 and 15,
could have been employed in their subjection.
One might feel inclined to ask whether, in view
of all these things, there remained any hope for
Mordeeai ; whether his opposition did not, at the
very beginning, promise to be futile. Doubtless
his hope was in Him for whose honor he was
jealous; namely, in the living God. That Being
now desires to make manifest for all ages by a
striking example, that He can sustain His people,
not only without the aid of any civil power, but
also in opposition to a foreign State. Indeed He
can preserve it even amid the heathen, in spite
of all distracting elements. Hence the church
need not fear, be the relation of the State what
it may. The Lord knows how to make even the
most unfavorable circumstances serviceable and
useful to the church.
2. If now we inquire upon what, natural basis
Mordeeai could establish his hope, then we ob-
serve that truth was on his side. That which is
rejected of God, instead of being honored, is to
be abhorred. Hence for him who believed in
the true God, no doubt existed but that this truth
would eventually obtain a more general recogni-
tion. But in order to this, a still longer develop-
ment was needed. Heathendom must first be-
come conscious of itself, i. e., of its own weak-
ness and impotence, which were a part of its
existence in spite of all external power; then
only can it learn to know the true God. For the
present, it was the weakness and failing, which
attached to the leaders of heathenism, that offered
resting-places for the helping hand of God.
Whether these were already well known to Mor-
deeai is doubtful ; but to our eyes they are al-
ready manifest in this chapter. Haman would
not venture to come before Ahasuerus and ex-
hibit his wounded vanity and spirit of revenge ;
and Ahasuerus does not desire to reveal the fact
that he is anxious to possess the money of the
Jews. However, with the former vanity, and
with the latter an inordinate desire for money,
plays the chief part. They would have it appear
as if their actB were done under the impulse of
right and duty. They would kill off the people
68
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
of God with proper decency. They dissemble ;
but tbey thereby gain only a self-condemnation
of their own evil motives. An official who is
guilty of dissembling, is in danger of being un-
masked; and a prince who is so weak as to be
led by a motive of which he must needs be
ashamed, especially in such a grave and extraor-
dinary occurrence, easily exposes also other
weaknesses. Hence it would not be difficult for
others likewise to gain the ascendency over him,
who could easily dissuade him from a purpose,
even after the same had becjome an irrevocable
edict. The remark at the close of the chapter is
also very significant and characteristic. A prince
and an officer who at the time when the inhabi-
tants of their chief city are in the greatest con-
sternation, when abive all an entire people is
thrown into mortal fear of their life, can sit down
to eat and drink, mauifest either an inhumanity,
which would easily arouse a general revolt, or
an evil conscience which already foretells the
failure of their plans. If we ask respecting the
natural foundations upon which the expectation
of an eventual victory of Christianity is based,
in the face of all the assaults and dangers to
which it is exposed, then the power of truth, as
it breaks its way and compels universal recogni-
tion, would emphatically answer the question,
and be the main point of reliance. The expe-
rience of centuries teaches one fact definitely
and variously, that there is salvation in no other,
and that no other name is given to men whereby
they may be saved, than the name of Jesus Christ.
But the weaknesses of those who deem themselves
strong will ever be a matter of observation.
Christians should be better informed than they
often are, of the impotency and nothingness of
those in opposition to them. They have a clear
right to the question: What can men do to us?
Even their opponents must acknowledge, if they
are not too much blinded, that in those nations
among which the pure faith reigns supreme,
there is a different type of fidelity, conscientious-
ness, devotion, and readiness to make sacrifices
than among those who have been dried up by
the sun of false enlightenment. The course of
events will soon compel them to see their mistake.
Beenz : " This is plainly what Christ after-
wards said to His little church; that is, His dis-
ciples : ' Verily, verily I say unto you, ye shall
weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice:
and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall
be turned into joy.' For as in the passion of
Christ the chief priests triumphed, and the sol-
diers .mocked, but Christ hung on the cross and
was afflicted with exceeding misery, so the joy
of the wicked will be at its highest over the sor-
row of the godly. . . . But that is most true
which we read: 'The triumphing of the wicked
(is) short, and the joy of the hypocrite (but) for
a moment. Though his excellency mount up to
the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds;
(yet) he shall perish for ever like his own dung:
they which have seen him shall say, Where (is)
he?'" Feuardent: "Observe now how active
everything is in this matter, and how all con-
spires for the extermination of the people of
God. The terrible sentence is defined and de-
scribed in as many languages and modes as there
are peoples in the empire But while the
godly are in great distress, as they anticipate the
fatal day of the cruel execution, the king and Ha-
mau indulge in drunkenness and lust and joy.
So perisheth the righteous, and no man layeth
it to heart (Isa. lvii. 1). So the servants of God
are oppressed by the agents of the Devil. So
cruelty triumphs But it is well. There
is a God in the heavens." Starke: "When
wicked men cannot otherwise persecute the pious,
then his religion and laws must furnish them
with a cause and a covering for their evil inten-
tions (Acts xvi. 21, 22). In important matters
it is not good to render a hasty judgment, it is
better to reflect (Isa. xxviii. 7). God permits
the wicked to have success beyond their own
expectation at times, but afterward destruction
will come all the more unexpectedly. (Pa. xxxvii.
35, 36; Job x. 45.")
SECOND SECTION.
The Conflict of Opposites.
Chapters IV. V.
A.— MORDECAI, GREATLY SORROWING WITH HIS PEOPLE, URGES ESTHER TO
PLEAD FOR MERCY WITH THE KING.
Chapter IV. 1-17.
I. Communication between Mordecai and Esther. Vers. 1-5.
1 When [And] Mordecai perceived [knew] all that was done, [and, i. e. then]
Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with [and] ashes, and went out into
2 the midst of the city, and cried1 with a loud [great] and a bitter cry ; And came
even before the king's gate : for none might [tfiere ivas none to] enter [go] into the
CHAP. IV. 1-17.
69
3 king's gate clothed with [in clothing of] sackcloth. And in every province,2 whi-
thersoever [the place that] the king's commandment [word] and his decree [law]
came [was approaching], there ivas great mourning among [for] the Jews, and
fasting, and weeping, and wailing [smiting the breast] : and many lay in sack-cloth
4 and ashes [sack-cloth and ashes was strown for the many]. So [And] Esther's
maids and her chamberlains [eunuchs] came and told it her. Then [And] was
the queen exceedingly grieved ; and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and to
5 take away his sackcloth from [upon] him : but [and] he received it not. Then
[And] called Esther for [to] Hatach, one of the king's chamberlains [eunuchs],
whom he had appointed to attend upon [stationed before] her, and gave him a com-
mandment [enjoined him] to [upon, i. e. concerning] Mordecai, to know what it
was, and why it was.
11. Mordecai commissions Esther to present his petition; but she raises a point of difficulty. Vera. 6-11.
6 So [And] Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which was
7 before the king's gate : and Mordecai told him of all that had happened unto him,
and of the sum [designation] of the money [silver] that Haman had promised
[said] to pay to [upon] the king's treasuries for [in consideration of] the Jews, to
8 destroy [cause them to perish] : Also [And] he gave him the copy of the writing
of the decree [law] that was given at Shushan to destroy them, to show it unto
Esther, and to declare [tell] it unto her, and to charge [enjoin upon] her that she
should go [to go] in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make
9 request before him for [upon] her people. And Hatach came and told Esther the
10 words of Mordecai; Again [And] Esther spake [said] unto Hatach, and gave him
11 commandment [enjoined him] unto Mordecai ; All the king's servants, and the
people of the king's provinces, do know [are knowing], that whosoever, whether
man [every man] or [and] woman, shall [who shall] come unto the king into the
inner court, who is not [shall not be] called, there is one law of his to put him to
death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that [and]
he may live ; but Is have not been called to come in unto the king these [this]
thirty days.
III. Mordecai presents his request still more urgently, and Esther promises to execute it. Vers. 12-17.
12, 13 And they told to Mordecai Esther's words. Then [And] Mordecai commanded
[said] to answer Esther, Think not with thyself [in thy spirit] that thou shalt
14 escape in [to deliver] the king's house more than all the Jews. For [But] if thou
altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliver-
ance arise to the Jews from another place ; but [and] thou and thy father's house
shall be destroyed [utterly perish] ; and who knoweth whether thou art come [hast
15 approached] to the kingdom for such a time as this ? Then [And] Esther bade them
16 [said to] return Mordecai this answer; Go, gather together all the Jews that are present
found] in Shusan, and fast ye for [upon] me, and neither eat [eat not] nor drink
"and drink not] three days, night or [and] day : I also and my maidens will fast
'. ikewise ; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law ;
17 and if [whereas] I perish [have perished], I perish [have perished]. So [And]
Mordecai went his way [passed] and did according to all that Esther had com-
manded [enjoined upon] him.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 [Ver. 1. pJJJ, a later or Aramaean form for T>yS, seems to be intensive of Xlp, including the simple call
for help, yW, and the shriek from pain or danger, D3N, and denotes an earnest and vociferous demonstration.
— Tb.
2 I Ver. 3. See Note 7 in preceding section. — Te.]
8 [Ver. 11. The pronoun, being expressed in the original, is emphatic— Tb.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The author manifestly desires to show in this
chapter how very difficult it was for Mordecai to
make even the one effort to save his people from
destruction. But he was faithful and persistent ;
taking step after step until the object was attained.
He here entered a conflict which was forced upon
him, and which he was unable to avert. But
CO
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
thereby he ran the greatest danger both for him-
Belf and for Esther, whom he required to assist
him. Three separate endeavors are recorded by
oar author as made on the part of Mordecai in
order to involve Esther in this conflict. The first
was preparatory, being designed simply to es-
tablish a connection with her ; of the second the
only result was the objections raised by Esther;
and in the third she expressed her willingness
and her resignation to a possible fate.
Vers. 1-5. Here is described the first step. The
first thing Mordecai did was to take a leading
part in the general sorrow of the Jews. Thereby
he attracted the attention of Esther, and induced
her not only to send him other garments than
those of mourning, but also to send a confidential
messenger through whom he could communicate
with her. Ver. 1. When Mordecai perceived
all that was done. — As is told us in ver. 7.
Mordecai was even informed as to the sum of
money which Haman expected to obtain by de-
stroying the Jews. Possibly some of Haman's
intimate friends heard of it and spoke of it in
the king's gate where Mordecai could hear it.
Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on
sackcloth 'with ashes, i. e., a garment of hair
cloth, and with the same also put on ashes, by
strewing ashes over his person and clothing
(comp. Dan. ix, 3 : Job ii. 12).* And went
out into the midst of the city. — He did not
conceal the feet that he was in deep distress,
and cried with a loud and bitter cry; lit-
erally, occurs in Gen. xxvii. 34 with reference to
Esau.
Ver. 2. And came even before the king's
gate, i. e., up to the free place that was before
the entrance to the royal palace (comp. ver. 6), — •
further he could not come, no more could he
come into the gate of the palace as before — for
none (might) enter into the king's gate
clothed with sackcloth. — So NU7 j'K, comp.
Ewald, <S 321 c.
Ver. 3. Many other Jews also mourned. The
sorrow was general. Despite the elevation of
Esther her people now had everywhere only dis-
tress and grief, instead of honor and joy. It
seems as if the author would here describe how
the Jews were treated contrary to what one would
naturally expect after the elevation of Esther.
He would here, doubtless, also give prominence
to the remarkable mode which Mordecai adopted
to secure the attention of Esther. Further in
ver. 3 he would show us how pressing was the
need of every possible endeavor for their preser-
vation. And in every province, whither-
soever the king's commandment and his
decree came, etc. — D'lpi? is the Accusative of
place found in stat. constr. before ""It^X, as in ch.
viii. 17; Eocl. xi. 3; comp. Lev. iv. 24 D^ppa
TJ7X. And many lay in sackcloth and
ashes. — While all gave vent to their distress and
tears, many manifested their Borrow by putting
on sackcloth and sitting in ashes (oomp. Isa.
lviii. 5).
Ver. 4. The first object that Mordecai gained by
* ["To rend one's clothes in grief was as much a
Persian as a Jewish practice (see Herod, viii. 99;
.aSschylua, Pers. 640-1, 1039, etc.)." Bawliason.— Te.]
his public grief was that he drew the attention of
Esther's women-servants and eunuchs, i. e., such
as were assigned her for her exclusive service
(comp. chap. ii. 9), and they gave notice to the
queen. Though they had not as yet discovered
the nationality of Esther, still they became aware
of Esther's relation to Mordecai, who on his part
was very diligent in his inquiries concerning
her. Henoe they delayed not to inform the queen
of all that they know of him. Following the Ke-
thib we should read DJ'KUffl. As this prolonged
form of the word does not usually occur after a
Vav. cons., the Keri has the form HJXUril. The
object of ITT is found in what follows: the pre-
sent appearance of Mordecai in mourning gar-
ments was not the cause (comp. ver. 5) ; but this
was enough to give her considerable anxiety.
Sfwnnfll, a passive intensive from 7in, they were
seized as with pains of delivery . She sent clothes
to her guardian, that he might put them on,
doubtless, that thereby he might again stand in
the gate of the king, and so relate to her the
cause of his grief. But he refused them, not only
because he would wear no other than garments
of mourning, but because he desired a private
opportunity to communicate with her.
Ver. 5. Mordecai accomplished his object, and
Hatach the eunuch was sent to bim to obtain par-
ticulars. rna1? TDJJH, the king had appointed
Hatach to serve Esther; hence he belonged to
her eunuchs (ver. 4). l'£ 'njXfll, she commis-
sioned him with respect to or /J?, substantially simi'
lar to 7X, "she sent him to," (comp. ver. 10).
Vers. 6-11. Here we have the second step. In
the face of the greatness of the dangerthat threat-
ened the Jews it was hardly to be expected but
that Mordecai should make a request of Esther
whose fulfilment would be very serious in its con-
sequences.— Vers. 6 and 7. When Hatach had
proceeded to the open place before the palace, he
found Mordecai, who in the hope that Esther
would do something more, had remained there
longer or more frequently resorted thither. Then
Mordecai informed him of all that had occurred
and that now threatened the Jews, and mentioned
also the sum of money that Haman promised to
place in the king's treasury, in return for the
extermination of the Jews. This he did, no
doubt, to show what low and despicable motives
were at play in the matter ; and thus he very na-
turally hoped to excite the greater indignation
and wrath in Esther. She must not be left to think
that Haman had found the Jews guilty of real
transgressions when he obtained the consent of
the king. That the king had remitted the mo-
ney to Haman, is not referred to here because
not pertinent. HK'13 derived from $13 to cut
T T T " T
off, separate, then to define correctly (comp. Lev.
xxiv. 12), the exact statement of a thing, i. e.,
here, of the amount, sum of money to be given.
For the Jews, to destroy them, means when
the Jews would be surrendered to him with per-
mission to destroy them. The Kethib form of
□"TIT is less frequently used for D'-lliT, which
is found in chap. viii. 1, 7, 13 ; ix. 15, 18.
CHAP. IV. 1-17.
61
Ver. 8. Also he gave him the copy of the
writing of the decree that was given at
Shushan (comp. chap. iii. 16), to destroy
them, i. e., which ordered them to be destroyed.
JA?0? coulci nere have the meaning of " copy ;"
but the rendering "contents" of the writing of
the decree is preferable, (comp. Ezra iv. 11).
Possibly Mordecai had briefly noted down the
substance of the decree. To shew (it) unto
Esther, and to declare (it) unto her,
and to charge her that she should go
in unto the king to make supplication
unto him. — TJH/I, contrary to the acoents, is
by Bertheau and Keil connected with what fol-
lows, as if it were the same in sense with nillfS
TV 1)). But it rather belongs to what precedes
according to its import. Hatach was to show
the writing to Esther and give her the substanco
of the information it conveyed. It is quite pos-
sible that Esther could read it herself; Morde-
cai sent the copy for the purpose of enabling Ha-
tach to give the proper meaning of its contents.
The infinitives with / are here best translated
by " in order that." To declare (explain) it
unto her, and to charge her to go in unto
the king, to make supplication unto him
. . . for her people.— $P3 with >J? here, as in
chap. vii. 7, means: to entreat, supplicate for
something diligently (comp. Ezra viii. 23). She
should petition relief for her people.
Vers. 9-11. Mordecai elicited only the answer:
All the king's servants, and the people of
the king's provinces, do know, that who-
soever, whether man or woman shall come
unto the king, etc — ntV'Nl WH~ )3 is prefixed
as a Norn, absol. The predicate with UVT PXVA
follows as an anacoluthon: "one is his law," ('.
e., one law extends to all. ITH is the law having
reference in his case. Its substance reads briefly :
ri'DPI 7 to kill, i. e., him. One was not even al-
lowed to enter the inner court-yard, much less the
king's palace. That the king resided in the in-
ner court before the royal house (Bertheau and
Keil), would not follow from chap. v. 1. Every
one was to be killed, except him toward whom the
king extended the golden sceptre. !p ^7, ex-
cept, as for example, Ex. xii. 23 ; Josh. xvii. 5.
B'B'in, from OB'1, found only in this book (in
chap. v. 2 and viii. 4), in the Aramaic tongue
signifies " to reach out towards, to extend," and
is connected with VW, Oil!'. In the time of Dei-
oces the Mede, approach to the king was already
very difficult (Herod. I. 9) ; and among the Per-
sians, with very few exceptions (Herod. III. 118),
no one was permitted to approach the king with-
out a notice (comp. chap. i. 14; and Herod. III.
140; also C. Nep. Conon, u. 3). According to
our verse the sense of the law is not that no one
should approach unannounced, but that no one
should approach unless called. But the sense
of both is the same. If one must give due notice
of approach, one must first be also accepted ; but
to be accepted is to be called. As regards that
law any one was free to give notice of his ap-
proach (comp. Herodot. III. 140), and hence
arises the question, why Esther kept this privi-
lege out of sight. Josephus says (Antiq. XI. 6,
3) that the husband of Esther (according to him
Artaxerxes) forbade his people, by a special law,
to approach him while he sat upon the throne.
But he would manifestly give greater weight to
our explanation. If we desire to find the correct
answer we must not overlook the remark of Es-
ther, that she had not been called to the king for
now thirty days* Possibly she apprehended
that the king had become somewhat indifferent
to her, and that, if she were to announce herself
without being called by him, she would be re-
fused admittance to his presence. This would
have made the venture still more dangerous. Ac-
cording to chap. iii. 7, nearly five years had
passed since their marriage. Hence she had
possibly been somewhat forgotten. It could
hardly appear otherwise in her eyes than that it
was best to approach the king unannounced and
place reliance on the fact that her appearance
should kindle his love anew.f
Vers. 12-17. The third step. In order to move
Esther to a compliance with his request, despite
her hesitation, Mordecai had it reported to her
(ver. 13): Think not with thyself that thou
shalt escape in the king's house, more
than all the Jews. — To be saved does not here
mean, if I only am saved, the others do not concern
me, as if Mordecai would warn her of a selfish
and indifferent feeling toward her people. But
the sense is: " Do not think that thou shalt es-
cape, or that thou art better off." This is clear
from ver. 14 : For if thou altogether hold-
est thy peace, not making intercession with
the king, at this time, (then) shall there en-
largement and deliverance arise to the
Jews from another place; but thou and
thy father's house shall be destroyed, i. e.,
be not better off, but worse. That the entire
Jewish people cannot be thus destroyed is a mat-
ter self-evident to Mordecai. This is an incon-
testable truth, under all circumstances, which in
his mind is made sure by the divine promises.
And although neither God nor God's assurances
are here mentioned, still, as is justly remarked by
Brenz: " We have this noble and clearly heroic
faith of Mordecai, which sees the future deliver-
ance, even amidst the most immediate and immi-
nent danger." Those Jews only can and must
be destroyed, in his opinion, who, when it con-
cerns the preservation of the people, do not per-
form their duty. It is very improbable that he
should think that Haman has not power sufficient
to cause the destruction of the Jewish nation as
a whole, but merely of that detested Mordecai
* [" According to Herodotus (iii. 69), the wives of a
Persian king, whether primary or secondary, shared
his bed in rotation. As their number sometimes ex-
ceeded three hundred, the turn of a particular wife
might not come for nearly a year." Rawlikson. — Te.J
| [As to the golden scoptre Rawlinson observes. "A
modern critic asks: 'Is it likely that a Persian king
would always have a golden sceptre by him to stretch
out towards intruders on his privacy V It seems enough
to reply that in all the numerous representations of
Persian kings at Persepolis, there is not one in which
the monarch does not hold a long tapering staff (which
is probably the ' sceptre ' of Esther) m his right hand."
-T*.]
62
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
and his family, hence also Esther, mast die (Ber-
theau,— otherwise he would not have said : " thou
and thy father's house," but " thy father's house
and ihou, ye shall perish." He here makes re-
ference rather to a divine punishment that shall
come upon Esther first, but on her account also
upon her father's house. ITO == Jinn (Ex. via.
11) means relief from pressure because of want
of air. "lOQ in later language may have been
given the meaning of D?p, so that it should mean
to arise, to go forth, to be (1 Chron. xx. 4). But
it may also signify : deliverance will be established
(Bertheau), or stand ready. The " other place"
is not God as immediate for help, but another
agent of God, in contrast with Esther. Mordecai
means: God will find other instruments whom
He will employ, if thou wilt not serve Him. The
last sentence of ver. 14 is, by most interpreters,
declared to mean: " And who knows but that
thou hast been elevated to be queen for just such
an emergency as this, where there is danger,
which thou shouldst assist in averting, so that
thou canst easily help. But if thou wilt not help,
thou wilt not escape an especially severe sen-
tence." But to take DS in the sense of SOn, is
to say the least, venturesome, and cannot be jus-
tified by the fact that JgT 'D is sometimes, (but
without QK) used in the sense of perhaps (2 Sam.
xii. 22 ; Joel ii. 14 ; Jonah iii. 9). Again it does
not correspond to the sense of " if," " whether ;"
and we may say with Bertheau: " Wio knows,
when thou hast approached the royal throne
(beseechingly), what then shall happen, whether
the king will not receive you graciously ;" or
again, as Keil says : " Who knows but that thou
hast attained to royalty for just such a time as
this (as was no doubt true), what shall then be
done by thee?" Mordecai would perhaps say,
by way of adding to the before-expressed threat,
" Thou shalt be destroyed, if thou art silent: and
who knows whether thou shalt really be coura-
geous enough to speak for us, and thereby ma-
nifest to us that, for just such a time as this thou
wast elevated to royal dignity?" A doubt such
as this would evidently be the most power-
ful incentive to her to do what was requested
of her.
Ver. 15. In fact this resolve was reached by
her. She made request that Mordecai, together
with the Jews in Shushan, should fast three days
and nights in her behalf. Doubtless Bhe thus
expected to secure the help and protection of
God for that eventful hour and step, and there-
fore she declared, with great resignation, that
she would venture to fulfil their request. This
fast could only mean that great misery impended
over their heads, that with a contrite spirit God's
hand was seen in this event, and that prayer was
made to God for help (comp. 1 Kings xxi. 27-29 ;
Joel i. 14; Jonah iii. 5). That Esther still does
not make mention of God, no more than did Mor-
decai before this, when he asserted his faith in
the indestructibility of the Jewish nation, may
easily be explained, as has been observed in the
Introduction, §3, by remarking that it pertains
to the style of the author. To the expression:
fast ye for me, Esther adds: and neither eat
nor drink three days, night nor day, in or-
der to mark the severity of the fast. A strict
fast of three days would indeed have been a se-
vere task, and Esther would thereby have done
injury to her appearance (J. D. Michaelis). But
these three days seem, as in Jonah ii. 1, not to be
clearly understood ; hence the sense would be,
from this day until the third day. For the fast
must have begun on the same day that Esther's
answer came to Mordecai. The "third day"
mentioned in chap. v. 1 must mean the third day
from that in which the decision of Esther was
made. This decision was the main fact from
which time was reckoned. Of course we cannot
expect that Mordecai should that very day have
induced all the Jews in Shushan to fast. Still it
matters not so much that not all, if only many,
fasted.— And so will I go in unto the king,
•which is not, etc. — 133, i. e. under such circum-
stances, or under such conditions. J"n3 «7 1W
may simply mean: "which is not legally al-
lowed," although not, etc. "lEW may be taken in
a neuter sense, although SO Ti^K reminds us
of the Aramaic SO ,rT, and hence it can
T
easily be taken in the sense of " without " (comp.
Ewald, J 322 c). The last words: And if I pe-
rish, I perish, are an expression of willing sub-
mission to the fate that may threaten her in the
performance of her duty (comp. Gen. xliii. 14).
Esther had great cause to prepare for her own
destruction. She not only proposed to go to the
king without being called, but also to request
something of him, which, according to Persian
custom, it was impossible to grant. She would
by hor petition recall the edict and thereby seem
to disregard the royal majesty. She would and
indeed must reveal herself as a daughter of this de-
tested Jewish people thus given over to destruction.
Last of all, she must thereby place herself in
open opposition to that all-powerful favorite,
Haman.
Ver. 17. Mordecai went forth to fulfil the
wish of Esther. The verb 13j> has induced the
Targums and older interpreters, as J. D. Mi-
chaelis, to advance the opinion that he had vio-
lated, "passed over," namely, the law, which
ordered the Paschal feast to be celebrated in a
joyous manner (from chap. iii. 12 it might fol-
low that we are still in the time of the Passover) ;
but the word has the meaning of: going away,
going further. It has its explanation as con-
trasting with what Mordecai had done before,
since, so long as Esther's answer was not satis-
factory, he remained standing there.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
Ver. 1 sqq. 1. Mordecai rends his clothing,
and puts on sack-cloth and ashes. He enters
the city thus, and raises a great and bitter
lamentation. So also the Church of God, in its
development as regards the history of humanity,
should again and ever anew put on the habili-
ments of mourning. "The world shall rejoice:
and ye shall be sorrowful." The then existing
nation of Jews could not manifest its loyalty to
CHAP. IV. 1-17.
63
the law without coming into conflict with hea-
thendom. Nor can the Church bring to deve-
lopment its inherent spiritual powers without
challenging all the Hamaus and their opposition
in the world. Even this present period is an
instance in proof. Following upon the great
progress of the things of the kingdom of God
Bince the time of wars for freedom, we must
naturally expect reactions, such as have been
manifest in the sphere of science and other rela-
tions. Indeed, we must constantly look for in-
creasing opposition on the part of the world.
But when the Church shall have most fully deve-
loped the gifts of grace granted to it, then con-
flict and sorrow will have reached its highest
point at the end of days. The real cause of sor-
row on the part of the true members of God's
Church will not be, as was the case with Morde-
cai, their own distress, but that of the world.
It will consist in the fact that the world is still
devoid of the blessed society of the true God ;
that the kingdom of God is still rejected and
even persecuted. What joy it would give, if,
instead of enmity, recognition and submission,
and, instead of disdain, a participation in the
gifts and grace of our Lord were to become the
universal experience !
2. The more difficult the position of the
Church as in contrast with the world, the more
favorable is her position for bringing to view
her glory. Her glory is that of her Head. If
even in the Old Testament times, and in the
" dispersion " itself, there existed a Mordecai,
who for love of the people manifested his firm-
ness and strength in the hour of tribulation ;
and if there was found an Esther, who, when
called upon, willingly came forward to bring
about the salvation of her countrymen; how
much more in New Testament times and in the
modern Church will there arise individuals, who,
in following the Lord, especially in evil days,
will manifest a watch-care for others and a self-
sacrificing spirit for them; who will show forth
patience and meekness, as well as energy, fide-
lity and tenacity, a spirit of giving and an abi-
lity to make sacrifices; and withal will carry in
their hearts joy and peace as the seal of their
kinship with God. All these graces may be so
many illuminating rays of the glorious life of
their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who more
and more attains in them a full stature. May
all seize the special opportunity, recognize the
particular duty, and know when to perform it,
which the times of distress of the Church place
in their hand, of showing forth the power that
dwells in them by their life and work [
3. Mordecai took an especially great part in
the universal grief that overcame the Jews when
the edict of their annihilation was issued and
promulgated. It was not his personal danger
that alarmed him, but, as may be expected of
such a faithful follower of Judaism, it was the
calamity threatening the whole Jewish people
While, however, thought and feeling were cen-
tred upon the event, he was free from despair.
With him it was a settled conviction that the
people of God, as a whole, could not be destroyed,
and that deliverance must come from some
source Instead of giving way to despondenoy,
ho turned his distress into a. power that urged
him to still greater endeavors. There was no
more a fear of appearing as a Jew, nor did he
hesitate beoause his loud lamentation would
attract general attention, and thereby expose
him to the derision and disdain of many. How-
ever reluctant he might have been to expose his
beloved Esther, whose welfare had ever been a
matter of great concern to him, to extreme dan-
ger, still he persisted with the greatest determina-
tion that she should run the whole risk, and
only rested when she gave her assent. It is
barely possible that he attributed some blame to
himself because of his firmness against Hainan,
or thought that on that account he more than
any other was under obligation to remove the
threatened danger. The sole moving impulse
was doubtless his love for his people. But this
should not be less in any true member of the
Church. It should rather, in proportion as
there are more members in the body of Christ,
be the stronger than it was in him. Would that
no one among us were behind him as regards
energy, self-denial and a willingness to make
sacrifices! There are doubtless many who are
able to endure all this in their own person.
But — if no lighter consideration — the thought
that their relatives, yea, even wife and children,
may suffer on account of their confession, bows
them down. Would, if necessary, that we too
may stand equal to Mordecai in willingness to
surrender our dearest kin!
Ver. 6 sqq. Mordecai manifests a remarkable
tenacity as opposed to Esther. He keeps his
position at the gate of the king until she sends
him not only her maids with garments, but also
Hatach to transmit his message. He departs
not thence until she has resolved to stand before
Ahasuerus as a Jew pleading for the Jews.
Under other circumstances he might have been
thought to be tiresome by his persistency and
demands; but his relation to her now justified
it. When he had been accustomed to inquire
concerning her health and well-being, to give
her counsel, to care for her, he had shown no
less persistency; and his demand that now she
should reveal her Jewish descent, and as such
should venture all, was equally in keeping with
his character. So long as no danger threatened
he oounseled her to keep silence respecting her
Jewish parentage ; but now he had himself
taken the lead in an open confession of the fact.
Although it had before been difficult for him to
approach Esther as the queen, or request any
favor at her hand, now he hesitated no longer
to implore her help, not so much for himBelf, as
for the whole people. There was no motive for
him to be selfish, or to conduct himself in u.
heartless or severe manner towards her. Hence
there was no question but that his undertaking
would succeed, that Esther would be willing to
comply with his request. It is eminently desi-
rable that those who, like him, must move and
induce others to make sacrifices of self and pos-
sessions in the service of the kingdom of God,
should stand on a level with him in this
respect.
Brenz: "At first the lazy (i. e. Jews) do not
snore. For the Holy Spirit exhorts us in all
adversities to confide in the Lord; He does not
exhort us to be indolent, indifferent and sleepy.
64
THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
For our confidence in the Lord is a powerful
and efficacious means of stimulating in His ser-
vice all strength and limbs Further, the
Jews, though in the greatest peril, do not utter
virulent words against the king, nor do they fly
to arms. . . . Mordecai and the other Jews rend
their garments, put on sack-cloth, strew ashes
upon their heads, wail, weep and fast. These
manifestations signify not that the Jews in Per-
sia were turbulent, but that they take refuge in
God ; since help could not be discovered upon
earth, they seek it from heaven. . . . ' The sac-
rifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and
a contrite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise.'
.... By this example we too are taught that
when afflictions are sent upon us, we should
reflect that God then sets before us the fat oxen
and calves which we may offer to Him. In this
way we offer to God in our prayers the afflic-
tions which we sustain, and call upon the name
of the Lord that He may help us. . . . Behold,
however, the reverse of this order of things.
The palaces of princes are divinely instituted to
be the places of refuge for the miserable. On
the contrary in the palaces' of Persia nothing is
regarded as more odious and abominable than
men with the signs of affliction. . . . Heaven is
ever open to the cries of mourners, and God is
never unapproachable to those calling on His
name by faith."
Starke: "Temporal fortunes and successes
are never so great as not to be subject to sor-
row, terror and fear (Sir. xl. 3). God permits
His Church to be plunged into sorrow at times;
He leads her even into hell; but He also takes
her out again (1 Sam. ii. 16). Though the Lord
elevate us to high honors, we should never he
ashamed of our poor relatives (Gen. xlvii. '2),
but rather relieve their needs (1 Sam xxii. 3)
We should never reject proper and suitable
means to escape a danger, but promptly use
them (2 Cor. xi. 32, 33)."
Ver. 13 sqq. Mordecai manifests a, precious
sense of trust, saying: "For if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there
enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews
from another place." But he who would save
his soul will lose it. The risk which Mordecai
called upon Esther to assume, that she should
come to the king uninvited, and manifest herself
as a daughter of the people thus devoted to de-
struction, was indeed great and important.
Moreover, the hope that Xerxes would recall
his edict, thus, according to Persian ideas,
endangering the respect due his royal majesty,
and likewise abandoning his favorite minister,
was very uncertain of fulfilment. But Esther
had been elevated to a high position. Mordecai,
who in a doubting manner sends her word:
"Whoknoweth whether thou art come to the
kingdom for such a time as this?''' doubtless did
it from a conviction that she must now prove
herself worthy of such distinction, if she would
retain it. He also conveys the idea that the
higher her position the greater her responsibi-
lity, and consequently, in case of failure because
of carelessness or fearfulness, the more intense
her guilt. In these conviotions of Mordecai are
contained the most earnest exhortations even
for us. This is especially true since we are all
called to be joint heirs of Jesus Christ to the
throne of the heavenly kingdom. In the deport-
ment of Esther a no less reminder to duty is
contained. It appears quite natural that Esther
should order a fast not only to be observed by
Mordecai and the rest of the Jews, but she aUo
imposed on herself this fast of three days' dura-
tion. Had she had a little more of the common
discretion of her sex, she would have feared the
effects of the fast upon her appearance. Hence
she would have adopted quite a different plan
or preparation previous to her entrance into the
king's presence. Here also she reveals the
same attractive feature of mind and manner as
when she was first presented to the king. In-
stead of placing reliance upon what she should
externally put on or adorn herself with, we find
her trust placed upon something higher. She
well knows that she will only succeed if the
great and exalted Lord be for her, who, not-
withstanding His glorious majesty, yet dwells
among the most lowly of men. It is in just such
times as these, when we are raised to the great-
est endeavors and self-sacrifices, that we must
not expect to accomplish these things by our
own power, but only through Him who in our
weakness is our strength. Otherwise, despite
our best intentions and most successful begin-
nings, we shall soon grow discouraged and fail.
Our own weakness is but too often made mani-
fest to our eyes. It is only when we consider
and remember that the hand of the Lord is in it
all that we will be saved from a lack of courage.
Brenz: " As it is the most pleasing worship
to God to support the Church with all our
strength, so He execrates no one more than him
who withholds from the Church when in danger
that help which be is able to render If
the cry of a single poor man is so availing that
although unheard by man, it' finds an aven-
ging ear in God, what must be the influence of
the cry of the whole Church in her affliction im-
ploring assistance from Him who it hopes is able
to help ? . . . This teaches us that God confers
power upon princes, riches upon the rich, wis-
dom upon the wise, and other gifts upon others,
not that they may abuse them for their own
pleasure, but that they may assist the Church
of God, and protect it in whatever way they
can. For the Church on earth is so great in the
eyes of God, that He requires of all men what-
ever may serve her. ' The people,' He says,
' and the king that will not serve thee shall
perish, and the nations shall dwell in a solitary
place.'"
Starke: " Our flesh is always timid when it
has to encounter a hazard (Exod. iv. 13). My
Christ in His divine majesty stands at the en-
trance into the faith, and sounds the free invita-
tion to each and all, ' ever frequent, ever dear,
ever happy' (Sirach xxv. 20, 21). One should
succor his neighbor in peril and need (Prov.
xxiv. 11 ; Ps. lxxxii. 3), and especially the
brethren in the faith (Gal. vi. 10), even at the
peril of one's own life (1 John iii. 16). We are
born for good not to ourselves, but to others,
and thus God oftentimes shows us that through
us He aids our own, our country and the com-
munity (Gen. xlv. 5). Faith is the victory that
CHAP. V. 1-14. 65
overcomes the world (1 John v. 8). We may
use ordinary prayer for important blessings
(James v. 14; Gen. xxiv. 7; xliii. 14). Life
oan never be spent better than when it is the
aim to lose it (Matt. xvi. 25; Acts xx. 24:
xxi. 13)."
B.-ESTHER IS GRACIOUSLY RECEIVED BY THE KING; BUT HAMAN HIGHLY DIS-
TINGUISHED BY THE QUEEN, RESOLVES, BECAUSE OF THE REFCSAL OF MOR-
DECAl TO BOW THE KNEE BEFORE HIM, TO HAVE HIM HUNG.
Chapter V. 1-14.
I. Esther finds favor with the King, and invites both him and Raman two separate times to a banquet
prepared by herself. Vers. 1-8.
1 Now [And] it came to pass [was] on the third day that [and] Esther put on
her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king's house, over against the
king's house : and the king sat [was sitting] upon his royal throne in the royal
2 house, over against the gate [opening] of the house. And it was so, when [as] the
king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained [received] favor
in his sight [eyes] : and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in
3 his hand. So [And] Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre. Then
[And] said the king unto her, What wilt thou [is to thee], queen Esther? and
what is thy request ? [ask, and] it shall be even given thee to the half of the king-
4 dom. And Esther answered [said], If it seem good unto [upon] the king, let the
king and Haman come this [to-] day unto the banquet that I have prepared
5 [made] for him. Then [And] the king said, Cause Haman to make haste, that
he may do [to do] as Esther hath said [the word of Esther]. So [And] the king
6 and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared [made]. And the
king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, "What is thy petition ? and it shall
be granted thee: and what is thy request? even [ask, and] to the half of the king-
7 dom it shall be performed [done]. Then [And] answered Esther, and said, My
8 petition and my request is; If I have found favor in the sight [eyes] of the king,
and if it please [seem good upon] the king to grant [give] my petition, and to per-
form [do] my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall
prepare [will make] for them, and I will do to-morrow as the king hath said [ac-
cording to the mind of the king].
II. Haman, encouraged by the remarkable distinction extended to him, at once resolves upon the immediate
destruction of Mordecai. Vers. 9-14.
9 Then [And] went Haman forth [on] that day joyful and with a glad [good]
heart : but [and] when [as] Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate that [and] he
stood [rose] not up, nor moved [or trembled] for [on account of] him, [and, i. e.
10 then] he [Haman] was full of indignation against Mordecai. Nevertheless [And],
Haman refrained [restrained] himself: and when he came home [to his house],
[and] he sent and called for [brought] his friends [lovers], and Zeresh his wife.
11 And Haman told [recounted to] them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude
of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him [made him
12 great], and how [that] he had advanced [raised] him above the princes and [the]
servants of the king. [And] Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let
no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared [made] but
13 myself; and to-morrow am I1 invited [called] unto her also2 with the king. Yet
all this availeth me nothing, so long as [in all the time that] I see [am seeing]
14 Mordecai the Jew sitting at [in] the king's gate. Then [And] said Zeresh his wife
and all his fiiends [lovers] unto him, Let a gallows be made [Let them make a
66
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
tree! of fifty cubits high [in height], and to-morrow [in the morning] speak [say]
thou unto the king that [and] Mordecai may be hanged [they will hang Mordecai]
thereon • then [and] go thou in merrily [joyful] with the king unto the banquet.
And the thing [word] pleased [ivas good before] Hamau ; and he caused the gal-
lows to be made [made the tree].
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
i [Ver. 12. The pronoun, being expressed, is emphatic.— Te.]
2 [Ver. 12. The position of DJ before innS gives the latter emphasis; this was a fresh token of favor.
-Te.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-8. Mordecai's opposition against Ha-
inan receives fresh support by the movements of
Esther. But they have as a first result that Ha-
mau on his part also determines the utmost ex-
treme against Mordecai. Hence the conflict
against Mordecai is here also the chief feature,
as was that of Mordecai against Haman in
the previous chapter. Esther risks an unan-
nounced entrance to the king— so it seems— only
that she might together with him invite Haman
to the banquet in order to distinguish the latter
before all other officers. Thereby the arrogance
of Haman is extraordinarily strengthened.
Ver. 1. On the third day, viz., after her in-
terview with Mordecai (comp. chap. iv. 14 sqq.),
Esther put on (her) royal (apparel).— If we
will not with Bertheau on chap. vi. 8 and viii. 15
sanction the rejection of Wl1! before ruS^D,
then we must accept the fact that rU37D in itself
signifies royal dignity (comp. chap. i. 19), but
alBO means royal apparel; or that it was usual iu
poetic language to say "Hni "IIP BftS (comp. civ.
1 ; Job xl. 10), as also toSd B>sS. An accusa-
tive of limitation, "according to the king's man-
ner," is highly improbable here. Esther posted
herself — so here ^^fli according to 1 Kings xx.
38; 1 Sam. xvii. 51 ; not: stood, remained stand-
ing,— in the inner court iu such a position that
the king, who sat upon his throne in the king's
house, could see her. He sat J"l'3n nnp rOJi
not : before, but opposite, over against the door of
the house. Since fO^ may easily be rendered
"before" in the sense of "opposite," it is well
so to translate it. Perhaps the king had selected
this position in order the more easily to see what
transpired in the court of the house. Perhaps
also the throne was situated not far from the
farthest wall, and nearer to the door.*
Ver. 2. As his eyes fell on Esther she found
grace iu his sight, see chap. ii. 9. As he ex-
tended the golden sceptre to her she touched its
point, possibly, as is indicated by the Vulg., kiss-
ing it.
Ver. 3. [What wilt thou ? " Rather, ' What
ails thee ?' "— Rawlinson.] He promised her:
* ["This is the usual situation of the throne in the
' throne-room ' of an Oriental palace. The monarch,
from hia raised position, can see into the court through
the doorway opposite him, which is kept open."— Raw-
linson.— Ttt.]
it shall be given thee to the half of the
kingdom, viz., she might make bold request,
and it should be granted her what she desired ;
similarly as in the case of Herod in Mark vi. 23.*
Feuardent: "Observe, I pray you, the promise,
so thoughtless, rash, and imprudent (a common
fault among kings), which, without consideration,
is here repeated for the third time (comp. chap,
vi. and vii. 2). So excessive and prodigal are
princes as regards women, good-for-nothing,
gluttons, sycophants, traitors, and such like."
But here it is in point to notice the greatness of
that object which is capable of calling forth true
love, and for it nothing is too great.
Ver. 4. The first and simplest thing that Esther
dared to request was to invite Haman and the
king to dine with her. 7.J> 21D ON, as in chap,
i. 19. She would doubtless first convince her-
self whether the impression which she made on
the king was deep enough to encourage her to
express such a great request as she intended to
present.-)- She desired Haman to be present,
in order, as Calov remarks, that "she might
charge him by name in the presence of the king
with the decree surreptitiously obtained against
her people, and to his very face cut off every
possibility of cavil;" perhaps also iu order to
make his confusion the more complete.
Ver. 5. The king ordered Haman to be quickly
called, and with him accepted the invitation of
Esther. nHD> hastened, i. e., to cause to make
haste, comp. 1 Kings xxii. 9; 2 Chron. xviii. 8.
rVltP.JH, as an infin., may have Haman as ita sub-
ject: "that he may do as Esther hath said."
This also would explain the phrase, in order that
one do, i. e., the words of Esther.
Ver. 6. At the banquet of wine (comp.
chap. vii. 2), — thus is indicated the more ad-
vanced stage of the banquet, where drinking was
the chief thing, and where, in consequence, the
most cheerful feeling prevailed (Bertheau), the
king repeated his question and reasserted his
promise. J WD) (chap. vii. 2; ix. 12), "and it
* ["According to Herodotus (IX. 109), Xerxes, on ano-
ther occasion, when pleased with one of his wives,
offered to grant her any request whatever, without limi-
tation."— Rawlinson. — Tr.]
f ["Esther seems to have been afraid to make her
real request of Xerxes too abruptly, and to have wished
to impress him favorably before doing so. She eon-
eluded that the king would understand that she had a
real petition in the background, and would recur to it,
as in fact he did (ver. 6, and chap. vii. 2)." — Rawlinson.
-Te.]
X [" After the meats were removed, it was customary
in Persia to continue the banquet for a considerable
time with fruits and wine (Herod. I., 133). During this
CHAP. V. 1-14.
67
shall be granted thee,'' is the shortened form of
the imperf., the so-called jussive future, instead
of nfc^nv
Vers. 7, 8. Still Esther hesitates with her prin-
cipal request. It is true Bhe begins : My peti-
tion and my request (is) ; as if she would now
express herself, but she breaks off as if courage
failed her, or as if she reflected upon it; and she
leaves it there, simply again inviting the king
and Hainan to another banquet, at which she
obligates herself to make her petition known.
She doubtless was not yet sure of the success of
her undertaking.*
Vers. 9-14. Haman, completely puffed up be-
cause of the distinction shown him on the part
of the queen, felt all the more bitterly the appa-
rent stubbornness of Mordecai, which still con-
tinued, and resolved, aided by the counsel of his
friends and wife, on the following day to request
his execution from the king.
Ver. 9. On the same day he again met Morde-
cai in the gate of the king. It must needs be
that on this very day Mordecai must provoke his
anger to the highest degree, and thereby uncon-
sciously assist in precipitating the inimical orders
of Haman. The whole plan of the book is thus
brought out in its correspondence to the concep-
tion and development of the present treatment.
Mordecai could now again stand in the gate of
the king. The garments of mourning which had
prevented him from this, were doubtless laid
aside when he assuredly knew that Esther would
take the step promised to him, i. e., go to the
king. Fasting no doubt also ceased at the Bame
time. In consequence he was doubtless more
than ever drawn to that position where he might
first hope to hear of the success of Esther. To
the expression : But when Haman saw
Mordecai in the king's gate, there is added
the statement, that he stood not up, nor
moved for him. — Such sentences of condition
may be inserted without a copula (comp. Ewald,
g 346). The 1 before Dp-X'S, therefore, instead
of being a copula, is a correlative to the fol-
lowing 1 before ^!~N 7 ; so that we have an ap-
position! "neither" — "nor." Still it is more
common and natural to accept a connection by
means of 1, " and " (comp. Gen. xviii. 11 ; xxiv.
21 ; Joshua vi. 1). Dp and yT are not partici-
pies — for then their subject would be made pro-
minent— but they are third pers. prmt. But JH
with jD does not mean : neither did he even move
from before him (Vulg. and most interpreters),
but according to Dan. v. 19 ; vi. 27 : he trembled
not, was not terrified before him, as he should
have done had he violated the law of the king
(chap. iii. 2).
Ver. 10. Haman controlled himself, but only to
consult soon after with his friends and wife, i. e.,
those who he knew would sympathize with him,
part of the feast the king renewed his offer."— Rawlin-
*'[" Esther still cannot bring herself to make the re-
quest on which so much depends, and craves another
day's respite. She will soften the king's heart by a se-
cond banquet, and then she will submit her petition to
him. There is something extremely natural in this
hesitation."— Rawlinson.—Tb]
and who would restrain him from too great rash-
ness in determining upon radical measures
against Mordecai.*
Ver. 11. The author, with great art of state-
ment, gives Haman an opportunity to recount all
that would make him great and happy, but yet
so as to make him admit that there is one thing
missing for the completion of his happiness, and
this is indispensable, namely, the destruction of
Mordecai. The higher the fortune and honor
in which he rejoiced, the greater would be the
fall, so soon to be realized ; and the more im-
pressive must be his history upon those who read
it. Next to the glories of his riches he makes
mention of the multitude of his children
(sons). According to chap. ix. 7-10 there were
ten of them. Bertheau thinks these do not be-
long here, and he would change the reading.
But Haman was obliged to mention them in ho-
nor of his wife. What indeed would his riches
have been to him had hepossesBedit for himself
only, or if he had not hoped to cause his sons to
inherit after him, in whom, so to speak, he con-
tinued to live on ? Not only among Persians,
but also among Israelites, the happiness of pa-
rents depended largely upon the multitude of
children ; especially of sons. Likewise also
the esteem in which they were held, particularly
with the king, who sent presents annually to pa-
rents having the greatest number of children
(comp. Herod. I. 136). Then also he recounted
all wherein the king had promoted him,
etc. "1K?X is here the second accus., depending
on Til and one of definition or of instrument.
Ver. 12. As the highest point of his distinc-
tion, and the very latest, he mentions the circum-
stance that, above all others, he alone was in-
vited to the banquet of the queen to be given the
day following. This is the most direct proof
that the author regarded these invitations as the
very highest point of distinction. And he lays
great stress thereon in order the more power-
fully to show the overwhelming disaster that
befel Haman, and also to prepare the reader for
the climax of the story. ^N, also, moreover, in-
dicates in advance that what follows is a new
ascending period. PlVxnp 'JN means she has
invited me (see Ewald, \ 295 c).
Ver. 13. Yet all this — thus he himself must
make prominent his folly and insatiableness, and
at the same time pronounce his own sentence —
availeth me nothing, is not satisfactory to
me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sit-
ting at the king's gate.— IBto ^#-733 ma7
mean : at all times, every time, when I ; so that
the sense is that the feeling of dissatisfaction
comes to the surface each time. But it may also
mean : during the whole time when I, i. e., so long
as I (comp. Job xxvii. 3, according to Schlott-
mann and the older interpreters). The fact that
such a Jew may defy him unpunished seems to
be a counter-proof against his dignity and power.
Ver. 14. Then said Zeresh his wife and
all his friends. — Zeresh being first, and alBo
* [" The name Zeresh is probably connected with the
zered zara, ' gold." Compare the Greek Chrysis." Raw
linson. — Te.J
15
68
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
the singular form of the verb, indicates that she
led the counsel. Even kings as well as their
chief officers doubtless often allowed themselves
to be directed by their wives. Let a gallows
be made, i. e., erected, of fifty cubits high. —
The third person plural here, as also in what
follows, again points to an indefinite " oue,"
" let one," "let them." The height of the gal-
lows should intensify the disgrace of hanging,
but should also serve to make manifest the dread-
ful punishment, and to terrify as many as
possible from being discourteous to Haman.
Feuardent well says: "But why make it so
high (i. b. the tree, gallows) ? In order that his
disgrace might be plainly observable to the eyes
of all, and the more striking. Wherefore should
he be in such haste about it ? Lest there should
be danger in delay or procrastination. For what
reason have it erected before his own house ? So
that he and all his family going in and out, see-
ing Mordecai hanging, might mock and feast
their cruel eyes and minds with so miserable and
foul a spectacle." Speak thou unto the king
that Mordecai be hanged thereon, i. e.,
speak, that they hang, iwfl as in chap. ii. 23.
These advisers take it for granted that the king
will give his consent.* Hence the gallows should
be already prepared in order that the execution
may come oif that very morning. Then, of
course, his joy can be unclouded for his noon
meal.f
DOCTRINAL. AND ETHICAL.
Vers. 1-8. 1. The destiny of God's people de-
pended not only on the humors of this Persian
king in general, but also upon the impression
which a woman might make upon that monarch.
This must appear as very peculiar and highly
significant. Women have often exerted a deci-
sive influence upon the destinies of nations. But
here it seems as if this was not quite consonant
with the dignity of the people of God, as they
were still worthy of being called. It seems as
if such a state of things could only be true of a
degenerate cause. At present we have the view
of Esther standing before the king, not as a wife
before her husband, but as a petitioner before
a sovereign, imploring protection, and anxiously
waiting whether he would graciously reach out
his sceptre to her. This truly represents the
condition of dependence and lowliness of the
Church of the Diaspora. In contrast with it
Ahasuerus represents the dignity of the worldly
power bearing rule over the people of God. For
all this, however, every one feels that true dig-
nity does not dwell with the former; he would
* ["A gallows, in the ordinary sense, is scarcely in-
tended, since hanging was not a Persian punishment.
The intention, no doubt, was to crucify or impale Morde-
cai: and the pale or cross was to be seventy-five feet
high, to make the punishment more conspicuous. On
the use of impalement among the Persians, tfee the note
on chap. ii. 23." Rawlinson. — Tb.]
+ [" As Ahasuerus had already consented to a general
massacre of the Jews within a few months, it seemed
probable that he would readily allow the immediate ex-
ecution of one of them. Requests for leave to put per-
sons to death were often made to Persian kings by their
near relatives (Herod. IX. 110; Plutarch, Artax. 14, 16,
17, 23, etc.), but only rarely by others." Rawlinson.
— Tr.J
else not have been taken captive by the charms
of a woman, nor have made such unlimited pro-
mises, as he expressed. But true worth dwells
with Esther, who, impelled by love for her peo-
ple, risks even her life. Judgment concerning
him would be vastly different if his liberality
were to remind us that divine love above is pre-
pared to give the better (godly) people all that is
needed for its salvation and welfare. At any rate
Esther here very well represents the better peo-
ple. There are found in her beautiful counte-
nance traces of the deep grief which fills her
heart. She has become weakened by the fasting
which she has imposed upon herself. She is pale
in consequence of fear, which she cannot sup-
press. Hence her appearance is all the more
noble and winsome to us. And if in Ahasuerus
we regard the power which must be overcome,
and in her the possibility of Israel's power, then
it can no more be doubtful, how great will be the
victory of Israel.
Brenz : " This is truly heroic magnanimity,
by which Esther declares as great a faith tow-
ards God, as love towards His church. Her
trust in Him is such that she incurs the peril of
her life in obedience to His call. For though all
the circumstances of the case threaten her de-
struction, still she hangs by faith upon the di-
vine promises. For whom God calls and leads
into danger, to him He has also promised preser-
vation and deliverance in those dangers. To
Abraham He said: ' Get thee out of thy country
and thy father's house.' This was a call to face
danger. But He also added the promise: 'I will
make of thee a great nation.' It is love alone
that exposes itself in behalf of the church of God,
and would rather risk its own life than leave the
Church of God in danger. We may at the same
time observe the modesty of Esther. Though
elevated to regal majesty she does not disregard
nor despise her relatives, even when most unfor-
tunate and outcast; but condescends even to run
the hazard of her life for them. How very far
are some men, who have obtained a dignity be-
yond others, from exhibiting this modesty!"
2. We may recognize the picture of a soul
praying to God in the image of Esther standing
with humble and imploring attitude before Aha-
suerus. Sacred poetry, especially, has made use
of single features or expressions of this history
in this regard. So Dressier in his beautiful
hymn : " My Jesus to whom seraphim," etc.,
causes the pious supplicant to say : " Reach thy
sceptre to my soul, which like an Esther bows to
thee, and shows herself thy bride to thee. Speak:
' Yea, thou art she whom I have ohosen.' " The
representative signification of the persons in this
history have, as it were, brought with them their
own recognition. The Christian may certainly
employ them in this sense. So Starke when he
says: "If a heathen king can willingly grant
such grace, how much more willing is the most
faithful Lord to receive all poor destitute sinners
coming to Him in faith, and in the good time to
come to place them upon His throne." Ahasue-
rus paid no regard to the fact that Esther had
violated his commandment, but received her very
graciously, although his irrevocable edict stood
in the way of granting her petition. The father
heart of God, although we violate all His laws,
CHAP. V. 1-14.
69
and though His unchangeable holiness be against
the sinner, still yearns toward us in its great
love and grace. But just as Esther came boldly
and yet modestly, so we also must combine with
true humility a true and elevated oourage, a dis-
heartened repentance together with confidins
faith. &
Brenz: "Consider a moment the happy is-
sue that these events take, which are undertaken
with faith and pious prayer. . . . How did Es-
ther extort this from so great a king ? Certainly
not by outcries, nor by contempt, nor by disdain
nor by quarrels, nor by contention, nor by dis-
honest means ; for by these praotices women are
wont to get blows and wounds rather than power
and control ; but by piety toward God, by reve-
rence toward her husband, by modesty and all
other reputable virtues. For so by serving and
being obedient women rule, which is their only
legitimate mode of governing."
Starke : " The king's heart is in the hand of
the Lord, as the rivers of water ; He turneth it
whithersoever He will (Prov. xxi. 1). My God
reaoh Thy sceptre also to Thy bride now hum-
bling herself before Thee. — To promise much is
the universal custom of great men, but those
keeping promises are few in number, (1 Mace,
xi. 53). It is far easier to obtain favors by an
humble and modest behaviour than by sullenness
and a boasting manner (Gen. xxiii. 7 sqq. )."
Vers. 9-14. 1. Our book is distinguished by
showing us the greatest and most surprising
changes of fortune of opposite character in a very
small compass. Estherand Mordecai, after having
the most pleasing prospects held out to them, are
plunged in the greatest distress : indeed they are
seized with the terrors of death, and fast in sack-
cloth and ashes. Then again they are lifted up
to the highest pinnacle of human fortune. Ha-
inan, on the contrary, the most powerful favorite
of Ahasuerus, can even think of exterminating a
whole people in order to satisfy his desire for
revenge. The king not only agrees to all that
he undertakes, but the queen also distinguishes
him before all other officers in the most flatter-
ing manner. This he himself regards as the
very summit of his fortune and honor; and then
his fall is bo sudden and great, that he finds his
end on the very accursed tree which but shortly
before he caused to be erected for his mortal
enemy. In this way our book strikingly illus-
trates the double truth, that, whomsoever the
Lord would raise especially high, He often hum-
bles very low ; and, on the other hand, he whom
He would suddenly overthrow, is often raised to
great heights. In other words, it shows us in
what wonderful ways the Lord leads His own
children, as well as godless sinners. But it also
gives a very definite reason why the one receives
such exalted station and the other such great
degradation. We must not therefore think of
God in an anthropopathic, i. e., unholy manner,
nor must we speak of " a freak of fortune." The
process of humbling brings forth quite a different
result in the pious person thau does elevation in
an ungodly one. The humiliation of Mordecai
causes him to enter upon most severe and long-
continued exertion, instead of remaining in a
State of inactivity and reserve. He begins to
exert himself in a most persistent manner to do
all in his power for the deliverance of his people,
without regard to his own personal cost or com-
fort. He even puts at stake the welfare of his
beloved Esther, for the good of all the people.
He prevails upon Esther, and she is willing to
endeavor to save her people, even at the risk of
her own life. By means of their humiliation
they both were elevated to a grand height of pur-
pose, which they had not before known. But
the matter ohiefly interesting is, that they sub-
mit to this humbling process. This is shown by
their fast. They beoome conscious that in them
are many things that provoke the displeasure
of God, and thus they are purified by means of
their sorrows. There was doubtless not want-
ing in them the proverbial Jewish stiff-necked-
ness; and this had first to be broken, before they
became fitted for the good days coming, espe-
cially in manifesting humility, gratitude, and
condescension towards others. Haman, on the
contrary, as soon as he came from the banquet
with Esther, gathers his friends and wife, boast-
ing of his glorious riches, and the multitude of
his sons, and his exalted dignity and honor, not
in order to bring a thank-offering to his God, but
only to impress upon them, to what recognition
and distinctions of honor he can lay claim. The
first and great mistake of the wicked is that all
which they have accomplished and gained be-
comes a source of self-exaltation; the result is,
that instead of finding their success more than
great enough, they still find fault, indeed regard
it as worthless, as nothing, so long as they have
not yet attained the one thing, which now ap-
pears to them as chief. The effect is not that
they reflect and become conscious of their in-
ternal want, but they accuse those circumstances
that bring the want. Hence their third and
most desperate mistake is, that they conceive the
resolution, or are moved thereto by others, that,
whatever be in their way, let it cost what it may,
be it even an outrageous deed, they will remove
it, so only they reach the longed-for object. If
the antecedent humiliation is the proper begin-
ning for the elevation of the pious, then the pre-
ceding elevation is already a beginning of divine
judgment for the wicked. The words: "When
thou dost humble me, thou dost make me great"
(Ps. xviii. 3fi), which in the original reads:
"Thy gentleness (condescension) hath made me
great," has its truth well expressed in Luther's
translation; and in so far he correctly interprets
the text, since God condescends or humbles Him-
self only to those that are humbled. But the
other: " Surely thou didst set them in slippery
places" (namely the wicked), must mean that by
simply permitting the success of their plans and
their prosperity, the Lord places the feet of the
wicked on ground which will turn to water under
their feet (comp. Job xx. 16).
Bbenz: "Remark in Haman the stupendous
and wonderful judgment of God. For the im-
pious Haman is most exultant and fearless as
regards the preservation and augmentation of
his dignity and power; and he is most certain
also of the destruction of Mordecai, whom he
prosecutes with hatred. But behold now the
end of the thing. The impious and secure Ha-
man shall perish with sudden destruction; while
the pious and afflicted Mordecai is unexpectedly
70
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
raised to the highest dignity. . . . Let us there-
fore cast away all impious security, and fear
God; so that, walking according to the oalling
of God, you may be preserved though the sky
fall and the earth be moved."
Feuardent (from Eupert, De victoria verbi,
VIII., 18): "'In order that he may give over a
huge wild beast, as a fierce bear, to destruction,
he first draws him to his food ; so that he may no
sooner hear the report, than feel the pang ; no
Booner see the pit, than fall into it. The cau-
tious hunter well knows that it is more conve-
nient to overpower the entrapped beast, than to
overtake it by a doubtful chase with the dogs
when frightened and running through the woods.
These things are evidently to be regarded as not
merely a part of the prudence of Esther, but
much more of Divine Providence, which directed
the prudence of the queen.' — Surely Haman errs
in that boasting, since he neither recognises
God as the author and bestower of so many good
things, nor gives Him thanks without contumely
and the mark of a most ungrateful mind
What could be more effeminate and miserable
than such a spirit? Does he not seem like ano-
ther Tantalus, catching at the streams that flee
his lips? ... So they who have not peace toward
God and love toward their neighbor, cannot even
have them toward themselves. ' Peace to those
who are near and to those that are afar off,' says
the Lord; 'but the wicked are like the troubled
sea, that cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire
and dirt' (Isa. lvii. 20). . . . Observe finally how
false and vain is the confidence of impious and
cruel men, who seek and hope to oppress and ut-
terly destroy the servants of God. It is them-
selves that perish by the just judgment of God,
and they are often oaught by the very snares they
lay for others; while God rescues His servants,
and magnificently vindicates them. Goliath and
Holofernes are slain with their own sword, and
the saints triumph with their heads. The Baby-
lonian satraps seemed to themselves secure, when
the flames and the lions were about to devour
Daniel and his companions ; but the latter were
gloriously preserved, and the former ignomini-
ously perished by their own artifices and instru-
ments. Pharaoh boasted, ' I will overtake (the
Hebrews), I will divide the spoil' (Exod. xv. 9) ;
but he immediately became food for the fishes,
and a prey for the servants of the Lord. ' The
Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are
foolishness.' ' He that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh at them.' These are the effects of
that judgment of which the Holy Spirit speaks
by the prophets: 'Evil-doers shall be cut off;
but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall in-
herit the earth' (Ps. xxxvii. 9). Let us there-
fore cast away impious security, contempt of
God, and inhumanity towards others ; but let us
walk in the love and fear of the Lord, that at
length we may come to His heavenly kingdom."
2. The previous chapter has shown of what ex-
ertions and self-denial Mordecai and Esther were
capable in their conflict with Haman, since the
salvation of their people was at stake; the pre-
sent chapter shows us the extent of the evil mind
of Haman, since he was only concerned for him-
self. It was not enough for him to have procured
an edict commanding the universal destruction
of the Jews. It seemed too long a time before
this should be accomplished. Neither in his
eyes should Mordecai perish in the manner of
the rest of the Jews. He made it a point not
only to destroy Mordecai, but to expose him to
public shame. So instead of abiding by the lot,
the voice of his divinity, which had imposed pa-
tience on him, he took counsel with his wife and
friends. Thus he reached a point in his mad-
ness of impatience and insecurity which in itself
is the best proof that such a one is not far from
self-destruction.
Starke; "An envious man cannot peacefully
enjoy the benefits which God gives him. Go not
after thine lusts, but refrain thyself from thine
appetites (Sir. xviii. 30). — It is very grievous of
wives to urge their husbands to do wickedly (1
Kings xxi. 7; Sir. xxviii. 15, 16). — He who digs
a pit for others will fall in himself (Sir. xxv. 11,
20). — We must not of ourselves revenge ourselves
on our enemy, but first bring him before the pro-
per tribunal (Rom. xii. 19). — When the wicked
are busy to remove from their path what will
mar their earthly joy, then, on the other hand,
the godly should be diligent to remove that which
will embitter their spiritual and heavenly joy."
CHAP. VI. 1-14. 7J
PART SECOND.
Chaps. VI.— X.
FIRST SECTION.
The Fall of Hainan.
Chaps. VI. VII.
A.— HAMAN, EXPECTING THE HIGHEST HONOR, IS BROUGHT LOW. HE MUST GIVE
THE HIGHEST HONOR TO MORDECAI.
Chapter VI. 1-14.
I. Ahasuerus is reminded of Mordecai" s former meritorious act and desires to know what reward has been
given him. Vers. 1-5.
1 On that night could not the king sleep [the sleep of the king fled] ; and he com-
manded [said] to bring the book of records [memorials] of the Chronicles [words of
2 the days] : and they were read1 before the king. And it was found written, that
Mordecai had told of [upon] Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains
[eunuchs], the keepers of the door [threshold], who sought to lay hand on the king
3 Ahasuerus. And the king said, "What honour and diguity [greatness] hath been
done to Mordecai for [upon] this ? Then [And] said the king's servants [young
men] that ministered unto him [his attendants], There is nothing [has not a word
4 been] done for [with] him. And the king said, Who is in the court ? (Now [And]
Haman was [had] come into the outward court of the king's house, to speak [say]
unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows [tree] that he had prepared for him).
5 And the king's servants [young men] said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth [is
standing] in the court. And the king said, Let him come in.
II. Haman describes the mode of honoring a deserving man, and Ahasuerus commands him to bestow such
on Mordecai. Vers. 6-11.
6 So [And] Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done
[is there to do] unto [in the case of] the man whom the king delighteth to honour
[in whose honour the king delighteth] ? (Now [And] Haman thought [said] in his
7 heart, to whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?). And
Haman answered [said to] the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to ho-
8 nour [in whose honour the king delighteth], Let the royal apparel be brought [let
them bring, etc.] which the king useth to wear [with which the king has clothed
himself], and the horse that the king rideth [has ridden] upon, and the crown-royal
9 which is set upon his head : And let this [the] apparel and [the] horse be delivered
to [given upon] the hand of one [a man] of the king's most noble princes,' that they
may array [and let them apparel] the man withal whom the king delighteth to ho-
nour [in whose honour the king delighteth], and bring him on horseback [cause
him to ride on the horses] through [in] the street [wide place] of the city, and pro-
claim [let them call] before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king
10 delighteth to honour [in whose honour the king delighteth]. Then [And] the king
said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said
72
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
[spoken], and do evenso to Mordecai the Jew that sitteth [the one sitting] at [in]
the king's gate : let nothing fail [not a word fall] of all that thou hast spoken.
11 Then [And] took Haman the apparel, and the horse, and arrayed [apparelled]
Mordecai, and brought him on horseback [caused him to ride] through [in] the
street [wide place] of the city, and proclaimed [called] before him, Thus shall it be
done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour [in whose honour the king
delighteth] .
III. The vexation of Haman is only increased through the evil prophecy of his friends. Vers. 12-14.
12 And Mordecai came again [returned] to the king's gate: but [and] Haman
hasted [urged himself] to his house mourning, and having his head covered [veiled
13 as to the head]. And Haman told [recounted to] Zeresh his wife and all his friends
[lovers] every thing that had befallen him. Then [And] said his wise men and
Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou
hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against [be able to] him, but [for thou]
14 shalt surely fall before him. And while they were yet talking with him [and, i. «.,
then] the king's chamberlains [eunuchs] came [approached], and hasted to bring
Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared [made].
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
i [The original is very explicit, D'XIpJ 1'iTl, " and these were in the act of being called over."— Te.]
' [" The princes, the Parthemim," a term apparently of special distinction.— Te.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-5. As in the former chapter the dan-
ger for Mordecai rose to the highest point, and
we may expect nothing more than that both op-
ponents, if left to themselves, should destroy
each other on the following morning, even before
the careful Esther baa as yet accomplished her
mission, we now perceive how timely is the oc-
currence of an event in the intervening night,
which not only prevents Esther's intercession for
Mordecai from being too late, but also bring3
about the beginning of the downfall of Haman.
The author ascribes this occurrence to the
troubled sleep of Ahasuerus. Thus any who
merely take a superficial view of things might
ascribe it to chance. But to judge from what
we have already seen, it is certainly not opposed
to his view, that the second Targum in all things
transpiring takes God into account, and repre-
sents things as if the angel of God's mercy were
well informed of the lamentations of the daugh-
ters of Israel, and at God's command had dis-
turbed the sleep of Ahasuerus.
Ver. 1. On that night could not the king
sleep — but not because the issued edict against
the Jews had caused him unrest. In conse-
quence he commanded to bring the book
of records of the Chronicles, in which, ac-
cording to chap. ii. 23, Mordecai's deed was in-
scribed. He caused it to be read, not in order
to find out whether the Jews had really deserved
their extermination. This would have been wor-
thy of a, better king, but it is opposed by the
facts in ver. 10 and chap. iii. 15, and also chap,
vii. 5. His object was simply to entertain him-
self with the records of the past. Still it is re-
markable that just that point, treating of Mor-
decai's act, should have been read. On any
other than a providential view, one would be in-
clined to think that he had commanded first of
all to read those passages referring to the Jews.*
The use of the participle □'NIpJ ViTl signifies
that the reading lasted for some time, perhaps
extended through the night. Hence we may not
be astonished that when the passage referred to
came to be read, Haman already waited in the
outer court.
Vers. 2, 3. The name Bigthana reads Bigihan
in chap. ii. 21. The question of theking: 'what
honour and dignity hath been done to
Mordecai for this ? means, What honor and
reward has been assigned him? nt-7.J?, because
of this report. TWy with D# means: to appor-
tion, to requite, (comp. 2 Sam. ii. 6; iii. 8 etal.).\
Ver. 4. The question: -who is in the court?
means, what officer is now present? The king
desired to consult with him as to what distinc-
tion would be appropriate to Mordecai. ItBeems
that those desiring to be admitted to the king's
presence had to wait in the outer court. With
reference to the king's intention to distinguish
Mordecai, comp. Brisson De reg. Pres. princ. I.,
c. 135.
Ver. 5. Even though other officers were there
already, still Haman stood first in choice %
* ["There is reason to think that the Persian kings
were, in most cases, unable to read. (Rawliuson's An-
cient Monarchies. Vol. IV., p. 18). Hence documents,
which they wanted to consult, were read to them.'
Rawlinson. — Te.]
t [" It was a settled principle of the Persian govern-
ment that ' Royal Benefactors ' were to receive an ade-
quate reward. The names of such persons were placed
on a special roll (Herod. VIII. 5), and great care was
taken that they should be properly recommended. (See
Herod. III. HO ; V. 11; VIII. 85; Thucyd. I. 138; Xen-
oph. Bel. III. 1 and 6, etc.). It is a mistake, however, to
suppose (Davidson) that they were always rewarded at
once. Themistocles was inscribed on the list in B. C. 480,
but did not obtain a reward till B. C. 465. Other 'bene-
factors ' waited for months (Herod. V. 11), or perhaps
years (ib. IX. 107) before they were recompensed. Some-
times a ' benefactor1 seems to have received no reward
at all (ib. III. 138)." Rawlinson.— Te.]
t ["He was waiting in the outer court, till it should be
CHAP. VI. 1-14.
73
Doubtless he was the most acceptable to the
king. XUMb a short order: "Let him come in,"
namely into the house of the king.
Vers. 6-11. Convinced that he only could be
the man whom the king delighted to honor, Ha-
inan at once designates the very highest honor
and is immediately commanded to award it to
Mordecai. Our author very strikingly portrays
how Haman, in the very moment in which he
expeoted to receive the highest distinction for
himself, was most effectually and painfully
brought low ; and that his opponent, whom he
hoped to destroy, was elevated to the highest
place of honor. Both of these things, too — and
this adds an additional oharm to the whole
were brought about by Haman himself, by his
own expressed judgment, indeed by his own hand.
Ver. 6. When the king had asked the ques-
tion, Haman thought within himself (1373 1DN),
to whom ■would the king delight to do
honor more than to myself? — UBn "ini\
going beyondme, more than myself. "Ifi'V occurs
in this form only in a later period (comp. Ecol.
xii. 12,9; also chap. ii. 15; vii. 11, 16).
Ver. 7. Haman was quickly prepared to give
answer, and without any difficulty called up one
distinction of honor after another. The sen-
tence: For the man whom the king de-
lighteth to honor, is placed in advance as be-
ing a theme brought up by the king and plea-
sant for his own ears to hear. We can replace
it with the Nomin. Abs. in this way: As regards
the man, etc. Thereafter he adds honor upon
honor that should be bestowed on such a one,
and seems hardly to know where to stop. But
his aim is that the king should thereby designate
this man to be thus honored as his second or
other self, which in view of the divine dignity
of the Persian kings, implied a great deal.
Ver. 8. Let the royal apparel be brought
which the king useth to -wear. — The constr.
of B?3 7 with 3 occurs only here and in the Ara-
bic ; in other places UiJl *s followed by the ac-
cus., or by 7}? with a distinct part of the body.
The garment is not to be one such as the king
is accustomed to wear, but as the perfect tense
fully shows, one which he has worn. Hence it
is not to be a common apparel for a special oc-
casion, or the so-called Median dress, which the
king himself wore, as also those distinguished by
him, especially his princes (comp. Herod. III.
84; VII. 116; Xenophon's Cyrop. VIII. 3, 1 as
also Bahr's annotation on Herod. III. 84) ; but
it was a costly garment, whose value was much
enhanced by the fact that the king had worn it.
It is not expressly related that, the king gave as
a present his own garments as a mark of honor,
at least not by the Grecian authors. Plutarch,
however, relates (in his Artax. 24), that Tiriba-
zus had asked of the king that he put off his
royal apparel and present it to him (Tiribazus,
and doubtless as a mark of honor) ; but that the
king had presented him with it, yet forbade him
announced that the king was ready to grant audiences.'
RiWLINSON. — Tb.]
to wear it.* It is therefore to be remarked that
those things which were used by the king, and
which he had directly touched, especially his
garments, were through him sanctified. A
courtier even called the table sacred, from
which Darius Codomannus had eaten, and wept
when he saw Alexander the Great place his feet
upon it. The steed upon which the king had
ridden wore a crown, and was thereby desig-
nated as royal and sacred. IPO can only be
tertia prset. Niph., not prima Plur. Imperf. Kal,
as in Judg. xvi. 5. lW*13 "l#N does not have
reference to the head of a man, as if one could
with Le Clerc, Rambach and others translate:
" that the royal crown was placed on his head "
(to this is opposed the prseter "|ru, instead of
which the Imperf. should have been chosen) ;
but it rather means: upon the head of the horse.
That the royal riding horse was thus crowned
is also not expressly stated, still it is not impro-
bable, since, according to Xenoph., Cyrop. I. 3,
3 ; viii. 3, 16, to him belonged a golden harness.
Besides all this there is seen on Assyrian and
Old Persian monuments, not so distinct on the
latter, horses of the king, and perhaps also of
princes, that wear an ornament on their heads
terminating in three points, which oan easily be
taken for a crown, f
Ver. 9. And let this apparel and horse
be delivered to the hand of one of the
king's most noble princes, etc. — pnj, the
infinitive, is the supplement of the optative
IS'3' (comp. chap. ii. 3). Delivered to the hand
of, i. e., given over to, given up to. As regards
D'Dfnjjn, comp. chap. i. 3. The place 3'im
*VJ?n, upon which the man to be honored should
ride up and down, must, according to chap. iv.
6, have been before the king's gate and palace,
and therefore a public thoroughfare. Accord-
ing to Gen. xli. 43, a similar honor was bestowed
upon Joseph.
Vers. 10, 11. The king perfectly agreed to
the proposition of Haman at once — and this
muBt no doubt surprise the reader ; lie orders
this designated honor to be Bhown to Mordecai.
That Mordecai was a Jew and accustomed to sit
in the king's gate could be well known to him
from the records of the chronicle of the empire,
or from the courtiers, who read the history to
him, and who had doubtless also given him still
* [" The honors here proposed have been thought
' excessive,' and certainly they are such as Persian mo-
narch? rarely allowed to subjects. Each act would have
been a capital offence if done without permission. Still
there is nothing contrary to Oriental notions in their
being done under sufferance." Eawlinson.— Tr.]
+ ["The meaning of this clause is doubtful. Either
it may be translated, ' and on whose head a royal crown
is set," the reference being to the horse, which concei-
vably might bear an ornament like a crown on its crest ;
or, 'and that a royal crown be set upon his head,' the
reference being to the man, and the suggestion being
not to deprive the king of his own diadem, but to place
on the head of the person about to be honored a crown
similar in general character to the royal one. (Compare
chap i 11). The grammatical construction is in favor
of the former rendering ; but we have in evidence that
Persian horses even wore crowns on their heads." —
Rawlinson. We may add that the latter idea is too fan-
tastic for even Oriental taste.— Tb.]
74
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
other information respecting Mordecai.* It is
very remarkable that the king did not here
remember, or at least overlooked the fact that
he had decreed the destruction of the Jews, and
had even given them over to Haman ; but this is
not entirely inexplicable, as may be seen from
his usual mode of doing things. — Let nothing
fall of all that thou hast spoken, i. e., omit
nothing of all these things (oomp. Josh. xzi. 45;
Judg. ii. 19).
Vers. 12-14. While Mordecai returns, loaded
with honors, to his usual place of station, the
gate of the king, j- Haman, with covered head and
sorrowful heart, hastens home to his friends
and wife only to hear the discouraging prophecy
that the unfortunate occurrence will be the be-
ginning of his end. To cover the head was a
sign of deep shame and distress (comp. 2 Sam.
iv. 30; Jer. xiv. 4). J His friends are now
called wise men, at least some of them, because
they undertook to forecast his future. Perhaps
there were among them some magicians, who,
according to Cicero, Divin. I. 23, were a nation
of wise and learned men They very wisely
concluded : If Mordecai be of the seed of
the Jews, then h Spin kV, thou shalt not
prevail against him ; then shalt not thou be
the conqueror, but he (comp. Gen. xxxii. 26,
TiSri 7l'2J), either thou wilt entirely, or at least
Burely fall. It may be asked, how did they
arrive at suoh a conclusion ? If they only attri-
buted enmity on the part of Mordecai, then they
needed only to recall the edict against the Jews
and published by Haman. But they also attri-
bute a superior power to him, because he is a
Jew. Hence they must base themselves on
something else. Most interpreters, among them
also Bertheau and Keil, think that although
these friends had before counselled Haman to
have Mordecai, the unfortunate Jew, hung, yet
now when he had become a highly honored per-
son on the part of the king, and this too, as it
were, through a miracle, the truth impresses
itself upon them that the Jews must be under
the especial divine protection. And indeed we
find far more indicated here than a fear of the
shrewdness and energy of the Jews. The fact
that the Jews still existed in spite of all afflic-
tions which they had endured must have im-
pressed many with the conviction that there was
a higher power assisting and caring for them.
But these persons are more concerned now to ap-
pear very wise. Hence they act as if they had
not known that Mordecai was a Jew, although
Haman, in chap. v. 15, had expressly so stated.
* ["There is nothing strange in the king's knowing
the nationality and position of Mordecai. His nation-
ality would probably have been noted in the book of
the chronicles; and, when told that nothing had been
done tor him (ver. 3t the king would naturally have
asked his position." Rawlinson. — Ta.]
t [" It is quite consonant with Oriental notions that
Mordecai, after receiving the extraordinary honors as-
signed him. should return to the palace and resume
his former humble employment. Ahasuerus regarding
him as sufficiently rewarded, and not yet intending to
do any thing more for him." Rawlinson.— Tn.]
t [It was also " through shame probably ; not wishing
any of his acquaintance to accost him." Rawlinson.
— Ta.J
Ver. 14. In order that the narrative may make
a very strong impression, there must now follow
blow upon blow in quick succession. Hardly
had the prophecy been uttered before its fulfill-
ment begins. Accordingly the eunuchs of the
king arrive, who press Haman to come to the
banquet of the king.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
Ver. 1 sq. 1. Mordecai, according to chap. iv.
14, was convinced that if Esther would not un-
dertake the rescue of her people, there would be
found other means and ways. He had placed
his trust less in her than in the general provi-
dence which watched over him. Now it is seen
that though Esther had become willing to inter-
cede, he was correct in his position. Even be-
fore Esther had ventured to express her request
for her people, Mordecai himself was threatened
with destruction ; and before he could do any-
thing to avert, or was even acquainted with his
danger, it was already removed. It seems to
have been a very insignificant means of which
Providence availed itself for his protection.
But it was one which, because it clearly lay
above human co-operation, very definitely re-
vealed the higher activity in his behalf: it was
the sleeplessness of Ahasuerus. When the Lord
is desirous of protecting or saving His people,
something must serve Him of which men leaBt
thought before. Nothing is either too great or
too small for Him.
Brenz : " This is as it is written in the Psalm:
' He suffered no man to do them wrong; nay,
He rebuked even kings for their sake.' For the
pious are so great a care to God, that in order
to preserve them He does not even spare kings,
but brings upon them various calamities."
Fe uardent : " Let every one bear in mind day
and night that pious proposition of Augustine
concerning the solicitude of God for His saints
(Conf, iii. 11): "So day and night dost Thou
watch for my safe-guard as if, forgetful of Thy
whole creation in heaven and earth, Thou con-
sideredst me alone, and hadst no care for
others.'"
Berl. Bible: "0 Lord, it is good to trust in
Thee in the expectation of Thy help! Thou
dost continually watch over the souls left in Thy
care. And though Thou dost even wait until
things have come to extremities, in order to
cause the greater exercise of faith, so that none
may despair of Thy assistance, still at the right
time Thou art ever ready to help. — What indeed
is more natural than that a king cannot sleep,
and that he should wish something read to him?
It is this altogether natural, yet wonderful lead-
ing, which causes the hearts of those who expe-
rience it to rejoice! To all other hearts this is
dark. This wise, divine Providence is still
unknown to those who only live in and for them-
selves."
2. It does not appear that Ahasuerus had a
restless night because he had grievous thoughts
regarding the edict of destruction against the
entire Jewish peeple. We find that he is far too
careless, much too indifferent and superficial,
for suoh a state of mind (comp. chap. iii. 15;
vii. 5). Still we would have naturally expected
CHAP. VI. 1-14.
it, and it would have been well for him if it had
been so. Had he been concerned about the
great number of subjects that would thus be
murdered, it woull noi have been necessary for
him first to be reminded of the fact, through the
reading of the history of his reign, that he had
once been in danger of being murdered himself.
He would have spontaneously remembered that
only a Mordecai saved him from his fate of de-
struction. It would have been quite just that he,
while robbing so many of their rest and sleep,
whom he had destined to a doom of death,
should be sleepless not one, but many nights.
Would that every one whose eyes cannot find
sleep at night might ask whether he had at any
time or in any manner done wrong, which he
should be in haste to set right; or whether he
does not still owe thanks for some benefit re-
ceived! Would that all those who must be
awake at night were clearly conscious of the
fact that there is Another who is also awake,
and that He it is who imposes upon us this
sleeplessness ! Only when we look up to Him
can we find true rest (comp. Ps. cxix. 55).
S. It was soon after the marriage of Ahasuerus
with Esther that Mordecai discovered and re-
ported the conspiracy. Hence it was now over
five years that this meritorious deed had been
recorded, but not yet rewarded. Instead of
reward, he was threatened with destruction.
Those who are diligent for Ihe welfare of others
must, often give up the hope of receiving their
well-merited reward, even at the present day.
What is more sorrowful still is the fact that one
is often inclined to impugn both their motives
and their work, as if they had not designed it
or exerted themselves to effect it. Mordecai' s
history may be very instructive and comforting
to such. Ahasuerus too may here again as else-
where remind us of a faithful watchman, who,
however it may go with him, never sleeps nor
slumbers The works of the good are not only
recorded on earth, where they are often and
easily forgotten, but they are above all recorded
in heaven. It is because God saves men by His
grace that He will render unto all according to
their work— to those not obedient to the truth,
but obeying unrighteousness, displeasure and
wrath; and to the others according to their
patience in good works, glory and honor (Rom.
ii. 7). The seed that they have scattered, if it
was good, is indestructible, and cannot be lost;
and when the time comes, God will bring it to
maturity, so that it may bear abundant fruit
either to the sowers or to others (comp. Gal.
vi. 9).
Beenz: "Although men are unmindful of
benefits received, and, as Pindar says, old thanks
sleep, still our Lord God is never forgetful."
When God's time for reward has come, then
even the zeal of enemies must assist Him, as we
have seen in our history of Haman. However
watchful and diligent our enemies may be in
order to utterly destroy the pious, yet all their
acts and labor form only the ground of the
scene, which by the help of God is made to serve
in perfecting the web of His leadings.— Brenz:
"ThiB is the right hand of the Most High
which brings it to pass that those good things
occur to the pious which the wicked hope
for ; and to the ungodly there come those evils
which they have prepared for the godly." For
the wicked are only the bearers of that power
which is ever desirous of evil, and yet ever pro-
duces good.
Feuardent: "In Haman thou perceivest how
blind and erring is the temper of every ambi-
tious man. He admires and regards only him-
self; he fancies himself worthy of all honor and
reverence, and thinks that all things are due to
him. He despises all others as obscure, abject
and vile. It is well, however, that there is a God
in heaven who laughs to scorn, contemns, judges
and hurls down the proud from their seats, but
glorifies the humble: so that all may learn to be
wise concerning themselves, and to be content
with moderate fortune Let all the pious
therefore take courage, nor ever fail or despair
of divine help on account of the rage and greatest
power or violence of tyrants. For Christ still
lives ; He reigns, and will forever reign ; and
He puts all His enemies under His feet."
Starke : " Princes should have diligent care
that none who have deserved well of the State
or of themselves are left to go unrewarded (Gen.
xli. 42; Dan. ii. 48). God knows our acts of
kindness ; and though we may regard them as
lost or ignored, yet He can bring them to the
light at the proper time to receive even a greater
reward than if they had been immediately re-
warded (Gen. xli. 12 sq., 39sqq.)."
Ver. 6 sq. Feuardent: "Diligently weigh
the change of the right hand of the Most High.
Haman hid come into the court in order that
by authority of the king he might destroy Mor-
decai by an ignominious death. Him, however,
he is compelled to exhibit and proclaim to all in
royal magnificence. He had come for the pur-
pose of raising him aloft fastened upon a very
high cross wiih the utmost shame. But on the
contrary he is compelled to adorn this very man
with regal splendors, to set him on the king's
horse, and to herald him publicly as the mon-
arch's most dear and honored friend. He had
come with the design of bringing a capital charge
against him ; and he has the task of decorating
his head with the royal diadem."
It seems to us to be like a divine irony in the
destiny of Haman that he is himself compelled
to assign the highest distinction to his mortal
enemy, and that the king instructs him to im-
part this honor with his own hands, thus making
his downfall the more striking and lamentable.
But in fact this same truth is plainly shown
daily over the entire ungodly world. The world
must ever concede honor and glory to those who
have deserved well respecting the welfare of
mankind; but it is by no means its heroes and
divinities who can claim this merit, though they
have been regarded as the men of glory from
antiquity (Gen. xi. 4).* What the latter have
accomplished has been deception, wars and vain
labors. It is those whom the world regards
leaBt of all fit for their work that have done most
for it. And whose will be all that the world
* According to Thiersch ( Ueber den christliehen Stoat,
t> 209) Napoleon maintained that a prince who followed
his conscience would be a good and noble governor,
but not a great man.
78
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
has brought forth and fostered, and which it
regards as great and beautiful? When the
judgments of God shall have been consum-
mated upon the world, lambs will pasture upon
it as if upon their own pasture, and the waste
places of the fat ones shall strangers eat (Isa.
t. 17).
Vers. 12-14. 1, When Haman had bestowed
the highest dignity on Mordecai, he hastened
home, sad and with covered countenance. It is
a bad sign that he knew nothing better to do in
such an hour. Those are upon difficult paths
who feel themselves humbled when they have
been obliged to show deserved honor to others.
Even in the estimation of the world it woald
have been far better if he had endeavored to
change his enemy into a friend. And had he
but reflected and correctly apprehended his pre-
sent position, he would have recognized the
warning voice of God, which endeavored in a
firm, but yet kind tone to lead him in the way
of his salvation. The final judgments of God
are ever preceded by other heralds. They are
indeed the announcement of the beginning of
the revelations of the wrath of God; but they
are also proofs of the long-sufi°ering and love of
God, which would, even in the eleventh hour lead
to salvation. Bat it is a remarkable fact that
when the worldly need their wisdom most, espe-
cially they who have usually been regarded as
wise, just then they are utterly bereft of coun-
sel; and hence their proud and stubborn hearts
all at once become faint.
Feuardent : " In prosperity he is highly in-
solent and cruel; but in adversity he is so
broken and dejected that he knows not which
way to turn." But his counsellors are no better
off than himself. Feuardent: " His friends do
not console him, nor show him any plan for
escaping his danger, which nevertheless was
then the most needful help for Haman : but they
throw him, just hesitating between hope and
fear, into despair. ' Thou wilt surely fall in
his sight,' say they. Had they admonished him
indeed of his many and heinous sins toward God
and His servants, of his duty of recognizing the
inevitable judgment of God, of repentance, of
reconciliation ; then perchance it may have
turned out better with him." — When our author
permits these advisers to give expression of the
superiority of the people of God, their words are
much more to the point and weighty, as Feu-
ardent says: "The power and efficacy of
truth is so great that even its enemies and all
the ungodly bear testimony to it. So the magi-
cians of Pharaoh are compelled to explain :
' This is the finger of God ;' and the Egyptians
cry : ' Let us flee before Israel, for the Lord
fighteth for them' (Ex. viii. 19; xix. 25)."
2. What Haman fears, and what, is hinted at
by his advisers, is the great truth that the Lord
had laid a. stone in Zion, upon which those fall-
ing upon it shall be broken. But it is just those
that have placed themselves upon this stone,
who are secure against all assaults by the world.
And what the world daily and clearly demon-
strates is the fact that it is not enough to recog-
nize or apprehend the truth ; but it is necessary
also to give the heart a proper position with
respect to it. Happy are they who need not
fear, but who can console their hearts when
the Lord says: "I will bless them that bless
thee, and curse them that curse thee;" "Touch
not mine anointed, and do my prophets no
harm" (Ps. cv. 15); "He who toucheth you,
toucheth the apple of his eye" (Zech. ii. 8).
Starke: "Self-conceit, obstinacy and selfish-
ness are three shameful and harmful evils that
have plunged many into ruin (1 Tim. vi. 9).
Wordly persons seek their highest good in ex-
ternal pomp and appearance (Ps. xlix. 12). —
Self-love appropriates all things to itself, and
concedes nothing to its neighbor. — Men seek
perishable honor; would that they strove dili-
gently after the imperishable honor and glory
of heaven! — The manner of wicked advisers is,
when the haughty fare too well, to goad them on
to vindictiveness; but if something unforeseen
checks them, they drive them to despair. — God
is the same always; He can bring it about that
neither earth nor hell can prevail against us. —
The wicked are nearest destruction when they
deem themselves farthest from it (Ps. lxxiii. 7,
18, 19)."
B.— ON THE VERY GALLOWS CAUSED TO BE ERECTED FOR MORDECAI, HAMAN,
ACCUSED BY ESTHER, IS HIMSELF HUNG.
Chapter VII. 1-10.
I. Esther pleads for her People, and accuses Haman. Vers. 1-6.
So [And] the king and Haman came to banquet [drink] with Esther the queen.
And the king said again [also] unto Esther, on the second day, at the banquet
[feast] of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther ? [ask,'] and it shall be granted
[given to] thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the
half of the kingdom [ask to the half of the kingdom, and it shall be done]. Then
CHAP. VII. 1-10.
77
[And] Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favor in thy sight
[eyes], O king, and if it please [be good upon] the king, let my life [soul] be given
4 me at my petition, and my people at my request : For we are sold, I and my peo-
ple, to be destroyed [for one to destroy], to be slain [to smite], and to perish [cause
to perish] : but if [and provided] we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen,
I had held my tongue [hushed], although [for] the enemy [adversary] could not
5 countervail [is not equalling] the king's damage. Then [And] the king Ahasu-
erus answered [said],1 and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he [is he this], and
where is he [is this he]2, that durst presume in his heart [whose heart has filled
6 him] to do so ? And Esther said, The [a man]3 adversary and enemy is this
wicked Haman.4 Tkon rA^jn tro„,„„ „,. j\.„:j r± — m.i -■■l_^. ,i
the queen.
Then [And] Haman was afraid [terrified] before the king and
II. Ahasuerus, extremely enraged, causes the Death of Haman. Vers. 7-10.
7 And the king, arising [arose] from the banquet of wine in his wrath, went into
the palace-garden : and Haman stood up to make request for his life [soul] to
[from] Esther the queen ; for he saw that there was evil determined [finished]
8 against him by [from with] the king. Then [And] the king returned out of the
palace-garden into the place of the banquet [feast] of wine; and Haman was fallen
[falling] upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he [Is it to]
force the queen also before [with] me in the house ? As the word went out of the
9 king's mouth, [and] they covered Haman's face. And Harbonah, one of the
chamberlains [eunuchs], said before the king, Behold also, the gallows [tree] fifty
cubits high,5 which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken [spoke] good
for [upon] the king standeth in the house of Haman. Then [And] the king
10 said, Hang him thereon. So [And] they hanged Haman on the gallows [tree]
that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then [And] was the king's wrath pacified
[subsided].
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
1 [Ver. 5. The Chaldaizing influence upon the language is evident in this vague repetition of the verb 1DX,
which eventually led to its use in the sense of commanding. — Tb.]
2 [Ver. 5. The pron. 50H here very nearly approaches a copula. — Th.]
Ver. 6. KTX here is more than the ordinary apposition of class; it is almost a demonstrative like iste.
-Tb.
Ver. 6. The original is very intense : Haman, this bad man. Doubtless her finger pointed to him. — Ta.J
6 [Ver. 9. The position of this clause in the original is more striking, being at the end of the sentence.
— Tb.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
Vers. 1-6. What here follows seems a thing
to be expected as a matter of course, yet the
manner of its occurrence, particularly the rapi-
dity with which events succeed each other, as
well as their magnitude and importance, imparts
a certain charm to the narrative. Esther now
steps unreservedly forward at the banquet that
she has prepared and' to which she has invited
Haman (in chap. vi. 14), and boldly presents
her accusation and request. The king is quite
prepared to give a correct decision in the case.
Ver. 1. So the king and Haman came to
banquet 'with Esther the queen. — niJIEO
stands for: in order to participate in the il/WO.
The drinking after the feast, |™n nntJ'p (comp.
chap. v. 6) was probably regarded as the chief
matter at the time. But Esther petitioned (ver.
3): let my life be given at my petition,
and my people at my request. — The 3 is
the so-called 3 pretii, "about," "for." Her
petition is seemingly the ransom which she prof-
fers: "my people" means in short: for the life
of my people. She bases her petition in ver. 4
on the words: For we are sold, I and my
people, to be destroyed, etc. — She has all
the more occasion for the expression ?J"13DJ
since she and her people were left to the mercy
of Haman for the sum of money he had promised
the king if the Jews should be destroyed (chap.
iii. 9; iv. 7). TDtyrn and the following active
infinitives are clearly substitutes for the passive
form, precisely as in the royal order (chap. iii.
13).* She also adds, however: But if we had
been sold for bondmen and bondwomen,
I had held my tongue, although the ene-
my could not countervail the king's
damage, and she thereby indicates that it con-
cerns not only her own, but also the king's
interest. ?7K, contracted from i?DX, as in Eccl.
vi. 6, also common in the Aramaic language,
* [" Esther here quotes the exact words of the edict
issued for the destruction of the Jews. Thus the king
would not fail to understand her, and to learn for the
first time that his favorite was a Jewess." Rawlinbos.
— Tb.J
78
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
introduces an event in a hypothetical manner as
being more desirable, and is followed by the
perfect, if instead another event than the one
anticipated has occurred. In the next sentence
usually the perfect follows with 1 consec. Here,
however, the 1 is absent because Esther does
not desire to say what she would do, but what
she would have done: "I had held my tongue,
although," etc. The sentence: T)p 1ST] J'K '3,
means according to B. Sal. ben-Melech and
Rambach : The enemy can by no means equal,
compensate or make good by his money the loss
which the king suffers by our destruction
Similar also are the views of Clericus and others,
who suggest an intermediate thought enlarging
the meaning, such as: "But I dare not be
sileat." Though even such an addition were in
itself not doubtful, still Hltl' in the Kal, with
TT
3, does not mean compensare (to compensate),
but to be equal to, or to be worth as much as
some other thing (comp. Prov. iii. 15; viii. 11).
The assumption of Gesenius, that the expres-
sioa: "The enemy is not equal to the damage
to the king," is only another form of sentence for:
"The enemy cannot make good the damage to the
king," is very improbable. Hence Bertheau and
Keil interpret it: "The enemy is not worthy of
the king's damage," i. e. is not of sufficient account
that I should grieve or distract the king. They
insist that pTJJ does not only mean pecuniary loss,
as is commonly assumed from Ezra iv. 13, 22,
but according to the Targums means also bodily
harm (comp. Targ. Ps. xci. 7; Gen. xxvi. 11;
1 Chron. xvi. 22). Still the thought thus gained
is not quite satisfactory. It would have mat-
tered little, not whether Haman, but whether
the Jews were worthy of the king's displeasure.
Certain it is that Esther expressed herself in
very brief words, and such as implied more.
Perhaps we may enlarge their sense thus: I
would have held my tongue ; for the punishment
of the enemy is not worthy of, is less important
than the averting of the damage which the king
will suffer, now that the Jews are ordered to be
destroyed ; but this he would not have Buffered
if they had been sold as slaves, and hence had
realized a large sum. In this way the chief
thought is made to be the loss which the king
would sustain if a whole people were destroyed ;
and Esther's keeping out of sight her special
concern about the destruction of the Jews, which
would have been very shrewd in her under any
circumstances, becomes particularly so in the
present instance and before Ahasuerus. The
ancient translators, it seems, were at a loss here,
and hence offer us but little help.
Ver. 5 with its twice-repeated 1DN,1: Then
the king Ahasuerus answered, and said
unto Esther the queen, by its solemn title :
"The king to the queen," indicates the great
importance of these words and of the moment.
The king of the great empire here addressed
her, who was a daughter of her people, but also
the queen in this great realm. At the same time
the twice-repeated: "he said," reveals the agi-
tation of the king, to which also corresponds the
double question: Who and where is he?
137 isoa T^X: that durst presume in his
heart to do so. — We might expect it to read :
" Who had filled his heart," viz. with the thought
to do so. But it is the heart from which proceed
the thoughts, and which determines the rest of
the man to conclusive purposes (Isaiah xliv. 20;
Eccl. viii. 11; Matt. xv. 19).*
Ver. 6. Esther still hesitates to name Haman,
but at last brings the predicate into prominence:
The adversary and enemy is this wicked
Haman. — She does not say: "The evil-disposed
person," viz. of whom she is speaking, but with-
out the article, IX ETK, in order to make as
strikingly prominent as possible the conception
of the man so inimical. Haman trembled; for
rv£3J means more than that he was simply
alarmed (comp. 1 Chron. xxi. 30; Dan. viii. 17,
and D'FHJ/II, Ps. lxxxviii. 17 ; Job vi. 4).
Vers. 7-10. Thereupon the king became at once
terribly angry. Because of his agitation he
went aside for a moment, but soon returned, and
at once gave order for the execution of Haman,
— Into the palace-garden (comp. chap. i. 5),
which was the place to which he retired. This
is strikingly expressed by Dp . He did this in
order to recover from the first burst of anger,
and to consider what was to be done with Ha-
man. Haman remained standing to make
request of his life to Esther.— 1E73J-7J?, pro-
perly, "because of his life" (tfiM with S^, as
in chap. iv. 8), since he saw that on the part of
the king there was no more hope for him if
Esther would not intercede for him; strictly:
that evil was determined against him by
the king, fully determined (i"l73 as in 1 Sam.
xxv. 17; Ezra v. 13).
Ver. 8. "Was fallen, i. e. had kneeled down
P3: as in Josh. vii. 10 and elsewhere) upon
the bed whereon Esther was (sat), hence
as a petitioner he fell at her feet.f The king,
however, soon returned and said — since he oould
not control his anger, but now manifested it
more terribly: Will he force the queen
also before me in the house ? — The infin.
#1337 is here placed, as if he were understood
as asking a question. But it may also be made
stronger (comp. 1 Chron. xv. 2, etc.), viz. to
trample under foot, to subjugate. If the ques-
tion had only been whether the queen could be
forced sexually, then Ahasuerus could not have
asked such a question so lightly. It would only
have been an expression of his highest displea-
sure and wrath. If Esther were honest and
just, she must of necessity have exonerated
Haman from such an evil design. The whole
situation of things makes such a foul purpose
highly improbable, indeed impossible. Or per-
haps Ahasuerus was only asking whether, if one
would attain anything from the queen, it was
* ["Ahasuerus could not really have doubted; but
he atfect3*to doubt, that he may express his anger at
the act, apart from all personal considerations." Raw-
LINSON. — lR.]
t ["Like the Greeks and Romans, the Persians re-
clined at their meals on sofas or couches (Herod ix
80, 82; Xenoph. Cgrop. VIII. 8, 16, etc"). Rawlinson.
-Tb.J
CHAP. VIII. 1-10.
necessary to make request with suoh force.*
We can readily think that Esther sought to
withdraw from Haman, but that he, as it were,
forcibly detained her. The word of which it is
now said: As the word went out of the
king's mouth, they covered Hainan's face,
cannot mean the question that just preceded.
Then it would be " this word ;" but this is ano-
ther word. We may consider that this word,
possibly with a little addition, quite intelligible
to the officers, was to them a command to take
Haman out of his sight. The subject of Ian is
those whose duty it was to execute such com-
mands, the servants of the king. The covering
of the face was probably the beginning of the
execution of the death-sentence (comp. Curtius
vi. 8, 22: "They brought Philetas with covered
head into the palace"). Even old interpreters,
such as Brentius, Rickel, Feuardent, remind us
of the sentence in Cicero pro G. Rabirio IV. 13 :
"Lictor, bind his hands, veil his head, hang him
on the hapless tree."f
Ver. 9. In order that it might appear very
strikingly what our history here would teach —
that he who dug a pit for others, especially for
pious Jews, Bball fall into it himself; or yet
more definitely that inimical heathendom shall
perish by its own devices, it must be so ordered
that one of the officers shall bring it about to
have Haman hung upon the same gallows which
he had caused to be erected for Mordecai. And
in order to show how much hated this enemy of
the Jews was, one of the king's officers must
point out this very tree of death. This person
was Harbonah, doubtless the one mentioned in
chap. i. 10, one of the eunuchs of the king, i, e.
of the higher officers who waited on the king.
The word DJ with which he begins: Behold
also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which
Haman had made for Mordecai, etc., may
not imply that the other servants or even Har-
bonah himself had already brought accusations
against Haman, and in addition would also re-
proach him with the erection of this gallows
(Bertheau, Keil) ; but from Harbonah's view,
it points out the most appropriate means at hand
offered by the prepared gallows for the
fate of Haman. This is more significant
against Haman. In giving prominence to
the fact that Mordecai was the one who spoke
well of the king by revealing the plot against the
king's life (comp. chap. ii. 22; vi. 2), he intimates
that it was more fit for Haman to grace the gal-
lows than the one for whom it was originally
erected.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
Vers. 1 sqq. 1. How very carefully Esther brings
her petition before the king, even though the
king for the second time has accepted her invi-
tation ! She waits until the king himself inquires
* [" Of course the king did not believe his own words.
But lie meant to tax Haman with a further offence in
not sufficiently respecting the person of the queen;
and he thereby suggested to the attendants his instant
execution." Eawlinsok. — Te.]
t [" The Macedonians and the Romans are known to
have commonly muffled the heads of prisoners before
executing them; but it is not mentioned elsewhere
than here as a Persian custom." Rawiinsoh.— Tb.J
into it anew, and until he has even obligated
himself to her to the half of his kingdom; she so
frames her speech that her more personal inte-
rest, which in the present instance would have
been of paramount importance in the eyes of the
king, is presented equally with, indeed in ad-
vance of, all others. She avoids at once opposing
herself against Haman; and finally she seeks to
take the king on his weak side by giving promi-
nence to the fact that in the destruction of the
Jews the king would sustain a great loss. It was
to her still a question whether Ahasuerus would
permit her to interfere in the business of govern-
ment— indeed whether he would grant her a
hearing while opposed to so powerful a rival.
But she acted at last with fear and trembling —
although she was assured of the best ally as be-
ing with her — not only Ahasuerus, but also God's
love. Her petition, moreover, had the very best
effeot. Thus the Lord, who leads the hearts of
men and of kings like streams of water, has His
help prepared for us, when we in our little faith
stand trembling; and often where we hardly
dared hope or advance, He gives us the greatest
success. All depends upon this, that our hesi-
tation be not of unbelief, but that we have fears
only from our own power, capability, or worthi-
ness; and that we seek not so much to promote
our own cause as rather God's, and ours through
Him.
Starke: "Trembling soul, if this heathen
king is so trustworthy in his promises, then your
heavenly King is far more faithful. The former
promises only to give the half of his kingdom —
but He to give you the whole kingdom (Luke xii.
32; xxii. 29). Truth may be crushed to the
earth, but it dies not; it can be avoided or of-
fended, yet it will finally come to light and tri-
umph."
2. Haman, from the very outset, had moved
toward the fulfilment of his wishes with the great-
est assurance. Even after being inquired of by
the king as to what should be done to the man
whom the king would especially honor, he had
answered with the greatest confidence. Doubt-
less he thought that, because of the friendship,
or because of the weakness of the king, all things
were for him permissible, and he hoped every
thing for himself. Yet if he had but reflected,
he must have acknowledged that this foundation
was unsafe, and that it was easy for another to
gain the favor of the king against himself. But
this is the common curse of human Belf-confidence
that it places us in a state of insecurity. He
who has succeeded in gaining the favor of the
great is very liable to think that now he will also
easily govern the servants of his Lord.
3. Truly it is a distressing condition in which
Haman finds himself at the table of Esther.
Outwardly he receives the highest distinction
and is made happy, but inwardly there already
comes a painful presentiment of his downfall.
He is indeed already bound by the cord that shall
plunge him into destruction.
Feuardent: "But in all this the first notable
thing is how far apart stand the judgments of the
Almighty and those of this world, since those
whom the world esteems most happy and fortu-
nate are truly most unhappy and unfortunate be-
fore God Men, indeed, seeing only what
80
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
appears, and judging according to the outward
semblance, would have boldly pronounced no
man more fortunate than Haman. But in fact
and in God's view, who sees the heart, he was
of all men the most miserable. For he was in-
flated with ambition, he was hot with envy, he
was bursting with hate, and went to the banquet
in the most disturbed state of mind. There
rankled in the bottom of his heart the thought
of that fresh honor which he had lately been
forced to confer upon his enemy; and he was
moreover goaded to desperation by what his
friends had told him to his face — that he him-
Belf, having once begun to fall before the Jew,
would forever be his inferior, and that Mordecai
would increase in glory and honor."
Haman, at the table of Esther, is but a picture
of all wicked ones at the table of fortune. The
change of circumstances now manifest, it is true,
was unique, and seemed as if purposely selected
for him. — Feuardent: "A little while ago all
fell prostrate before Haman, but now he quails
before a feeble woman. He who persecuted the
Jews worse than a dog or a serpent, now be-
comes a suppliant to a Jewess. He who had
procured a cruel slaughter for all the Hebrews
is now anxious to save his own life. He who
could not endure Mordecai now intercedes with
his domestic." The old reverse substantially
recurs: "At the feast he who was unwilling to
afford a crumb of bread to Lazarus, asked to be
cooled by the finger of Lazarus dipped in water."
This change will be most striking when Christ
shall lay all His enemies at His feet.
On ver. 8. 1. The only means left to Haman
to be tried for his salvation evidently was that he
Bhould fall at the feet of Esther and implore her
pardon. But it was just this which Ahasueru",
now returning from the garden, interpreted as a
great crime, and so it filled the measure of his
sin. When once the season of divine grace and
forbearance allotted to sinners is closed, when
punitive justice arises against them, then it seems
as if they can undertake nothing but what wiU
aggravate their case and hasten their own de-
sti uction. As Ahasuerus did in this case, so did
all those who stood by the side of Haman and
had given him their confidence. Now that he is
so near his downfall, these are inclined to use
every thing against the offender by which he
might obtain deliverance. They know him too
well to be ignorant of the tricks and deceptions
of which he is capable. Petitions for pardon —
and even repentance — is in such cases often
thought to be only the repentance of Cain, afford-
ing no guarantee of genuine reform. Possibly
these judges go too far in their sentence, but
God's justice employs them as channels against
the offenders.
Feuardent: "The king indeed is unjust in
fixing this calumny upon Haman — but God is
just who permits the righteous penalty to fall
upon him for his lies and calumnies, inasmuch as
he would have brought violence upon other vir-
gins or matrons, and would have plunged the
whole people of God into ruin. Accordingly it
is written: "By what one sinneth, by that also
shall he be punished;" and again: "With what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you
again."
2. The question raised by ancient interpreters
whether it was not the duty of Esther to exone-
rate Haman from the accusation by the king, and
to second his request for pardon, can only be sa-
tisfactorily answered by making the proper dis-
tinction between the views of such points in the
Old and in the New Testaments. Upon New Testa-
ment grounds, the answer would undoubtedly be
in the affirmative. It is no greater offence than
one which the Christian, though he have suffered
the most grievous insults and offensive acts, should
be prepared to pardon, in a spirit free from ha-
tred or revenge. Now whether the king, here
acting in his judicial capacity, could entertain
her request, would have been a different matter.
Taking, however, the Old Testament view, the
answer would most certainly be, No ; and this the
more, inasmuch as there was not yet a more sa-
tisfactory means of averting evil than the de-
structive judgments of God upon Haman, who, as
an Agagite and an Amalekite, was regarded as
representing the cause of evil in opposition to
the cause of God and of His people (comp. Doct.
hist, thoughts on Neh. iii. 36 sqq.). Further, in
Esther's conduct is plainly shown the important
fact that, when the season of grace is expired,
Justice desires no interruption through petitions
for mercy. This truth must be taken to heart,
and we must not bewail its force When Chris-
tians see the wicked perish, let them weep over
their fate. But we must rejoice over the divine
judgments upon iniquity. This serves to
strengthen our faith in a holy, ever active God.
Our own opposition to iniquity must be as unre-
lenting as was that of Esther against Haman.
Starke: "It is barely credible that the king
should have thought further upon this matter —
have perceived the wonderful dealings of God.
Neither can we believe that he was thereby led
to know the true God. Esther, however, and
Mordecai, together with many of the Jews, must
have been gloriously strengthened in their faith.
Jehovah's judgments are just (Bev. xix. 2).
Let the Christian here notice the goodness and
truthfulness of God (Rom. xi. 22), and let both
be to him a warning voice!"
On vers. 9, 10. Bitter and sarcastic must it
have struck upon the ears of Haman when Har-
bonah, one of the eunuchs, who up to this time
had humbly shown him all desired honor, re-
marked, now that the doomed man was led away :
'' Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which
Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken
good for the king, standeth in the house of Ha-
man." Must it then be that this despicable crea-
ture should raise his foot against the dead lion?
See how in this moment he turns toward the
newly rising sun with praises in his mouth I
Must this miserable slave also add to the already
great misfortune of Haman — that he should be
hung on just this gallows which he had intended
for the Jewsl Poor Haman! Didst thou not
know that in Buch ways as were thine thou hadst
no really true friend ? Didst thou not perceive
that a selfish spirit and hypocrisy formed thy
bodyguard? Not know that those who exter-
nally bowed the knee to thee, inwardly gnashed
their teeth against thee? True friendship and
fellowship can only exist between those who are
together united to God. Even then we may of-
CHAP. VIII. 1-17.
81
ten discover the overweening egotism which
again loosens such bonds. Where this common
bond is wanting, there separation must ensue;
there, in fact, each goes his own way. If in
such a case all the secret endeavors and aims
could be exposed, we would discover a "war of
all against all." It is frequently seen that ap-
parent friends afterward become executioners,
who, by their mockery, add to the misery of
the culprit. In the future also it will be found
that the enemies of the people of God will them-
selves destroy each other in order that judgment
on them may be perfect. There is a universal
just government of the world on the part of God.
He who is capable of so shameful an act as not
only to wish to destroy his enemy, but also to
cover him with the greatest possible ignominy,
must not be surprised if in his own well deserved
misfortune great shame shall also accompany his
own end. Whoever digs a pit for others, will
himself fall into it. This proverb verifies itself
in its fullest sense. It has the ring of Satanio
mockery when Harbonah says: "And the gallows
also stand ready, and that, too, before Haman's
own house." There are many people who hesi-
tate not to utter it mockingly, and how good were
it for all those who are in danger of entering the
way of destruction, should they hear it said loud
enough for them to hear, and should they repeat
it to themselves: "Also the gallows stand ready
without."
Starke: "It must also so happen in the just
judgment of God that since the highest minister
of State had caused the highest gallows to be
erected in accordance with his greatness of feel-
ing and State position and honors, before which
all bowed in adoration to the earth, he should
himself be elevated above all other people that
were hung."
SECOND SECTION.
The Deliverance of the Jews.
Chapters VIII. IX.
A.— ESTHER AND MORDECAI PROCURE PERMISSION FOR THEIR PEOPLE TO STAND
ON THEIR OWN DEFENCE.
Chap. VIII. 1-17.
I. Esther and Mordecai receive authority to order all things needful for the deliverance of the Jews.
Vers. 1-8.
1 On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman, the Jews' enemy,
unto Esther the queen : and Mordecai came before the king ; for Esther had told
2 what he was unto her. And the king took [removed] off his ring [signet], which
he had taken [caused to pass] from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Es-
3 ther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. And Esther spake yet again [added
and spoke] before the king, and fell down at [before] his feet, and besought him
with tears [wept and supplicated to him] to put away [cause to pass] the mischief
[evil] of Haman the Agagite, and his device that he had devised against the Jews.
4 Then [And] the king held out the golden sceptre toward [to] Esther. So [And]
5 Esther arose, and stood before the king, And said, If it please [be good upon] the
king, and if I have found'favor in his sight [before him], and the thing [word] seem
right before the king, and I be pleasing [good] in his eyes, let it be written to re-
verse the letters [books] devised by [of the devising of] Haman the son of Ham-
medatha [the Medatha] the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which
6 [who] are in all the king's provinces : For how can I endure to see [and (i. e., when)
I see (i. e., look) on] the evil that shall come unto my people [my people shall find]?
or [and] how can I endure to see [and (i.e., when) I see (i. e., look) on] the destruc-
7 tion of my kindred ? Then [And] the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the
queen, and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman,
and him they have hanged upon the gallows [tree], because [upon that] he laid
8 [sent forth] his hand upon the Jews. Write ye also [And write ye] for [upon] the
82
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Jews, as it liketh you [is the good in your eyes], in the king's name, and seal it with
the king's ring [signet] : for the writing which is written in the king's name, and
sealed with the king's ring [signet], may no man [there is no one to] reverse.
II. Mordecai authorizes the Jews to make preparations for a common defence. Vers. 9-14.
9 Then [And] were the king's scribes called at that time in the third month, that is,
the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth [twenty] day thereof [in it]: and it
was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, unto the Jews, and to the
lieutenants [satraps], and the deputies [pashas], and [the'] rulers [princes] of the
provinces which are from India [Hodu], [and] unto Ethiopia [Cush], a hundred
[and] twenty and seven provinces, unto every province [province and (i. e., by) pro-
vince], according to the writing thereof, and unto every people [people and (i. e., by)
people] after [according to] their language [tongue], and to the Jews according to
10 their writing, and according to their language [tongue]. And he wrote in the king
Ahasuerus' name, and sealed it with the king's ring [signet] ; and sent letters
[books] by posts [the hand of the runners] on horseback [the horses], and riders on
[of] mules [the steed], camels [the mules], and young dromedaries [sons of the
11 mares] : Wherein [Which] the king granted [gave to] the Jews which [who] were
in every city [and (i. e. , by) city] to gather [congregate] themselves together, and
to stand for [upon] their life [soul], to destroy, to slay [smite], and to cause to pe-
rish, all [every] the power of tlie people and province that would assault them, both
12 little ones and women, and to take [he gave] the spoil of them for a prey. Upon one
day, in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, namely, upon the thirteenth [thirteen]
13 day of [to] the twelfth [twelve] month, which [that] is the month Adar. The copy
of the writing, for a commandment [law] to be given in every province [and (i. e.,
by) province] was published [revealed] unto all people [the peoples], and that the
Jews should [for the Jews to] be ready against [to] that day to avenge themselves
14 on [from] their enemies. So the posts [runners] that rode upon [riders of] mules
and camels [the steed] went out, being hastened and pressed on by the king's com-
mandment [word]. And the decree [law] was given at [in] Shushan the palace
[citadel] .
III. Mordecai 's honor and the Joy of the Jews. Vers. 15-17.
15 And Mordecai went out from the presence of [before] the king in royal apparel of
blue [violet] and white [linen], and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment
[robe] of fine linen [byssus] and purple: and the city of Shus-han rejoiced [shouted]
16 and was glad. The Jews had [To the Jews was] light, and gladness, and joy, and
17 honour. And in every province and in every city [and (i. e., by) city], whitherso-
ever [which] the king's commandment [word] and his decree [law] came [was ap-
proaching], the Jews had [was to the Jews] joy [gladness] and gladness [joy], a
feast and a good day. And many of [from] the people [peoples] of the land be-
came Jews [Judaized themselves] ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.
the Targums understand hy the term "house,"
also the people in it, and the entire possessions
belonging thereto. It was usual for Persian
kings to possess themselves of the property of
those who had been punished with death (Jose-
phus, Antiq. XI. 1, 3 ; 4, 6). Mordecai came
before the king, i. c. he was made one of the
officers who saw the face of the king (comp.
chap. i. 10, 4; vii. 9). He owed his position,
not merely to his merit, as having himself been
of service to the king, and now meriting the
title benefactor of the king (Herod. VIII. 86), but
because of his relation to Esther (chap. ii. 7).
Indeed the king took off his ring fver. 2,
*I2'1, as in chap. iii. 10), his seal-ring, -which
he had taken from Haman, and gave it
unto Mordecai. — ta vajpn, as in Jon. iii. 6;
EXEGETTCAL AND CRITICAL.
It seems almost Belf-evident after what occurred
in chap. vii. that now, next to Esther, Mordecai
should also come to great distinction. Whether,
however, they would be able fully to reverse the
fate that threatened the Jews, remained uncer-
tain in view of the difficulty of the situation.
Even after Mordecai had taken his own protec-
tive measures, up to the very hour when success
was assured, uncertainty continued. In chap,
viii. it is to be shown first what authority he
received and what measures of policy he
adopted.
Vers. 1-8. First, Mordecai's authority. On
the very day in which Haman fell the king pre-
sented the queen with his house. Justly enough
CHAP. VIII. 1-17.
83
he made him prime minister (Gen. xli. 42; 1
Mace. vi. 15; comp. chap. Hi. 10).* In addition
Esther placed him over the house of Haman, i. e.
left to him the honorable and lucrative manage-
ment of the large estate thus reverting to her,
in fact made him her governor of the house.
Both henceforth enjoyed a brilliant position ;
but they were not misled thereby into evil.
The remarks with reference to the present pros-
perity of Esther and Mordecai are evidently
made with regard to what followed. They did
not take their ease at the expense of the needed
care over their people ; these were not forgotten.
On the contrary they believed it incumbent upon
them to do all in their power to make their peo-
ple happy and prosperous. The mourning of
Esther was still great; it did not cease until
full deliverance came to them.
Ver. 3. And Esther spake yet again be-
fore the king, and fell down at his feet,
and besought him with tears.f — She thus
caused him to understand distinctly that she
was by no means satisfied with what had been
done. In so far as Esther had implored him in
a general manner to cause to be put away, to
neutralize, to annul ("V3,J?ri) the mischief
of Haman (which he expected to inflict upon
the Jews), and his device that he had devised
against the Jews (comp. Jer. xviii. 11; Ezek.
xxxviii. 10), the king showed his willingness to
comply, and as in chap. iv. 11 ; v. 2, he again
stretched forth the golden sceptre toward her,
so that she could take courage to arise and stand
before him. Still it was necessary to find out
the ways and means how the thing should be
begun.
Ver. 5. Esther suggested : If it please the
king (comp. chap. i. 19 ; v. 4, 8 ; vii. 3) ; and
further on feeling the doubtful character of her
proposition, she added : and the thing seem
right, advisable to him. *IK?3 = to succeed, to
accomplish, and in this sense has reference to
seed whioh has sprouted well (Eccl. xi. 8, in the
Hiphil, Eccl. x. 10) ; it is a later word of which
elsewhere we only find the noun J^B'3 (Eccl.
ii. 21; iv. 4; v. 10). Let it be written, or
commanded by an edict, as in chap. iii. 9, to
reverse the letters {yVJTO, to cause to change
from the state of being to non-existence) de-
vised by Haman. — As is often the case, here
the substance of a letter is indicated by an appo-
sition, JDH rUE?nD (comp. chap. iii. 8 sq. and
12 sqq.). But in order the more oertainly to
carry through this doubtful proposal, she adds
in ver. 6: For how can I endure to see
evil that shall come unto my people ? or
how can I endure to see the destruction
of my kindred ? — With reference to the con-
* ["A pleasure-seeking Persian king, like Xerxes,
was glad to be relieved of the toil of governing, and
willingly committed to one favorite after another the
task or issuing and signing with the royal signet the
decrees by which the government was administered.
That the official entrusted with these high powers
might be a eunuch, appears from Diodorus (XVI. 60).
Kawijhson.— Tb.1
t [From the statement of ver. 4 that the kmg again
held out to her the golden sceptre, " we must under-
stand that Esther had once more intruded on Ahasue-
rus unsummoned." Rawlinson. — Ta.J
nection of "JYtni VjMN, we may indicate that
one of the verbs, instead of being in the Infin.
(with 7) is subordinate to the other as a finite
verb (with 1), comp. Ewald, \ 285 c. Still
731N N7 itself means: " I cannot endure it," or
"I will not be able to stand it" (comp. Isai. i.
13), and the term '.TV1N1 is equal to " when I
shall have seen." il&O with 3 indicates to look
upon some one with interest, be it that of plea-
sure, as is usual, or of pain or sorrow, as is the
case here; comp. in this relation Gen. xii. 1.
Vers. 7, 8. In order to indicate in advance
that his good will abounds towards Esther and
Mordecai, and that he would grant them all that
the law would sanction in favor of the Jews, the
king here reminds them of what he had so far
done for Esther and Mordecai. Since, however,
he could not directly annul his first decrees, but
could simply make them powerless in effect, he
commands them not to send new orders to the
governors — in this manner a suspension or recall
of the first edict could not be accomplished
but to send an edict to the Jews themselves,
commanding them to prepare for their defence.
The sentence: For the writing which is
written in the king's name, and sealed
with the king's ring, may no man reverse,
may have the sense, and so it is generally held,
that the simple recall of the first edicts was not
possible, a'tfil1? J'X may indicate a reflection
upon ytirh in Esther's petition in ver. 5.*
But since these words so nearly correspond to
what precedes : '' Let it be written in the name
of the king, and seal it with the king's ring," it
is clearer and more natural to understand him
to say: The new edict to the Jews will be just
as authoritative and irreversible as was the for-
mer one to the governors. This must equally
be obeyed with that. Of course the confirma-
tion belongs still to the words of the king.
The phraseology speaks only in an objective
sense of the "king," because it refers to a gene-
ral rule. The infin. absol. Niph. Dlflnjl is used
instead of the perfect [by an ellipsis of the sub-
stantive verb].
Vers. 9-14. These contain the measures of
Mordecai.f In the same manner as did Haman
(chap. iii. 12-15) on the 13th of the first month,
so Mordecai wrote to and " commanded the Jews
and the rulers of the provinces," on the 23d of
the third month, i. e. Sivan. This was fully two
* ["The answer of Ahasuerus is a refusal, but one
softened as much as possible. He first dwells on the
proofs which he had just given of his friendly feeling
towards the Jews (ver. 7). He then suggests that some-
thing may be done to help them without revoking the
decree (ver. 8). Finally, he excuses himself by appeal-
ing to the well-known immutability of Persian law."
Rawlinson. — Tr.]
f ["The suggestion of Ahasuerus quickened the in-
ventive powers of Esther and Mordecai. The scribes
were at once summoned, and a decree issued, not revo-
king the former one, but allowing the Jews to stand on
their defence, and to kill all who attacked them. It
has been pronounced incredible that any king would
thus have sanctioned civil war in all the great cities of
his empire: but some even of the more sceptical critics
allow that Xerxes might not improbably have done so
(De Wette, Mnleitung, p. 198 a)." Rawlihsoh.— Tb.]
16
84
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
months later, although Hainan's fall must have
occurred soon after the edict of extermination
was published. No doubt Mordecai thought it
expedient first to establish himself in his new
position before taking such steps and proposing
such measures. He wrote to the Jews, but so
that the governors became acquainted with the
nature of this order, and were obliged to for-
ward it in their extensive provinces to every
single Jewish community (comp. chap. i. 1).
The subject of 3fO,l in ver. 10 is the one
transmitting or originating the writing, i. e.
Mordecai. In order to speedily make known
the edict so as to free the Jews from their anx-
iety, and avert the evil in time, he dispatched
the messengers with the greatest speed. D'ip
»". e. couriers, D'OIDS, i. e. on horses, by posts
on horseback, and riders on mules, and
young dromedaries. — EO?., in distinction
from DID, is the saddle-horse (dromedary), the
race-horse (1 Kings v. 8), and is here used in a
collective sense. D'JIJWnN (vers. 10-14) are
not ''asses," according to the modern Persian
tstar, whioh in the Sanscrit = acvatara, and
hence may have been acpatara in old Persian ;
but they were princely, royal horses, hence
belonging to the court, from kshatra, "royal,"
king, according to Haug, in Ewald's iJ«o£. Jahrb.
V., p. 154. 1)DT = the Syriao ramco, "herd,"
particularly it herd of horses, with which we
may also compare the word ramakat, "stud," in
the Arabic.
Ver. 11. Mordecai wrote that the king
granted the Jews which -were in every
city to gather themselves together, and
to stand for their life, i. e. to defend them-
selves (oomp. Dan. xii. 1), to destroy, to slay,
and to cause to perish all the power,
which like an army would raise itself against
them pTI), of the people and province
that would assault them, both little ones
and women, and to take the spoil of them
for a prey. — This too was to take place on the
day already designated in chap. iii. 13, viz. the
thirteenth day of the twelfth month. The redu-
plication of the expression "to destroy," etc.,
refers to chap. iii. 13. The same should be
granted the Jews which, according to Hainan's
edict, was allowed the heathen. The Jews were
permitted to apply the jus talionis. The case
then stood that the governors and other authori-
ties were by no means obligated to assist in the
preparation for the destruction of the Jews, nor
yet to obstruct or hinder the resistance which
the Jews would offer to their assailants, as
might seem to be implied in the first edict. For
then the second edict, which was equally autho-
ritative, would have been little respected; but
they could leave the case to the people, whether
they would attack the Jews and risk a conflict,
and they need not afterward punish such Jews
as had slain their enemies. But still more. It
was permitted the Jews to assemble and prepare
and arm for their common defence in advance,
so that they might act as one man against all
the assaults and reverses, which in case of their
standing disunited would surely have befallen
them. 7npn7 (to collect), placed in advance
here, was especially important (comp. its promi-
nence in chap. ix. 2, 15, 16, 18). Without this
the Jews would not have possessed more than
the simple right of self-defence, which, under
any circumstances, they would have availed
themselves of. Besides, even in the Persian
empire the larger portion of the inhabitants
seem to have possessed humanity enough to feel
the disreputableness of an attack upon the Jews
for the purpose of rapine, and they were little
inclined to participate therein. On ver. 13
comp. chap. iii. 14 6, and on ver. 14, chap. iii. 16.
Vers. 15-17. The effect of this new measure
was to produce great and general joy, and to
bring great honor to Mordecai. He went forth
from the presence of the king in royal apparel
of blue and white (comp. chap. i. 6), and
with a great crown of gold,* and with a
garment of fine linen and purplef (^"pfl
an. ley., in Aramaic tO'^Jfi). He was thus
adorned doubtless to show what honor had been
shown him by the king, but more particularly to
make it manifest how he had succeeded in the
matter of the Jews, and at the same time to pub-
lish his joyous feelings thereat. Importance at-
taches here not to the royal garment, which
had already been given him in chap. vi. 8 sq., but
to the State robes of the first minister at court,
which, it appears, Mordecai had not put on at the
time of his elevation (vers. 1-2), but which he
put on after his care for his people was removed.
Then the city of Shushan, i. e., its inhabitants
one and all, and not the Jews alone, of whom
there is separate mention made in ver. 16, re-
joiced pnX is not exactly to cry aloud, comp.
Isa. xxiv. 14) and was glad. — Hence they had
deprecated the massacre awaiting the Jews, and
perhaps apprehended with fear the great disor-
ders and dangers that would ensue. But the
Jews, ver. 16 — t. e., those living in Shushan — for
the others are mentioned in ver. 17, had light
and joy in contrast to the darkening of their fu-
ture fate (mix, found in the fem. in Pb. xxxix.
12; in Isa. xxvi. 19, pi. n'VlN), and gladness, and
joy, and honor.
Ver. 17. So also the joy spread to those with-
out, who were so exceedingly distressed through
Hamau's edict (chap. ix. 3). They indulged in
feasts, and in a good, joyous day, i. e., a holiday
(comp. chap. ix. 19, 22). But this was not all.
Many of the people of the land beoame Jews
(DHTVriD, derived from H^iT, and found only
here), beoause the fear of the Jews, and doubt-
less also of the mighty and powerful God of the
Jews, ruling over their destiny, and not so much
the fear of Mordecai and Esther, had fallen upon,
them (comp. Ex. xv. 16; Deut. xi. 26).J
* ["Not a crown like the king's CirG), but a mere
golden band or coronet (rHDtf )." Eawlinson.— Tb.1
TT4!
f [" The tunic or minor robe of the king was of pur-
ple, striped with white (Xenoph. Cyrop. VIII. 3, i 13 ;
Plutarch, Alex. §61; Q. Curt. III. 5)." Rawlinson.— TbJ
% [" Mordecai's power might by itself have caused
some fear, but the chief alarm felt probably was lest th»
Jews, when the day came for revenging themselves,
should account the large class of indifferent persona
among their enemies. Persons of this class avoided
the danger by becoming Jews." Rawlinson. — Taj
CHAP. VIII. 1-17.
85
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
On ver. 1 sqq. 1. If in the present case the danger
that threatened the Jews had not been so imminent
and the disposition of both Esther and Mordecai
so patriotic, then they might possibly have be-
come proud in view of the wealth and high life
and station that they now enjoyed, or they might
have grown indifferent or reserved with respect
to the distress of their countrymen. It is too
frequent an occurrence that upstarts fear to lose
caste by paying regard to former relations.
Hence they are quick to forget and neglect their
previous friends. There is no question that the
attainment of honor and wealth will bring a bless-
ing only when these become an incentive to good
works, especially in promoting God's kingdom.
There is connected with their enjoyment sufficient
discontent, envy and misery, and also enough
trouble and curses. In general, Christians who
have come to power are more timid in taking
care of their friends than worldly people are.
Hence the latter can more safely count on the
applause of the great mass of men. But the
world will not thank the former for their timid-
ity, and God will hold them to account.
Feitardent: "We are taught by Mordecai's
example that even pious men sometimes come to
the head of affairs, and are safely entrusted with
the reins of government; and that God adorns
with this glory on earth those whom He will af-
terwards crown in heaven likewise. They are
promoted, however, not so much for their own
sake as that they may aid and promote the church
and people of God, and may free and console
those in affliction."
Starke: "We should have sympathy for op-
pressed brethren in the faith (1 Pet. iii. 8; Col.
Hi. 12; Gal. vi. 10). The innocence of the guilt-
less should be protected (Sir. iv. 9; 1 Sam. xx.
32). He who has no pity for the pious and inno-
cent when they are in danger is not worthy of
the name of a man, much less that of a Chris-
tian; for we are members of one body (1 Cor.
xii. 12)."
2. Although Hainan had been removed and
Mordecai raised to his present station, yet the
people still stood in jeopardy of their lives. Since
the edict issued against them was irrevocable,
their case was still critical. There were not
many perhaps who deemed it possible that any
means could be found to avert the threatened
calamity. Mordecai himself may have long been
in doubt regarding the way to be pursued out
of the difficulty. And even after it suggested it-
self to him, it may have seemed improbable that
it should lead to success. All depended on the
question whether the assailants would not be too
numerous for the Jews to overpower. This could
not be previously ascertained. It may afford us
light to know that he waited two months after
his elevation before he issued the new edict.
The period until then was one of dark foreboding
to the Jews. But the pious Jews doubtless knew
how to comfort themselves. "God often delays
help, not because He will render none, but in
order to exercise our faith, and to stimulate us
the more to call upon Him. Then also the help
granted will make the deliverance more sweet,
and transform a great distress into a great joy "
{Berl. Bible).
Mordecai, for his part, doubtless held fast to
the thought that one must not despair of the sal-
vation of God's people, and that though the dan-
ger be ever so great, God is infinitely greater,
and that it is man's duty to do all in his power
for himself. With respect to Esther, it was
something extraordinary that she, although by
descent nothing but a poor Jewess, should pro-
pose to the great king of the Persians, the mighty
and proud Ahasnerus, that he would revoke in
one way or another an edict whose irrevocable
character as a Persian dogma was fixed. Really
this was a demand to divest himself of that
higher divine glory (66£a) which the faith of the
people had surrounded him with. It was to run
the risk of unsettling the faith of the people
in himself, and to expose himBelf to State dis-
turbances. The difficulties surrounding him may
even remind us of the problem that presented it-
self to Christ, when He, in the face of the sen-
tence of condemnation upon the sinner on the
part of justice, still made provision for grace.
Esther might have feared that though her power
over Ahasuerus had become great, still he might
resent such boldness, and indignantly turn her
away, refuse her request, and, if possible, be-
come still more embittered against the Jews.
Whatever considerations, however, may have
arisen in her heart at the time, still she was
doubtlessly incited by the predominant thought
that the higher position one holds, the greater
are the responsibilities connected therewith;
that the more influence one wields, the greater
must also be the courage to sustain it, so that
one must not hesitate to strive after the highest
aims and to tread the most difficnlt paths iu the
line of duty. But this correct view, this beauti-
ful conviction, could not have been possible un-
less she had been first in possession of a pure
love for her work. As is the case with men, so
it was also with her, as a woman, that a true and
correct conviction depended upon the state of her
heart. If, in the following chapter, she mani-
fests a sharp contrast with the heathen accord-
ing to the Jewish Old Testament view, which
threatened to cause her to err in the Christian
view, and to bring vengeance and hate into play,
yet, on the other hand, she reveals toward her
people a love so strong, so self-sacrificing, and so
bold, that it seems as if she had heard and ap-
prehended the great question: "This I did for
thee; what doest thou for me?" She here
Bhows that mercy which is appropriate to him
who recognizes how great the mercy was that
met him.
3. It is a great and precious word which Es-
ther utters in justification of her large and bold
request: "How can I endure to see all the evil
which will come upon my people, and how shall
I bear to see the destruction of my friends!"
She here openly expresses the fact that, though
she is now greatly elevated, yet she is not able t«
sever the bond that unites her to her kindred.
But, still more, she asserts that her life, though
embellished with all the glory that Ahasuerus
could bestow, has no value to her if she cannot
also knew that the lives of her kindred are safe
from harm. All this was so well expressed by
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
her that her word is very appropriate in point-
ing for our comfort to that Prince who in reality
makes this sentiment His own — who, though in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but laid aside His glory, and
became obedient to death, even the death of the
cross. But it is also appropriate as an exhorta-
tion for us, which should impel us in our circum-
stances to more and more approach her iu this
duty. It would be little credit to us should we
prefer only those who are alike spiritually-
minded with ourselves, and should we neglect or
ignore those who are related to us according to
the body, and should we look upon the perdition
of so many souls with indifference.
On vers. 7-14. The great excitement which
now took place in Shushan, beginning among the
scribes of the king and spreading through all the
one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the
great Persian empire, from India to Etbiopia, by
means of the couriers who rode the best and
fleetest horses of the king's stud, and which seized
all satraps and governors, but particularly all
Jewish communities, may, as a first effect, have
provoked much inquiry respecting the meaning
of the message, and then great astonishment at
it. It is, however, hardly possible that any one
already comprehended the significance of the
event. What was visible was seemingly only a
shell in which lay secreted a seed capable of in-
finite developments, a new universal law, or ra-
ther a new and glorious gospel which should
henceforth rule over the world's history and ex-
pand to ever increasing authority. The Jews
were to have the right to arm themselves against
the day of attack on the part of the heathen.
This implied that though externally dependent,
still among and in themselves they should have
freedom and the right to observe their laws and
religion. This again prophetically indicates that
the kingdoms of the world, although outwardly
powerful, should inwardly lay themselves more
and more open to the power of the kingdom of
God. The Jews should now be empowered to
take their defence against their enemies into their
own hands. Thus it was implied that, in spite
of the restricted sphere to which they were con-
signed, they still had a right to self-exertion.
This mode of action upon attack only left them
in an externally insufficient position for success-
ful defence. Yet even in this was contained the
prophecy that the people of God are permitted, in
an inward and higher sense, themselves to do the
best for victory over their enemies, and this the
more since the means of the world's empires are
here insufficient. Both the right to exist and to
be active in the new sphere which they should
enter, though as yet existing in embryo, was ne-
ver sanctioned here. And if Judaism even to-
day expects to find in the book of Esther that
which will afford it joy, then we must go still
further and apprehend its deeper and more glo-
rious import for Christianity and the Christian
church.
On vers. 15-17. Mordecai, after having at-
tained all his requests, went out from the king
clothed in royal garments, adorned with a large
golden crown upon his head. And in all the land
and cities, wherever the new law was promul-
gated, joy and rejoicing arose among the Jews.
A great festival day had come for them. We do
not know in how far their joy was pure. If it
only arose because they could now make the ne-
cessary preparations to defend themselves from
the attacks of their assailants, then no one will
begrudge thera their joy. It was certainly a time
of deliverance for them. It is just such times as
these that have made great impressions not only
upon the Jews, but likewise upon the heathen
surrounding them. As in the case of the exodus
of the Jews from Egypt (Ex. xii. 88; Numb. x.
29), so also here many of the people of the land
joined themselves to the Jews, indeed were con-
verted to Judaism. Prophecies such as Isa. xiv.
1 ; xliv. 5 began to be in part realized. Periods
of deliverance are chiefly periods of the exten-
sion of God's kingdom. Would that we might
realize this in our times of trouble! Since the
time of sorrow must of necessity have an end and
make way for a time of deliverance, we may very
properly rejoice in prospect of the future growth
in the church, however threatening the outlook
may be. It is on this account that our Lord ex-
horts us to raise the head when all these things
are in process of fulfilment.
The points most important in our chapter are
given in brief terms closely following each other.
There is God's watchful and energetic care for
His instruments for good. Esther and Mordecai
are in advance established in their influential po-
sition, so that they may the more effectually exe-
cute His will. Then comes His care for His peo-
ple, from whom He averts the threatening dan-
ger, and lastly the world is cared for.
Brenz: "What an example is here presented
to us of the issue of the greatest dangers which
may threaten God's people or church. But what
is said of the safety of the universal church, the
same holds true of every private individual who
is a member of the church. ' I pray not for tbem
alone,' sayB Christ, 'but for those who through
their word shall believe in me.'"
Stakke: "It is a small thing for God to turn
the seasons of sorrow of the pious into hours of
joy (Ps. xxx. 12; John xvi. 20). God helps His
people (Luke i. 52) and causes them to rejoice
over their enemies (Ps. xcii. 12)."
CHAP. IX. 1— X. 3. 87
B.— THE JEWS DESTROY THEIR ENEMIES, AND AT MORDECAI'S REQUEST ESTAB-
LISH THE FESTIVAL OP PURIM.
Chap. IX. 1-32.
I. The common defence of the Jews is very successful. Vers. 1-15.
1 Now [And] in the twelfth [twelve] month, that is the month Adar, on the thir-
teenth [thirteen] day of the same [in it], when [that] the king's commandment
[word] and his decree [law] drew near to be put in the execution [done], in the day
that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over [on] them, (though it [and
{i. e. , then) that] it was turned to the contrary that the Jews [themselves] had rule
2 [should have power] over [on] them that hated them [their haters]), the Jews
gathered [congregated] themselves toe/ether in their cities, throughout [in] all the
provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to lay [send forth] hand on such as sought their
hurt [on the seekers of their evil] ; and no man could withstand [stood in the face
3 of] them ; for the fear of them fell upon all people [the peoples]. And all the
rulers [princes] of the provinces, and the lieutenants [satraps], and the deputies
[pashas], and [the] officers of the king [doers of the work which was to the king],
4 helped [were lifting] the Jews ; because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. For
Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame [hearing] went [was going]
out throughout [in] all the provinces ; for this [the] man Mordecai waxed greater
5 and greater [was going and great]. Thus [And] the Jews smote [on] all their ene-
mies with the stroke [smiting] of the sword, and slaughter and destruction, and did
what they would [according to their pleasure] unto those that hated them [on their
6 haters]. And in Shushan the palace [citadel] the Jews slew and destroyed five
7, 8 hundred men. And Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha, and Poratha,
9 and Adalia, and Aridatha, and Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vajezatha,
10 the ten sons of Haman, the son of Hammedatha [the Medatha], the enemy of the
11 Jews, slew they; but [and] on the spoil laid [sent forth] they not their hand. On
that day the number of those that were slain [the slain ones] in Shushan the palace
12 [citadel] was brought [came] before the king. And the king said unto Esther the
queen, Th3 Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace
[citadel], and the ten sons of Haman ; what have they done in the rest of the king's
provinces ? Now [And] what is thy petition ? and it shall be granted [given to]
13 thee ; or [and] what is thy request further [again] ? and it shall be done. Then
[And] said Esther, If it please [be good upon] the king, let it be granted [given] to
the Jews which [who] are in Shushan to do to-morrow also according unto this
day's [to-day's] decree [law], and let Haman's ten sons be hanged [let them hang]
14 upon the gallows [tree]. And the king commanded [said] it so to be done ; and
15 the decree [law] was given at Shushan ; and they hanged Haman's ten sons. For
[And] the Jews that were in Shushan gathered [congregated] themselves together on
the fourteenth day also of the month Adar, and slew [smote] three hundred men
[males] at Shushan ; but [and] on the prey [booty] they laid not their hand.
II. At the desire of Mordecai the Jews resolve to celebrate the 14iA and, 15th of the month Adar as Purim.
Vers. 16-28.
16 But [And] the other [remainder of the] Jews that were in the king's provinces
gathered [congregated] themselves together, and stood [there was a standing] for
[upon] their lives [soul], and had rest from their enemies, and slew [there was a
smiting] of [in] their foes seventy and five thousand (but they laid not their handg
17 [hand] on the prey [booty]). On the thirteenth day of the month Adar : and on
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
the fourteenth day of the same [in it] rested they [there was a resting], and made
18 [there was a making] it a day of feasting [banquet] and gladness. But [And] the
Jews that were at Shushan assembled [congregated] together on the thirteenth day
thereof [in it], and on the fourteenth thereof [in it] ; and on the fifteenth day of the
same [in it] they rested [there was a resting], and made [a making] it a day of
19 feasting [banquet] and gladness. Therefore the Jews of the villages [country places'],
that dwelt in the unwalled towns [cities of the country places], made [were making]
the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting [banquet], and
20 a good day, and of sending portions one [a man] to another [his neighbor]. And
Mordecai wrote these things [words], and sent letters [books] unto all the Jews
that were in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, both [the] nigh and [the] far,
21 to stablish this among [upon] them, that they should keep [to be making] the four-
teenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same [in it] yearly, [in
22 every year and (i. e., by) year], as the days wherein the Jews rested from their
enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy [gladness],
and from mourning into a good day ; that they should make [to make] them days
of feasting [banquet] and joy [gladness], and of sending portions one [a man] to
23 another [his neighbor], and gifts to the poor. And the Jews undertook [each re-
ceived] to do as they had begun [what they had begun to do], and as [what] Mor-
24 decai had written unto them ; because Haman the son of Hammedatha [the Me-
datha] the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to
destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, the lot) to consume [discomfit] them, and
25 to destroy them : but [and] when Esther [it] came before the king, he com-
manded [said] by [with the] letters [books], that his wicked [evil] device, which
he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he [him]
26 and his sons should be hanged [they should hang] on the gallows [tree]. Where-
fore [Therefore] they called these days Purim, after [upon] the name of [upon]
Pur : therefore for [upon] all the words of this letter, and of that which [and what]
they had seen concerning this matter [upon thus], and which [what] had come
27 unto them. The Jews ordained [established], and took [each received] upon them,
and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined [the ones joining] themselves unto
[upon] them, so as [and] it should not fail [pass], that they would keep [to be
making] these two days according to their writing, and according to their appointed
28 time, [in] every year [and (i. e., by) year] ; and that these days should be [these
days were] remembered and kept [made] throughout [in] every generation [and
(i. e., by) generation], every family [family and (i. e., by) family], every province
[province and (i. e., by) province], and every city [city and (i. e., by) city] ; and
that these days of Purim should not fail [pass] from among [the midst of] the Jews,
nor the memorial [remembrance] of them perish [cease] from their seed.
III. At the request of Esther the Jews also resolve to commemorate the feast of Purim with fasting
and mourning. Vers. 29-32.
29 Then [And] Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew,
wrote with all authority, to confirm [establish] this second letter of [the] Purim.
SC Andhe sent the letters [books] unto all the Jews, to the hundred twenty and seven
31 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth, to confirm
[establish] these days of [the] Purim in their times appointed, according as Morde-
cai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined [established upon] them, and as
they had decreed [established] for [upon] themselves [their soul], and for [upon]
32 their seed, the matters [words] of the fastings and their cry. And the decree [say-
ing] of Esther confirmed [established] these matters [words] of [the] Purim ; and
it was written in the book.
CHAP. IX. 1— X. 3.
80
SUPPLEMENT.
DISTINCTION AND POWER OF MORDECAI IN THE MIGHTY PERSIAN EMPIRE.
Chapter X. 1-3.
1 And the king Ahasuerus laid [put] a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of
2 the sea. And all the acts [work] of his power [authority] and of his might, and the
declaration [spreading] of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king advanced
him [whom the king made great], are they not written in [upon] the book of the
Chronicles [words of the days] of the kings of Media [Madai] and Persia [Paras] ?
3 For Mordecai the Jew was next [second] unto [the] king Ahasuerus, and great
among [to] the Jews, and accepted of [to] the multitude of his brethren, seeking the
wealth of [good to] his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL.
The author here gives us the last and most im-
portant part of the solution, the success which
followed the measures of Mordeoai for the deli-
verance of the Jews. Thus his history takes
Bueh a turn that the great Persian heathen em-
pire, which at first rejoiced with feasting and
hilarity, now suffers a great defeat. Moreover
this occurs by the very Jewish nation which
Haman and similar enemies hoped to destroy.
The time of joyous feasting now came to the Jews
and to those who had joined them. Mordecai's
measure for the removal of the danger was quite
sufficient. This was true first (vers. 1—5) in the
Persian empire in general.
Ver. 1. Now in the twelfth month, that
is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day
of the same, when — lEJN may here be taken
as the accus. of time, in which, or where, the
king's commandment and his decree drew
near to be put into execution,:'. «., in which
the king's word and law should be carried out,
in the day that the enemies of the Jews
hoped to have power over them (though
it was turned to the contrary so that the
Jews had rule over them that hated them).
The infin. absol. Nin 1J13ri31 may be made to de-
pend, as a continuation of the preceding perfeot
upon "WK. Then Nin will stand as a neuter for
the thing which their enemies hoped to accom-
plish on the thirteenth. ^'lSHJI may also serve
as a remark inserted as a casual intermediate
expression, then N1H will probably refer back to
DV, comp. ver. 22 : " As the day was turned unto
them (so) that," etc. As this remark does not
anticipate, and in advance indicate the result
afterward realized, but only speaks of change
brought about by the issue of the second royal
ediot, bSe? stands the second time for the " might "
or " power " which now awaited the Jews ac-
cording to right and law, but had not yet been
realized. riBPI added to the subject, serves to
make a sharp contrast between the Jews and
their enemies, so that it may be translated ipsi,
(themselves) comp. Ewald, J 314 a. In ver. 2 fol-
lows the mention of a fixed time : The Jews
gathered themselves together in their ci-
ties, i. e., those in which they were more nu-
merous, but yet dwelt mixed up with the heathen
inhabitants. They gathered themselves, to lay
hand on such as sought their hurt, i. e., ac-
cording to chap. viii. 11, such as attacked them
to destroy them. And no man could with-
stand them, — so "pS3 in;.' (comp. Josh. *. 8 ;
xxi. 42 ; xxiii. 9), because fear of them, or their
fear had fallen upon all the people (comp. chap,
viii. 17).*
Ver. 3. All the princes, the satraps, and go-
vernors, and also other persons of rank whom it
is unnecessary here to name (comp. chap. iii. 9),
assisted the Jews. D'NKOD, as in Ezek. i. 4.-J-
Ver. 4. These were especially influenced by
the fear of Mordecai, who now became more and
more powerful and authoritative, (comp. 1 Chron.
xvii. 12, where we find instead of 711J the in-
trans. partic. VlJ).
Ver. 5. Thus the Jews inflicted a great defeat
* [" The Jews apparently did not remain wholly on
the defensive. Their enemies were no doubt well
known to them, and were prepared for the struggle
which it was seen must come. Sometimes the one side,
sometimes the other, would commence the attack."
Rawlinson. — Te.]
t [" This is very important. It has been stated that ac-
cording to the narrative of Esther the Jews were allowed
to kill *76,000 Persians? and this (supposed) feature of
the narrative has been pronounced ' incredible.' The
present verse shows that the real Persians, who formed
the standing army which kept the empire in subjection,
and were at the disposal of the various governors of the
province, took the Jews' side. Their enemies were al-
most entirely to be found among the idolatrous people
of the subject nations, for whose lives neither the Per-
sians generally, nor their monarchs, cared greatly."
Kawlinson.— Te.J
90
THE BOOK OP ESTHER.
upon all their enemies with the sword, slaughter
and destruction : they carried out the right of
retaliation which had been accorded them in ch.
viii. 11. rOH with 3 is to smite, to defeat some
one (2 Sam. xxiii. 10; xxiv. 17 ! Num. xxii. 6).
r\3D can only depend upon T\37\ ■ XyT) and |"UK
both belong to J"QO (comp. chap. ix. 6, where
3in_n3D corresponds to TDB'n).
Vers. 6-15. The defence of the Jews succeeded
especially well in Shushan. Ver. 6. And in
Shushan the palace the Jews slew and
destroyed five hundred men.* The infin.
abs. "13X1 as a supplement to the foregoing per-
fect expresses : " they slew and destroyed."
Ver. 7. The insertion of the names of the ten
sons of Haman who were also destroyed, corres-
ponds to the author's method of exactness, and
hiB disposition to mention names, as is seen in
chap. i. 14. Jewish rabbis have found these
names indicative of representative importance,
and have taken the individual traits to mean
something prophetic. This peculiar mode of
writing, corresponding so well to the style of
later mystical modes of interpretation of later
Jewish theology, may have been inherent in its
spirit, or it may have been because they find the
" minuscule" letter D in the first, VI in the se-
venth, and 7 in the tenth name, and also the
" majuscule " letter 1 in the tenth name.f Ac-
cording to statements made by Buxtorf (Synag.
Jud., p. 588) the mode of writing should be a sign
that the ten sons were suspended in a perpendi-
cular line, one over the other, or an omen that
after their fall they should never more rise to
glory. The Jews did not take the booty of their
enemies as was permitted them to do in the ediet
of chap. viii. 11. This, however, was the order
given to their enemies in the edict of Haman,
chap. iii. 13, and the author here gives it promi-
nent mention, in order to show that there was
no intention on the part of the Jews, to gratify a
low avaricious disposition, but only to defend
themselves.
Vers. 11-15. After Ahasuerus had discovered
the number of those who had perished in Shu-
shan, he stated the same to Esther, adding:
* [" By ' Shushan the palace ' or ' the fort,' we are pro-
bably to understand the whole of the upper town, which
occupied an area of above a hundred acres, and con-
tained, no doubt, many residences besides the actual pa-
lace. It is not likely that the Jews would have ven-
tured to shed blood within the palace precincts." Raw-
linson.— Ta.J
f [" Excepting Adalia, all these names are readily
traceable to Old Persian roots. Parshandatha is 'given
to Persia,' or 'to the Persians ;' Dalphon, which in Per-
sian must have been Darphun or Darpon, is probably the
Persian representative of the Sansc. darpin, 'arrogant;'
Aspatha is from aspa, 'horse,1 and would probably mean
' horseman ;' Poratha is apparently from paru, ' much,
great,' and ratha, 'a chariot,' and would mean 'having
many chariots;' Aridatha is from the roots ari 'very,'
and da, ' to give,' and would mean ' liberal ' (comp. Phra-
dates). Parmashta is a little doubtful, but may be from
fra, an intensive particle, and mathwta, ' greatest '
(comp. Lat. pratmagnus). Arisai has the intensive ari
prefixed to a root saya, which is perhaps 'to conquer'
or 'to go;' and Aridai has the same intensive prefixed
to the root da, ' to give.' Finally, Vajczatha comprises
two elements, vaya, ' the wind,' and zatha, (comp. Zend.
zyat), ' powerful ;' and would mean ' strong as tho wind '
(comp. CMtratachma, 'strong as the leopard;' Tritan-
tsschmes, ' strong as Tritan, i. e., Feridem)." Kawlis-
boh.— Te.]
What have they done in the rest of the
king's provinces ? i. «., how many must they
not have destroyed there ; this he said in order
to prove to her that he had granted a great favor
to the Jews, and hence that he was well-disposed
toward them (comp. chap. viii. 7, 8). But to the
same intent he also adds the promise following:
Now what is thy petition ? and it shall
be granted thee. — Perhaps he recognized the
fact that, if the Jews had to do with so many op-
ponents, they could hardly have mastered them,
and even now great danger threatened them on
the part of those remaining, if they could not
hunt down such in their hiding places (and there
must have been many in so large a city) and de-
stroy them utterly. Wl]l, masc. or rather neuter,
with reference to HD, while in chap. vii. 2 we
find the fern, jruni in relation to ^nSxtff. The
necessity of extending the privilege granted the
Jews to the following day, must be evident, since
Esther (chap. viii. 11) on her part, without con-
sulting Mordecai, still further requested it. And
let Haman's ten sons be hanged upon the
gallows, i. e., crucify the dead bodies in order
to increase the disgrace of their execution, but
more in order to augment the fear of the Jews.
This was the Hebrew and Persian custom (see
Ezra vi. 11 [comp. Plutarch, Artax. 17]).
Ver. 14. The king acceded to Esther's request,
and so another edict was issued. This contained
principally or exclusively a renewed permission
for the Jews. This must be publicly proclaimed.
With respect to the sons of Haman a simple com-
mand was sufficient. The words, and they
hanged Hainan's ten sons, by no means in-
dicates the substance or consequence of the law ;
opposed to this are the accents and the perfect
OR But since the publication of a law was the
consequence of the king's acquiescence, so it was
also with the hanging of Haman's sons.
Vers. 16-28. The establishment of Purim. — In
vers. 16-19 we find the historical introduction
to the new edict of Mordecai, in vers. 20-23 an
index of contents, and in vers. 24-28, still fur-
ther, a supplement, confirmatory of what pre-
ceded, and which seems to have been taken from
some other writing.
The statement in ver. 16 : But the other
Jews — separate from those in Shushan, etc. —
again connects with what preceded in vers. 1 and
2, in order first, to add the number of those whom
they had slain, and next to give due mention to
the day of their conflict as well as to the fact
that the 14th was for them already a day of rest.*
The author adds after the phrase and stood
for their lives (comp.chap.viii.il): and had
rest from their enemies. — n"U is instead of
the more usual nij, Infin. Absol. as in Num. xi.
26. And though he is interested to publish the
result for which the Jews stood, namely, that
they slew 75,000 of their enemies, yet he is more
busied with the main thought that, these outside
Jews, in distinction from those in Shushan, had
peace soon after their first defenoe. The perfect
* [Shushan here is "probably the lower town, which
lay east of the upper one and was of about the same size."
Rawuhson. — Ta.J
CHAP. IX. 1— X. 3.
91
in vers. 16, 17, as alao in ver. 18, is continued by
subordinated infinitives (comp. Ewald, \ 351 c).
The statement that the outside Jews had rest al-
ready on the 14th of Adar, is here the main point.
The other, in ver. 18, that the Jews in Shushan
first had peace and joy on the fifteenth, is sub-
ordinate. This relation is best expressed by the
word " while," by which ver. 19, with its \3~hfy
may be joined to vers. 16 and 17: Therefore
the Jews of the villages, that dwelt in
the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth
day of the month Adar a day of gladness
and feasting, etc. — It does not matter much
about the first season of joy, as stated in ver. 17
but it is important that this season had now be-
come a custom of the people, and must have ex-
isted down to the time of our author. As evi-
dence of this we have the partic. D'frj;, and also
the particles J3/J7, which latter is generally
employed in an explanation as to how a custom
originated. It seems, therefore, that for a long
time there existed a difference of time as re-
spects the day of the feast of Purim. It appears
that the Jews in the smaller villages had one
day, and those residing in the larger cities, i. e.,
also in Jerusalem (according to some MSS. of
the Septuagint version ai KaroiKovvrec h rale \in-
TptmdheoLv) had another. The writing of Morde-
cai, mentioned in the following verses, which or-
dered a uniform celebration, viz., of two days (on
the 14th and 15th of Adar) soon restored uni-
formity. But its acceptance had as a first con-
sequence that, only those chief communities in
the larger cities (vers. 23, 27), obeyed the order,
but the smaller bodies still retained the 14th
Adar as the chief day of the feast. To assume a
contradiction between vers. 23 and 27 (a3 does
Bertheau) would be unwarranted even if the sec-
lion beginning with ver. 20 be not an addition by
our author, but by some later person. At the
time of Josephus it seems that the season of cele-
bration was uniform (comp. Antiq. VI. 13). Ac-
cording to the Mishna (Megilla, l)this difference
only exists that the book of Esther should be read
on the 14th in the smaller towns, but on the 15th
in the ancient walled cities of Palestine D'rtlSH,
with the Kethib, is the plural of P^B, countryman.
The Keri is the same as Deut. iii. 5, and 1 Sam.
vi. 18. There could have been another form
from H3 such as 1113, as in pDD beside |t3p.
TylVi'a is the accus., dependent on D'^ : And
of sending portions one to another. — Ac-
cording to ver. 22 (comp. Neh. viii. 10) one made
presents in these feasts, similar to the sacrificial
feasts, to those less wealthy, but also to others
to whom one desired to signify a joyous mind.
Vers. 20-23. The writing which Mordecai sent
to all the Jews, doubtless contained the substance
of our book of Esther, i"lv>Nn D'-DIP! ; i. e., it
V " T ■ T : -
recounted the danger which had threatened the
Jews, and the way in which they were preserved
from destruction ; for this was needful to state
here, in order to give cause and color to the feast
ordered by Mordecai. But this did not, there-
fore, need to include the whole book of Esther.
Ver. 21. Mordecai's purpose was : To stab-
lish this among them, that they should
keep the, etc. — D'P besides this place (verses
20-32) occurs only in Ruth iv. 7 ; Ezra xiii. 6 ;
Ps. cxix. 28, 106 ; and used with bj; it signifies
to establish something as binding upon some one
so that it shall become a duty obligatory on him.
TW$ with DV here seems to mean (comp. ver. 27)
to celebrate, a day. The phrase D'tfj? n'l'nS, fol-
lowing upon the long intervening sentences of
ver. 21, is again taken up in ver. 22 by nw%h
it/WD 'D' DH'lN and still more enlarged. The
result was (ver. 23) that what the Jews had be-
gun to do (ver. 22) aud what Mordecai wrote to
them to do was by them established as a valid
and permanent custom. ^Jp, to "accept" (ch.
ix. 4), here means, according to later linguistic
usage, to recognize something as a valid tradition
or law. The sing, form is explained by the fact
that the verb precedes its subject, according to
Gesen. \ 114. [Bather it denotes a distribution
or individual sense. — Tb..]
Vers. 24-28. Now in order both to give the
name of the feast just mentioned as well as its
duration through two days, our author again
briefly repeats the substance of the historical
basis in vers. 24 and 25. He also makes brief
mention of the facts decisive of the name, and
then refers us in ver. 26 to Mordecai's letter
and the experiences of the Jews as forming its
basis. In ver. 24 we find Haman's intention to
destroy the Jews (comp. chap. iii. 1, 6 sqq.),
and he then points to the feast of Pur or casting
of lots (chap. iii. 7). DBpS, "to destroy them,"
from an older word, Don', which generally de-
scribes confusion and anguish such as comes
from God (Ex. xiv. 24; Deut. ii. 15), but which
here may have been selected as a play upon the
name of Haman. As regards the edict so
friendly to the Jews in ver. 25, comp. chap,
viii. 8 sqq. — But when (it) came before the
king, etc. The sufiix of the word n&03 can
have no reference to Esther ; she is not men-
tioned in this connection (so opposed to the
Targum, Syriac and most interpreters), but can
only be taken as a neuter (as for example in
Ezek. xxxiii. 33), (so Bertheau and Keil) ; and
this the more in keeping with the intention of
Haman, which is placed in its proper light. —
He commanded by letters that, etc. —
">5!?n_D^ ION for: "to command by writing,"
occurs only in this place. It is also peculiar in
this section that the command : that his wicked
device, which he devised against the
Jews, should return upon his own head,
is given in direct speech, while usually in the
rest of the book the infin. with 1 is employed.
Finally the author also mentions the execution
of Haman and his sons, on which see chap. vii.
10 and ix. 6 sqq. In ver. 26 follows the decla-
ration of the name of the day of the celebration,
to which the author here designed to give pro-
minence ; but this is followed by the statement,
92
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
after \3'^if , that this should laat two days.
What is simply indicated by the particles
\3~hp is further enlarged upon by ^37 '3~7j|
Therefore for all the words of this letter
(of Mordecai in accordance with ver. 20), and
(of all that) which they had seen con-
cerning the matter (roSOjg, concerning the
so and thus), and which had come unto
them; hence also because their own experience
fully corroborated the substance of Mordecai's
letter. In ver. 27 follows after ]|"^£ the con-
cluding sentence : The Jews ordained, and
took upon them, and upon their seed,
and upon all such as joined themselves
unto them (i. e. all proselytes), so as it
should not fail (but be unalterably established,
"13JT X 7, as in chap. i. 19), that they would
keep these two days according to their
writing, and according to their appointed
time every year (year after year). — TOy
following upon ver. 21 is easily comprehensible.
Their writing and determination ef time can
only have come to them from Mordecai's. In
ver. 28 there follows the further injunction :
And that these days should be remem-
bered and kept throughout every genera-
tion, etc. The partic. 0"13IJ, etc., depend
upon rivnS in the preceding verse. "|D tjlD =
"to have an end," to cease.
"Vers. 29-32. In order more firmly to establish
the new law, and the confirmation of a new cus-
tom, which thus far had only been observed by
Mordecai and Esther, that is, to connect a day
of fasting and mourning with the days of the
feast of Purim, a second letter was published.
This time it was Queen Esther who composed
the letter, hence the femin. 3J13P1. Mordecai
is also mentioned; but possibly he was only
added to give the letter authority and legality,
as being the highest functionary in the realm,
and to add the writings mentioned in ver. 30.
It was especially Esther's concern that the fasts
and wailings which had their origin with her-
self at the time of the decisive step should serve
as a reminder of the great distress so happily
overcome. According to chap. ii. 15 she was
the daughter of Abihail, and on account of the
solemnity of the occasion she is expressly desig-
nated as such. sipfT73"nM, " with all strength "
(power). Ipfl occurs only here, in chap. j.. 2
and Dan. xi. 17, and would signify the great
emphasis that Esther laid on the season of fast-
ing and mourning no less than on the celebra-
tion of the joyous feast. The object of 0_1P7
" to make valid as a law," this second letter
of Purim (the first was that of Mordecai in ver.
20), is also the object of the preceding 3FOni.
By the word "this" the author designates the
second letter, since he has in mind not to give
its substance, but simply to indicate its exist-
ence.
Ver. 30 explains somewhat why Mordecai is
also mentioned in ver. 29 along with Esther:
And he sent the letters unto all the Jews.
The subject can here only be Mordecai himself.
The D'lflp, however, which he sent were not
oopies of Esther's letter (Keil), but writings
accompanying it. These may have had the
object of further confirming and explaining the
faots on account of which fasts and seasons of
mourning should be instituted, and of giving
a historic sketch of the fast and mourning of
the Jews living in Shushan. The words: And
he sent the letters unto all the Jews to
the hundred twenty and seven provinces,
are in apposition to the kingdom of Ahasu-
erus. — The contents of the writing are briefly
designated as words of peace, i. e. as words that
meant well, which aimed at the welfare of Israel
by thus recommending a good custom for gene-
ral observance, and which were based on truth.
Ver. 31. The aim of both Esther and Morde-
cai's letters was: to confirm these days of
Purim in their times appointed. — This does
not mean that it had reference only to certain
periods or divisions of the days of Purim in
which fasts and mourning should take place,
and for which arrangements should be made
(Bertheau and also Keil); for that would have
been expressed otherwise and more definitely ;
but it gives the proper validity to the selected
days of the feast of Purim, the 14th and 15th
Adar. The main thing, however, is contained
in the following: According as Mordecai
the Jew and Esther the queen had en-
joined them, and as they had decreed for
themselves and for their seed, the matters
of the fastings and their cry. — Hence they
would also establish the feast of Purim for them-
selves, so that they might join fasting and la-
mentation to the feast as Mordecai and Esther
had previously done. The suffix of D;T7£ may
also refer to the above-mentioned days of Purim
(not as to their definite time, Bertheau and
Keil ; for this is only mentioned incidentally) ;
but since D'D with 7j£ always means to make a
thing obligatory, it is naturally referred to Esther
and Mordecai. It is true there follows the
phrase DttfpJ" ?J£ ; but we may understand this
in the sense of Dn'7j; when preceding DJHi~7.pl #
There cannot well be any other subject intended
by 'Dip than (against Keil) the above-mentioned
Mordecai and Esther. Djnj~7j£ is a zeugmalic
mode of expression. It has practical reference
to Mordecai's posterity since Esther, as regards
her descendants, could not well hope to see
them perpetuate Jewish customs.
Ver. 32 strengthens the foregoing greatly. —
And the decree of Esther confirmed these
matters of Purim, those, namely, that had
reference to the fasts and mourning. — And it
was written in the book, of course not in
Esther's letter, nor in Mordecai's writing ac-
companying the decree, which would be desig-
nated by the plural D,-13D ; but it was written
in the book indicated in ver. 20, in which Mor-
decai wrote concerning these events, and which
is not identical with our Esther-book, but may
CHAP. IX. 1— X. 3.
93
have served as one of its souroes.* The day of
fasting and mourning is not defiuitely fixed nor
stated here ; but it was probably the 13th of
Adar, which Human had set apart for the de-
struction of the Jews, and which the Jews cele-
brate as "tfJpX rn.pn, Esther's fast, although in
the period of the Talmud there is mention made
of a three days' fast, whioh was observed after
that of Purim.
Chap. x. Our book aims not only to present
the deliverance, but also the elevation of Juda-
ism in the time and midst of the great and
powerful heathenism of the period of Ahasuerus.
It would represent the latter in the person of
Haman, the enemy to Judaism, and the former
in the person of Mordecai. Hence at its close
it speaks once more of Mordecai's greatness and
honor. — And the king Ahasuerus laid a
tribute upon the land, and upon the isles
of the sea.— The Kethib isnwnx is an ortho-
graphical mistake for KHltJ'nx. DO, '' a levy,"
tribute (a tribute-service), here means a tax
levied, and this for the reason that tribute-ser-
vice belonged to products or moneys which were
rendered to the king.f It may be asked why
this remark occurs in our book, which, accord-
ing to all that has gone before, does not belong
to the history of Ahasuerus, but has to do with
quite another matter. Keil thinks the author
wished briefly to indicate at the close whence
Ahasuerus derived the means to support such
magnificent state as was described at the begin-
ning of our book. But this inference would be
superfluous, and would come somewhat late here.
The only safe answer is given us by the manner
in which the author, in ver. 2, connects the
power of Ahasuerus with the greatness of Mor-
decai. The greater the power of Ahasuerus and
his wealth, the more powerful the dignity of
Ahasuerus. It is as if the author would tell us:
Ahasuerus had power extending over the whole
earth, and he caused its wealth to flow into his
treasury, and hence made himself felt as the
head and lord of the entire power of the earth.
It is worth while in this connection to observe
the comprehensive statement WT\ ^Xl V7,"n~7jj?
But this concentration of universal sway in
himself did not avail for tbe suppression of
an externally despicable Judaism; it rather
served for the recognition and elevation of the
latter, since, according to the Providence recog-
nized in our book, Mordecai, tbe Jew, became
the second ruler after Ahasuerus. Although it
seemed as if the people of God had been stricken
out of the list of people of the eartb, still, in
Mordecai, because of his relation to Ahasuerus,
it became possessed of the wealth of the peoples
of the earth. J
* [" As book elsewhere in Esther O30, in the sing.)
always means a particular book — "the book of the
chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia (ch. ii. 23;
vi. I ; q. 2), it seems best to give it the same sense here."
Rawltnson. — Tr.]
f ["Some fresh arrangement of the tribute is likely
to have followed on the return of Xerxes from Greece.
His exchequer would be exhausted, and steps would
bave to be taken to replenish it. The expression in
the original does not necessarily imply the first impo-
sition of a tribute.',' Rawlinson. — Tk.]
J [Upon the expression isles of the sea, in this connec-
tion, Kawlinson remarks : " Cyprus, Aradus, the island
Ver. 2. The author does not designate either
the wealth or the power of Ahasuerus or of Mor-
decai more minutely, but rather refers, for par-
ticulars on both to the archives of the empire of
the Medes and Persians.* It is enough for him
to bo able to refer to these, and it is especially
honorable for Mordecai's cause, that even the
archives of heathen kings must remember him.
For nt?13, "clear statement," summary, comp.
chap. ix. 7.
Ver. 3. Here the author must once more give
prominenoe to the fact that Mordecai, the Jew,
who for him stands as the representative of Ju-
daism, stood next to king Ahasuerus, since there-
from it follows that the greatness of the one was
also that of the other.
rUEfo, " the second," here means the first
minister (comp. 2 Chron. xxviii. 7), and hence
indicates that Mordecai was great among the
Jews, and favored among the multitude of his
brethren; i. e., that he really occupied a repre-
sentative position among them.f On ''IXI comp.
Deut. xxxiii. 24. The expression 1TIX 3i"l is not
to be taken in a limited sense, as if he would say
less than: " all his brethren ;" but maybe ex-
plained, as Bertheau justly remarks, from the
poetic elevation to which his speech rises at its
close. The additional sentence also: Seeking
the 'wealth of his people, and speaking
peace to all his seed, is quite in place here,
in so far as it indicates that what came to Morde-
cai also redounded to the good of his entire peo-
ple. tjHIi in parallelism with 173J^, is ike family
to which he belongs, as in 2 Kings xi. 1 ; Is. lxi.
9, and not his posterity.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.
On ver. 1. The day in which the enemies of
the Jews expected to see the realization of their
hopes, became instead for the Jews a day of vic-
tory, and for their enemies a day of reverse and
defeat. This, under existing circumstances,
seemed to be a change which could only be
brought about, as it were, by a miracle. It was
indeed one of those Providences by means of
whioh it has pleased God to reveal Himself from
time to time in an especially remarkable man-
ner. At all events, the prophets had foretold
such occurrences as a matter surely to be ex-
pected. When tbe captivity of Israel shall have
of Tyre, Platea, etc., remained in the hands of the Per-
sians after the victories of the Greeks, and may be the
' isles ' here intended. Or Xerxes may have ignored
the loss of the JEgean Islands, and have ' laid ' his tri-
bute upon them, though he might not be able to exact
it."— Tr.]
*["In the latter years of Xerxes his 'power and
might' were chiefly shown in the erection of magnifi-
cent buildings, more especially at, Persepolis. He ab-
stained from military expeditions." " Media takes pre-
cedence of Persia (contrary to chap. i. 3. 14, 18, etc.),
because the kingdom of Media had preceded that of
Persia, and in the ' Book of the Chronicles ' its history
came first." Rawlinson. — Tr.]
f [" It has been objected that Artabanus, the captain
of the guard, and not Mordecai, was Xerxes' chief favo-
rite in nis twelfth and thirteenth years. But this view
rests upon the false chronology of Ctesias, who gives
Xerxes 13 years only, instead of the 21 of Ptolemy, Ma-
netho, and the generality of the Greek writers. Arta-
banus was favorite towards the close of Xerxes' reign,
i. e., in his 20th and 21st years." Rawlinson. — Te.]
91
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
reached its culmination, when the people of God
are on the point of expiring under the rod of their
drivers, then, instead of really perishing, they
should become captors for their captors and task-
masters for their drivers (Is. xiv. 2). What is
here shown in a small prelude, according to such
prophecy, should attain a much larger circumfe-
rence and a much greater glory. Our book it-
self, according to its deeper significance, points
in a manner typical or prophetical to this great
and glorious final history. As a matter of fact,
this change of affairs was itself deeply grounded
in the nature and circumstances of things. So
certain as the God of Israel was the only true
God, whose kingdom shall not be destroyed, but
through all apparent reverses shall continually
rise to new and greater victories, so likewise to His
people — so long as it is the sole bearer of His
sway, the grave, which threatens to swallow it
up, shall ever be a place of revivification and
resurrection. And to-day also His empire must
continue; and that which thought to overcome
its power must itself be overcome, and either be
absorbed or consigned to destruction. All the
days of persecution for God's kingdom are days
indeed in which its enemies hope to overcome it,
but it always turns out that such enemies are
themselves conquered at last.
Beenz: "We have above such an example in
Haman, who was himself hung on the cross which
he had prepared for Mordecai. So the Egyptians
were themselves overwhelmed in the sea to which
they had driven the Israelites in order to over-
whelm them. So also Saul, who had driven Da-
vid over to the Philistines, that they might de-
stroy him, was himself destroyed by the Philis-
tines."
On vers. 2-4. At the time of the deliverance
from Egypt and the entrance into Canaan, the
Lord showed abundantly that He was able to
make His people a great nation despite the most
powerful of their enemies. Now iu its exile He
again showed them that, as for Himself, He now
no longer had need of them as a people, at least
as a politically independent one. The great deeds
that were then done were edifying and elevating
in tendency; what He now did was momentous
and instructive. It was plainly evident that He
could accomplish His purpose aside from exter-
nal means or political circumstances. It is still
more manifest than it then was that it has pleased
Him to be powerful in those who are weak, and
great in those who have little influence. In those
days he prepared as His instruments the chief
persons and princes of His own people, who were
in an especial manner filled with the Spirit.
Now, however, he employs instead the satraps
and governors of Persia, little as they were will-
ing or fit for such work. Together with and
among kings, such as Cyrus and Ahasuerus, they
must also further God's purposes. There was a
time when the Lord had caused fear and terror
to fall upon the peoples before Israel, especially
those who stood opposed in war, bo that they fled
from before them (comp. Deut. ii. 25). Now,
however, the princes and governors, who had
great fear, were obliged to protect the rights of
the subjects of the king, and thus they protected
Israel. This corresponded eutirely to His great-
ness. Therein is shown His claim aa the God
of all men. This is itself further evinced by the
fact that, if His people will only become more
spiritual, aB is His wish, and partake of His na-
ture, He will by no means leave them fatherless.
But the more spiritual His kingdom, i. e., His
people, will become, the more will He assist them
to arrive at truth, justice, and security through
the world while in it.
On vers. 6-11. 1. We now know a different and
better mode of conquering enemies than by the
sword and through bloodshed. We know that
love only will gain the victory over hate. The
people of God is strongest where it is given over
to sacrifice and suffering. But we know further
that this spiritual mode of combat and victory
has become possible only since the time when we
received spiritual strength and weapons. In the
Old Testament time one could only speak of an
external victory over opponents, but not of an in-
ternal one. Hence we find it explicable why Is-
rael was compelled to fight such sanguinary bat-
tles and merciless wars of destruction. What is
most striking in our history is the fact that the
Jews, although living in circumstances in which
they did not need to wield the sword, neverthe-
less seized the sword. Though they were no
more a people in a political sense, and hence
could not procure help for themselves, still they
acted as a separate political community. The
cause that made them wield the sword of destruc-
tion with much the greater pleasure and satisfac-
tion was the fact that Esther stood at their head,
and instead of bespeaking a shortening of the
work of blood, she promoted it. It is observable
also that after the destruction of so many ene-
mies, instead of expressing pain that it needed
so severe a conflict, she manifested only joy over
their success. But we may nevertheless ask
whether condemnation of the then Jews, whom
one judges so severely often, as well as criticism
of the author, who must have thought and felt as
they did, does not proceed from a too rigid doc-
trinal stand-point, which is inclined to measure
every thing by an arbitrary standard, without
sufficient regard for circumstances. We would
doubtless excuse the then expressions of vindic-
tiveness, were it not for the principle that seems
to be involved. For in a real war, in which the
patriotic feeling has supreme, control, and the
weakening of an enemy is a duty of self-preser-
vation, we find such feelings as are exhibited in
Judaism and Esther very natural, to say the least.
We also perceive the same sentiments often dis-
played by Israel in its earlier conflicts, without
taking so serious an account of them. But the
main objection really fails. For the carnage wa3
not of their free will, but a matter of stern ne-
cessity. It resulted from the peculiar situation
of the case; in fact it was so ordered by the go-
vernment that the Jews should seize the sword.
They were not only entitled, but actually neces-
sitated in this case to return to their political in-
dependence. Hence the older interpreters very
properly lay great stress upon the fact that the
Jews did not. venture this of themselves, but at
the instance of higher authority. Starke also
says: "It is one thing to take revenge of one's
self, another to do so on the order of authority;
not the latter, but the former, is forbidden. The
simple command of a government will justify such
CHAP. IX. 1— X. 3.
95
an act only in so far as it is a guaranty against
pure thirst for revenge. Every thing here depends
upon the disposition of mind. But we would cer-
tainly misjudge the temper of the then Jews were
we to assume that because the people were
but a religious community, we are at liberty to
apply a Christian standard to them. It would
be unjust to deny them the privilege, which they
as an independent people formerly enjoyed, of
rejoioing in a victory over their enemies; and
it would be little to the purpose, if instead of
aiming at their conversion, we acquiesced in
their destruction. Instead of j ustifying the com-
plaint that, we do not pay sufficient regard to
those Old Testament national conditions, we must
also remember that Old Testament saints could
not well avoid often taking a stand-point opposed
to their enemies, just as we are still allowed to
assume a position at variance with those in en-
mity against God. Besides, we are not to forget
that, for those who will not join themselves to
the kingdom or people of God, whatever its form
or degree of development, this very hostility is a
ground of condemnation. All things that cannot
be employed for a good end will finally issue in
destruction and extinction. This is still true,
and will be true until the end of time. In the
same manner even the angels in heaven could not
have acted differently from Esther with regard
to those enemies in the city of Shushan. We
would be more just to Esther, to the Jews spoken
of in our book, and to the book itself, if, in what
was done in Shushan as well as in all Persia, we
would see an anticipation of the judgments con-
nected and parallel with the progress of the king-
dom of God on earth, and especially of the final
judgment. If the animus of the 0. T. with re-
spect to the destruction of enemies seems to ns
terribly vindictive, rather than mild, yet this
may not only be excusable, but may even be a
prophetic intimation The fact, so prominently
and emphatically expressed, in the present in-
stance, that the Jews did not stretch out their
hands after the goods (spoil) of their enemies,
proves to us that they meant to conduct this con-
test as a measure of self-protection, or better as
a holy war, the sole purpose of which was the
removal of their enemies.
Bkenz: "This example, however, is set be-
fore us not that we should take it upon ourselves
to avenge injuries, according to our own judg-
ment, but that we may recognize the severity of
the divine wrath against the impious persecutor
of the people of God, and that in persecution we
might most confidently expect deliverance through
faith, and be obedient to the calls of God."
2. That the sons of Haman should also suffer
was agreeable to Persian law, according to which,
in many cases, the whole circle of relationship of
a criminal must suffer death with him (comp.
Amm. Marcell. xxiii. 6). Nor was this mode of
proceeding contrary to the Mosaic code. The
law that the children should not die for their
fathers (more correctly : at the same time), Deut.
xxiv. 16, was only applicable to those cases in
which the children had no part in the crime of
their parents (comp. 2 Kings xiv. 6 ; 2 Chron.
xxv. 4). Doubtless the sons of Haman belonged
to those who were inimical to the Jews and at-
tacked them ; indeed they may have been their
bitterest enemies. It is fair to suppose them in
the same state of mind with their father, so that
Isa. xiv. 21 came true in their case. Esther re-
quested that, after they were executed, they
suould also be hung. That the Jews really exe-
cuted this climax of punishment, may indicate
the especially severe judgment that will overtake
those who are the principal agents of Antichrist
on earth; and this illustrates the truth that
opposition against whatever is antagonistic to
goodness and piety, must rise till it reaches its
overwhelming acme. This is a principle valid
even for Christians, that they must be in a hos-
tile attitude to evil to the last degree.
Brenz : " This is written in admonition of pa-
rents, in order that they may be incited to cul-
tivate piety, le3t along with themselves they may
also drag their children down into destruction.
Such severity of God is stated in the Decalogue :
' Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
ohildren to the third and fourth generation of
those that hate me ' (comp. John, xviii. 17 sq.)."
On vers. 11-32. 1. In the first pages of our
book Ahasuerus, together with the representa-
tives of his empire, indeed heathendom itself,
celebrated a great feast. Here, at the end, how-
ever, it is for the Jewish people to celebrate a
feast. The way of the world begins with plea-
sure and mirth, but does not end so. The way
of God's people leads through sorrow, but at its
end is the great feast which is described by Zech.
in chap, xiv., as a feast of tabernacles; since it
will be celebrated in the tabernacles of undis-
turbed peace. This, according to Isa. xxv. 6 sqq.,
may also be the celebrating feast of salvation and
consolation, in which God will wipe away all
tears from all eyes. We here have to do with
the celebration of a feast in time. This obvi-
ously differs greatly from the heathen festival.
When in later centuries Purim was celebrated
with heathenish abandon and luxury, when it
snemed to the Jews that they regarded it as a
duty to so intoxicate themselves so that they
could not distinguish between the names of Mor-
decai and Haman, this became a striking proof
to how low a level, even to heathenism, Judaism
had sunk.
The festivals that the people of the Lord as
such celebrate, have quite a different purpose
from those of heathendom. Ahasuerus aimed to
show the riches of his glorious kingdom. God's
people desire first of all to praise God's grace.
They would give thanks for the gifts bestowed
upon them. They would secure and keep what
they already have by rendering thanks and praise
to God as its author. Their's are feasts of grati-
tude. Hence these also have a different charac-
ter from the others. The pious cannot manifest
their spirit of gratitude to God for all His bene-
fits without also proving this by benefaction to
their brethren in the faith. The love of God has
kindled love to their fellows in their hearts ; this
would prove itself in deeds of kindness and be-
nevolence. They would confess their allegiance
to God as to one mild and kindly ; they would
else deny Him were they not to give sway, on
their part, to mildness and kindliness. Their
festivals, therefore, are seasons of refreshing,
but especially so to the poorer brethren among
them (comp. vers. 19, 22). At the same time
96
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
there is joined to their spirit of rejoicing one of
great seriousness. They cannot enjoy their de-
liverance without also looking back upon the sor-
row that preceded it. They can only appreciate
the former by taking a full view of the latter.
They do not forget that though salvation is theirs,
still there are even yet abundant causes for sor-
row and grief. The chief cause of this is the
remains of sin in them. As the Mazzoth (unlea-
vened) days are followed by the serious Paschal
sacrifice, and as the joy of the feast of taberna-
cles is preceded by the repentance of the fast of
the day of atonement, so also here the joyous
feast of Purim is connected with a preparation
of fasting and mourning (comp. ver. 31). In
eternity also will this transition hold true.
Starke: " It is the privilege of God's children
to rejoice in the Lord (Deut. xii. 35; Phil. iv.
4). When God presents us with days of joy and
blessing, we should also remember the poor, (Sir.
xiv. 4; Ps. xxii. 27sqq.)."
2. In Deut xiii. 1, it is commanded neither »o
add to nor to take from the law. If then the
Jewish people nevertheless added another feast
to those already existing then, doubtless they
took into account the principle that what one is
encouraged to do in view of a certain law is not
so much an addition as an outflow of the same.
At any rate the Jewish church already began in
this manner to assume a freer position with re-
spect to the Law. And this, if the interior im-
pulse be true, not so much to the letter as rather
to the spirit, would be still loyal; nor could it
very easily transform the '* writing," spoken of
in vers. 21, 27, into an objectionable system of
statute law.
Starke: "We can well receive or retain good
church ceremonies, if only they are not opposed
to the Word of God, in view of our Christian free-
dom. Even the holidays ordered by the autho-
rities of one's country should be celebrated in a
becoming manner (Zech. vii. 2-6)."
On chap. x. That next to the great power of
Ahasuerus, having such extensive dominions, all
subject to taxation, the greatness oftheJewMor-
decai should have been handed down to the me-
mory of all times in the books of record of re-
markable events of the Medes and Persians, was
a great honor to the Jews. To this day they re-
joice over his elevation. But they may well look
to it to see whether they may now claim him as
their own. That which God especially honored
and protected in Mordecai and the then Judaism,
was their fidelity to Him and His law. And only
where these are found will we find a church that
may reoeive the book of Esther as a prophecy of
its victory and continuance in spite of all oppres-
sions on the part of the world.
Brenz: "The Jews, because they rejected
Christ, the true seed of Abraham, are now no
longer the people of God, no more His Church,
but belong to Ishmael and Esau, who always have
persecuted the true seed of Abraham. And since
they persecute the true Israel, i. e., Christians
with the same enmity with which Haman once per-
secuted them, it is clear that they are themselves
the kindred and allies of Haman the Amalekite."
Only where we suffer like Mordecai may one
take comfort, as is so convincingly expressed in
our book in the thought that the crown is at the
end of the cross.
Feuardent: "Mordecai, in order to vindicate
the glory of God and his countrymen from the
Hamanites, endured the hatred of many. He
afflicted himself with fastings, prayers, sackcloth,
cryings. and lamentations ; he constantly spurned
that impious man ; and was at last adjudged to
suffer on the ignominious cross. Now, however,
by the singular favor of God he is crowned be-
yond all men (Ahasuerus alone excepted) with
glory and honor even in this world."
THE END.
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